Grass+: management now key to spring grass

Grass growth this week is down to 38kg/day. Demand has now surpassed growth on the majority of farms so grass is going to start disappearing quickly. There are two main areas to focus on now.

Firstly, make sure you achieve the desired 60% to 70% closed by the first week of November. Setting up an autumn rotational planner will help you monitor the percentage grazed each week and let you know whether you’re ahead or behind your target – you should have 30% of the farm closed by now.

Low cover

Any paddock grazed after 7 November will have a low cover of grass next spring.

If you are significantly behind the target percentage closed, it may be worth grazing a few lower covers to help catch up.

Cows will get through a higher percentage of ground grazing lower covers.

Similarly if you find you are significantly ahead of the 30% target, you can reduce the demand by drying off high cell count, cull cows or cows that are milking poorly.

Also adjusting the supplementation level up or down will help increase or reduce the area cows graze daily.

The second area we need to focus on is the closing cover. The target closing cover should be 550 - 750kg DM/ha on 1 December. The three factors that will affect what side of the scale you fall will be, stocking rate, land type and the six-week calving rate.

High stocking rate, dry land and a high six-week calving rate would all suggest you should close the farm with an average farm cover of closer to 700kg DM/ha. Heavy soils and lowly stocked farms are better off closing closer to the 550kg DM/ha as they don’t want to have high cover early in the spring.

The closing cover needs to be the main focus on heavy soils where 60% of the farm may already be closed and all animals housed by early November.

Remember the target cover is on 1 December so allow for growth between housing and then.

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