Heavy rain in parts of the country is beginning to have an impact on grazing conditions, especially on heavy soils in the west where most of the recent rain has fallen.

Most of the rainfall hit western counties over the past week, with Claremorris and Valentia recording 53mm and 49mm respectively, while in eastern counties less than half that amount fell. In most of the south and east, grazing conditions are ideal for the time of year and the rain showers are not having a bad effect. The biggest challenge for farmers with very high pre-grazing covers is to try and utilise all of the grass that’s there and not trample it into the ground. The tighter you graze now, the better quality grass you will have next spring.

In heavy covers, divide up the paddock into 12-hour allocations so cows will graze through what is there and you will be able to achieve a residual of 3.5-4cm. Some farmers have a clean-up group of stock following the milking cows, but be careful you don’t leave these animals in paddocks so long that they start eating new growth. Always have a back wire, especially if ground conditions are wet.

The weather has been very mild to date and soil temperatures are holding at between 10°C and 13°C, giving good average growth rates of 35kg DM/ha/day.

The end of October is fast-approaching – do your sums now to ensure you achieve your target number of grazed paddocks. For example, if you have 40ha of a grazing block, you need 60% of this grazed off by 1 November (24ha) to make sure you have grass next spring. If you don’t have enough grazed off you might have to leave the heavy covers where they are for the moment and come back to them. Yes, this could backfire if weather turns very wet, but setting the farm up for next spring takes priority as much as possible.

In south Tipperary, our farmer has a growth rate of 43kg DM/ha/day. He has stopped feeding silage and reduced meal feeding to 2kg so this will push his demand for grass up to 51kg DM/ha.

With the silage supplementation gone, cows are doing a far better job cleaning out paddocks. They are producing 13.7kg at 5.01% fat and 3.91% protein (1.22kg MS). He has 26% of the farm closed for the winter at this stage.

Our farmer in southwest Cork has put the cows on once-a-day milking since Monday to help reduce yield before drying off around 1 November. He has plenty of grass and conditions are still fairly good. He is not looking forward to the long boring winter ahead!

Steven Fitsgerald, Curtin’s Research Farm, Fermoy, Co Cork

We got very little rain over the weekend and grazing conditions have remained good. We have a growth rate of 38kg DM/ha/day and demand is 41kg DM/ha/day. Our average farm cover is 947kg DM/ha (320kg DM/cow). Cows are entering nice pre-grazing covers of 1,700kg DM/ha. We have 45% of the area grazed and closed (eight paddocks closed out of 18) to date and should meet the autumn planner target of 60% grazed by 1 November. The pre-grazing covers aren’t too high, so it should be easy enough to work through them and meet targets. The paddocks we closed in 1 October already have covers of 800kg DM/ha. There has been no frost here and the rain hasn’t been an issue so these paddocks are growing nicely. Cows are still on 12-hour allocations because conditions were a little wet last week and grazing out wasn’t as good as I would like, but they are grazing out well now. Grass dry matter is 15%. Cows are allocated 15kg of grass and 3kg of concentrates and are milking 13.5 litres at 5.07% fat, 4.29% protein (1.23kg MS), 4.62% lactose and 160 SCC.

Donal Patton, Ballyhaise Research Farm, Co Cavan

We got 34mm of rain over the past week. Ground conditions are good, but another 30-40mm of rain will change this quickly on our heavier ground. We started to close paddocks from 1 October – the target is to have 60% grazed by 25 October. We have 45% closed to date because we grazed some lower covers. We will struggle to hit the target, but re-growths on most of the paddocks closed have been good, so this won’t be a major issue. There is 950kg DM/ha on the first paddocks closed. Target closing cover is 550kg DM/ha. We may have to carry over some paddocks which were grazed on 25 September to hit this target closing cover. Growth rate was 48 kg DM/ha/day and demand is 42kg DM/ha/day. This increased from 30kg DM/ha/day last week. The soil temperature of 12.5°C is helping maintain good growth rates. Our average farm cover is 951kg DM/ha (317kg DM/cow) at a stocking rate of 3LU/ha. Feeding 3kg of concentrate. Pre-grazing yield is 2600kg DM/ha, these are on the strong side but we had to skip into lighter covers to catch up on area grazed. The grass dry matter is 15%. Cows are grazing down to 4.3cm on average. Cows are milking 14.5kg, 5.04% fat, 4.05% protein (1.31kg MS), SCC 193,000 and TBC 5,000.

Michael Murphy Coolnasoon, Macroom, Co Cork

Grass growth is still strong here in Coolnasoon. We recorded a growth of 42kg DM/ha today [Wednesday] on the grazing platform. We have an average farm cover of 900kg DM/ha (412kg DM/cow). The outside block has a lower AFC of 500kg DM/ha and is nearly closed at this stage. It didn’t grow as well this year compared to the home block because it has a gravelly soil and didn’t take to the dry weather has much as the home block. Our stocking rate on the grazing platform is 2.1LU/ha this week. It is back from 3.1Lu/ha last week because we dried off some of the first-time calvers and a few high cell count cows. We are milking once a day from this week for quota reasons. Cows just receive 0.25kg of concentrates to entice them into the parlour and are milking 10 litres at 4.8% fat and 4.3% protein. We milked 120 cows during the season and have this back to 72 now between selling empty cows in the mart and drying off some cows. All in all, it was a great year for grass growth. We grew 13.1t so far this year on the grazing platform. Our plan for next year is to have good-quality grass ahead of cows and keep costs as low as possible because milk price doesn’t look too promising for next year. We reseeded some of the outside block in September. This should come now with the rain.

Aidan Kenny, Belmount, Co Offaly

The heavy rain over the weekend is starting to make an impact on grazing conditions. Some paddocks are getting a little soft, so I have started giving 12-hour allocations to limit the area cows can graze at a time and encourage a good clean-out. The biggest challenge now is to reach the target of grazing 60% of the grazing block by 1 November. To date, I have 45% grazed and will struggle to meet the target. Cows are currently grazing low covers of 1,300kg DM/ha for two reasons, to help speed up grazing and closing and to avoid heavy covers during wet spells like this. But there are some huge covers of 3,000kg DM/ha that will slow them down a lot. I will let cows back grazing these when conditions are hopefully drier. We have 103 cows on the grazing platform. The dry cows were left in and not sold yet in an effort to reach autumn grazing targets. The average farm cover is 1,004kg DM/ha (401kg DM/cow) at a stocking rate of 2.5LU/ha. I started closing paddocks on 1 October and they already have covers of 600kg DM/ha. This will all be needed in the spring because I plan on calving 130 cows from 1 February. Cows are milking 12.5 litres at 5.02% fat, 4.19% protein and 163 SCC. Breeding was 15 weeks this year because I think there may be demand for late calvers next spring.