Grass+: super grass growth rates driving autumn covers

Average grass growth rate is 69kg/day which is 15kg/day higher than normal.

Seeing this difference in growth at this time of year is like watching money drop into a piggy bank.

It means farms are building up autumn grass covers at ease.

A few words of caution though; don’t let covers get too high too quickly.

The objective of autumn grassland management is to be wading through high covers in late September and early October.

Because of the high growth rates, some farmers are already at this stage, with cows grazing covers of 2,500kg/ha.

This reduces milk yield because the quality of these high covers isn’t as good as lower covers. It also reduces subsequent grass growth rates because there’s generally a yellow butt to the grass in high covers.

The other thing is that rotation length is much slower when covers are higher, so the problem gets exponentially worse over time and in a few weeks your cows will be grazing covers of over 3,000kg/ha.

The regrowth will be so slow from these high covers that growth rates will crash and all of a sudden all the grass on the farm will disappear.

So the advice is to be cautious about letting covers get too heavy. Take out a few paddocks for silage now if you think you need to.

Grass budget

Completing an autumn budget is a necessity.

With nitrogen, spreading 15 to 20 units/acre on grass only swards, even where covers are on target is advised.

Remember, the next time that field will get chemical N will be next February or March and a lot of grass is required to grow in that time. Where there is good clover, little or no extra nitrogen will be needed.

Swardwatch

Caroline O’Sullivan – Teagasc Curtins Farm, Co Cork

Grass is jumping out of the ground. Growth across our three treatments ranges from 63 to 65kg/day and we’ve taken a good bit of ground out for silage.

The treatments on the farm are grass-only at 250kgN/ha and grass/clover and multispecies at around 150kg N/ha. We’ve been following the cows with 30 units/acre of nitrogen on the grass-only treatment while the other treatments have got no nitrogen since May but we are spreading 25 units/acre this week.

We scanned the cows and have 11% empty after 12.5 weeks. Cows are on 1kg of meal. Overall stocking rate is set to increase next year to 2.75 cows/ha.

Dara Killeen – Eyrecourt, Co Galway

Grass growth is flying at present and even though I don’t have a very high average farm cover it is rising quickly. I have one paddock with a cover of 2,500kg which I might pull out for bales this week while the weather is good. It’s just too stemmy for grazing now.

I’m doing my autumn budget this week. The target will be for a peak cover of 1,100kg by late September. I had to feed bale silage to achieve that last year but it’s a good bit of extra work.

I spread 30 units/acre of nitrogen across the farm two weeks ago and will spread another 15 units/acre in mid-September. We scanned the herd and had 7% empty in 10 weeks.

Barry Reilly – Teagasc Ballyhaise, Co Cavan

We’re going well. For the first time this year, grass is flying it and the farm is easy to run. We’ve taken out four paddocks for silage over the last week and even at that I still have too much grass.

The budget is telling us that we will peak with a cover of 1,300kg/ha in late September. This is above target but I always struggle to hit the peak so I’m not going to panic and just wait and see. I don’t want to take out any more paddocks for silage.

The clover that we oversowed back in spring was a success on 90% of the paddocks. We’re still not giving that nitrogen, but spread 46 units/acre across the rest of the farm last week.

Chris McCarthy – Crookedwood, Co Westmeath

We cut the last of the silage for the year in great conditions earlier this week. The last of the under-16-month bulls were also finished last week in what has been the best year in a long time for finishing bulls. We weighed the cows and calves for the BEEP-S scheme over a week ago and I am very happy with how they are performing, with bulls gaining 1.32kg/day and the heifers not far behind at 1.27kg/day. They were dosed and got a pneumonia vaccine at the same time. They are also started on creep feed in preparation for weaning in a few weeks’ time. Grass supply is excellent, I will spread around 20 to 25 units of nitrogen on some ground this week and get the remainder of the slurry from the bull shed out on silage ground.

Shaun Diver – Tullamore Farm, Co Offaly

Grazing conditions couldn’t be better for the start of September. Farm cover is building nicely over the last fortnight or so. I have started creep-feeding bulls and heifers at this stage. They are fed in the paddocks ahead of the cows to try to entice them to graze ahead. The bulls are still on 1.5kg/day at the moment but it will go up to 2kg/day over the next week or so. Heifers are eating 1kg/day and will stay at this level through to weaning.

I scanned the cows last week and 71 of 75 were in-calf while for the heifers 36 out of 38 are in-calf.

I am happy with that as we did have an issue with the Salers bull at one stage but thankfully it was noticed early enough not to have too much of a negative impact.

Trevor Boland – Dromard, Co Sligo

Cattle have done a really good thrive over the last few weeks, they are enjoying the excellent grazing conditions at the moment. I had the beef heifers in last week for a dose and was very happy with where they are at the moment. All of last year’s bull calves are sold at this stage.

We cut 30 acres for silage last week, the last for the year. This is a bit later than normal. I am looking at going into the silage ground with a bag of 18:6:12 to give it a boost to try and maximise the amount of grass on the farm over the next few weeks.

My main aim is to hold cattle out to the end of October. Cows are calving away at the minute, we have 11 left to go and so far, so good with a live calf for every cow.