Now that growth has taken off around the country, we need to manage grass quality. The best way to do this is keep an eye on pre-grazing yields which should not pass 1,500kg/ha if possible and your cover/LU, which should be around 180kg.

If you have established surplus grass on the farm you know you need to take a paddock out of the rotation to help maintain grass quality. When do you need to be cutting the paddock? Is it straight away or can you allow it to bulk up and then cut it? This depends on your stocking rate.

Highly stocked farms (3.5LU/ha or more) paddocks should be taken out for bales straight away, to get grass growing again and the field back in the rotation.

However, farms that are low-stocked (3LU/ha or less) that are growing 60kg/day or more can afford to leave the paddock to bulk up for silage and even assign it to your main first cut on the farm.

This will help increase your stocking rate and keep demand close to growth, which will make grass management a lot easier.

So if you are growing 60-70kg/grass/day and one livestock unit is consuming 17kg of grass a day, to have a demand of 60kg/day or 70kg/day you need to be stocked between 3.5LU/ha and 4.0LU/ha.

Fertiliser

Now grass growth is up we shouldn’t forget about fertiliser. In periods of high growth you get the best return from your fertiliser. Highly stock farms should try to keep a unit/day of N out. Beef farmers and lower-stocked dairy farmers may be going with a lesser application but should still try keep N out on a “little and often” basis.

Dairy farms

Joe Deane

Carrigaline, Co Cork

Our grass growth averaged 53kg/day. However, I’d say we are growing over 60kg/day now and our demand is at 63kg/day. We have our first paddocks out for reseeding they are burnt off and will be reseeded shortly. This brings our stocking rate up to 4LU/ha for the next six to eight weeks which will help us avoid having to take out a lot of surplus bales which is costly silage to be making. Breeding starts on 1 May and we are currently monitoring heats. We will scan all non-cycling cow pre-breeding and then put them on OAD and run them separate to the main herd with a stock bull as we’ve found this helps them come into heat much quicker.

Brendan Gorman

Athy, Co Kildare

Grass is growing well. However, we haven’t had rain in over two weeks. If we get rain this weekend, growth will really take off and we will take out a paddock for silage but if not regrowth will slow. We started our second rotation here on 4 April so we are well into the second round at this stage. There are 70 units of N out to date. The plan is to go again this week with close to two bags of Nutrigrass 23-0-0 plus 2% Sulphur.

Barry Reilly

Teagasc Ballyhaise, Co Cavan

There is 30% of the milking platform out for long-term silage. With lighter covers it’s getting 60 units of N today so it can be grazed again if growth doesn’t come. We are still on the first round which we will finish in the next three days and we are skipping over one paddock that won’t be grazed and will go for silage. Having a small bit of trouble with somatic cell count. It is currently at 214,000 but we pulled out four cows yesterday after CMT testing them and will treat them over next few days. No clinical cases – just showing up high.

Beef farm

Ciara O’Donovan

Clonakilty Ag College

We only got yearlings and cows out to grass on 19 and 23 March due to wet weather. That said, they managed to graze 65% of the unit before closing fields for silage last week. Grazed ground was followed with 2,000gals/ac of slurry using the trailing shoe. Thirty-five per cent of the unit was closed for silage and is receiving 100kg/ac of protected urea (92 units N). Ground that didn’t get slurry is also getting 100kg/ac of 0-10-20. Suckler cow breeding is due to start at the end of the month and a yearling bull was vasectomised last week to aid heat detection. Due to COVID-19, the slaughter of the last of finishing cattle was delayed by a couple of weeks. They averaged 399kg carcase, 3+ fat and came into €1,530/head average.

Michael McManus

Derrypatrick Herd, Grange

Growth has been good this week and is now coming close to matching our high demand. This was needed though, after half of the farm was closed for silage at the end of March. This silage ground recieved two bags/ac of protected urea (92 units N) and two bags/ac of 0-7-30. This silage will be cut in mid-May to maximise quality. Three-quarters of the grazing platform has been grazed to date and we plan to start the second rotation next week. After each grazing, paddocks are receiving 0.5 bag/ac of protected urea (23 units N). Calving has gone very well and there are now 100 cows calved with 104 calves at foot. Just five cows are left to calve.

Martin Keating

Westport, Co Mayo

Forty-seven yearlings were turned out on 28 March and have completed grazing the silage platform, which was subsequently closed up at the weekend. The mild weather has brought the first surge in grass growth with heavy covers building now. Any heavier covers will be taken out for silage bales which should assist replenishing depleted silage stocks caused by an earlier housing last autumn. In late January, 2,000 gals/ac of slurry was spread on 45% of the farm. Fertiliser spreading was delayed until mid-March as ground conditions did not allow. Protected urea is being applied post-grazing. Calf buying is now completed, with the first batch transitioning to OAD feeding.