It has been another hit-and-miss week for rainfall. In many parts of the east, southeast and midlands, rain forecast for last weekend and early this week never arrived.

Rainfall for June in these areas is well below average. A soil moisture deficit is starting to have an effect on growth rates in these areas. In other areas, rain has continued and things are normal.

The ongoing battle with grass quality continues on many farms.

After-grass is becoming available where silage was cut in late May or early June and this will be a big boost to quality.

If growth has slowed on your farm and you are facing a soil moisture deficit don’t cut or top any more paddocks as this will slow down regrowth even more.

On farms where rain has fallen and growth rates are well ahead of demand, surplus grass should be removed as it is identified.

Once you have a soil moisture deficit of more than 25mm you will see growth rates being affected. Reacting early can avoid a grass shortage. By walking the farm every five to seven days you will have an up-to-date growth rate for the farm.

It is very important to watch the growth and demand figures. This week’s predicted growth rates are based on a Met Éireann forecast for 10mm to 20mm of rain on Thursday 24 June.

If growth falls below demand, cows and cattle are essentially eating more than is growing. This will eventually lead to a shortage of grass.

To avoid this you must reduce demand in line with growth. Reduce the kilos of dry matter of grass allocated per animal per day. Supplementation with concentrates or silage is an option. Other options include bringing ground stopped for second cut silage back into the rotation.

Swardwatch

  • Target cover per livestock unit (C/LU) 160kg DM/ha to 180kg DM/ha. On farms that are starting to dry up target a C/LU over 180kg DM/ha.
  • Target 12 to 14 days ahead on beef farms or extend this to 16 to 18 days ahead on dryer farms.
  • Reduce demand in line with growth where soil moisture deficits are having an effect.
  • Extend rotation length to 25 days if growth is slowing, otherwise remain on an 18- to 21-day rotation.
  • Don’t let AFC fall below 550kg DM/ha
  • Caroline O’Sullivan – Teagasc Curtins, Cork

    Grass quality has improved in the last few days. Cows are back into paddocks that were cut for silage in late May and early June. This week’s growth rate of 66kg DM is a nice bit lower than the 110kg DM recorded last week. We are putting the difference down to a lack of rain and also lower growth rates on paddocks cut for silage. We are holding concentrate levels at one kilo as it is part of a trial taking place on the farm. Along with grazing the after grass we have also started grazing this years reseed at a cover of 700-800kg DM/ha. We are going to be over sowing the whole farm with clover at 2kg/ha using a guttler.

  • Stocking Rate (cows/ha): 2.95
  • Growth Rate (Kg/day): 66
  • Cover/LU (kg/lu): 188
  • Yield (L/cow/day): 20.0
  • Fat %: 4.68
  • Protein %: 3.58
  • Milk Solids (kg/cow): 1.7
  • Supplement fed (kg/cow/day): 1
  • Jack Keenan – Aughrim, Co Wicklow

    This Friday will be the end of our third week in a row with no rain. Ground is starting to dry up a lot and growth is slowing. Grass quality has been a challenge over the last month. To date 90% of the milking plat form has been either cut for first cut silage, surplus bales or topped. For this reason what grass is ahead of us now is of excellent quality. Graze outs on the after grass have been excellent. We are following the cows with 15 units of nitrogen per acre in the form of Sulfa CAN. Breeding is going well. We had an 85 per cent three week submission rate in the cows and we are currently running at a 68% non-return rate.

  • Stocking Rate (cows/ha): 4.1
  • Growth Rate (Kg/day): 84
  • Cover/LU (kg/lu): 182
  • Yield (L/cow/day): 30.6
  • Fat %: 4.02
  • Protein %: 3.39
  • Milk Solids (kg/cow): 2.34
  • Supplement fed (kg/cow/day): 3
  • Danny and Patrick Cremin – Ballygran, Co Limerick

    Growth this week is back a bit but we got around 5ml of rain on Tuesday night. We are expecting more rain over the weekend which will hopefully get things going again. Graze outs have been good since the weather dried up. We have cut four paddocks for bales over the last few weeks to remove surplus grass and improve quality. Instead of cutting paddocks we try to graze them at a lower cover to get better clean outs. We have 10ha of reseed ground ready to graze now at a cover of 1100kg DM/ha. This will reduce the stocking rate from 3.9LU/ha to 3.2LU/ha. We are following the cows with 13 units of nitrogen in the form of 18:612.

  • Stocking Rate (cows/ha): 3.9
  • Growth Rate (Kg/day): 71
  • Cover/LU (kg/lu): 148
  • Yield (L/cow/day): 19.5
  • Fat %: 4.57
  • Protein %: 3.89
  • Milk Solids (kg/cow): 1.7
  • Supplement fed (kg/cow/day): 5