The heavy showers last week failed to reach many farms in the east, deep south and parts of the midlands and drought continues to reduce growth rates.

Farmers affected by the drought are feeding silage and meal in an effort to slow down the rotation and keep cows well fed. Most of these farmers have a stock of excess good quality silage bales which will help to get over this period.

It’s important to keep nitrogen spread on grazed paddocks to ensure that growth will kick off again when rain comes.

If over quota, the first option should be to try to feed quality round-bale silage to buffer what grass you have available. Many farmers are giving cows access to round bales at the shed feeding face before and after milking, and after a few hours they will turn the cows out to a paddock for the night. Feeding out bales in paddocks is also possible on very dry farms, but depending on the situation, cows can waste a good bit and you have the hassle of cleaning up what’s left etc. Put a string of wire along cubicles to prevent cows lying up on cubicles after milking.

The situation is quite different in the west of the country, where heavy showers last weekend and plenty of heat have maintained strong growth rates. Growth rates this week are ranging between 18kg DM/ha in Carlow where drought has taken hold to 95kg DM/ha in Cavan.Second-cut silage is getting under way on a lot of farms and yields are quite strong. It is great to get second-cut silage done now in order to allow these paddocks to grow back for the autumn.

Our farmer in south Tipperary got some showers early in the week which boosted his growth rates to 73kg DM/ha from 64kg DM/ha last week. He is noticing regrowths are being affected by the heat and some paddocks are shooting up stem. He will wait and see how the weather turns out before taking out more paddocks for silage.

Average farm cover is 844kg DM/ha and cows are milking 17.21 litres. South Tipperary milk solids are 4.3% fat and 3.4% protein. In Waterford, one farmer is feeling the heat and drought is affecting him. He is feeding 6kg of silage and 5kg of meal per cow for the past three weeks.

In contrast, our mid-Kerry farmer has an average farm cover of 1,015kg DM/ha. His growth rate is 81.2kg DM/ha and his demand is 66.8kg DM/ha. He has taken two more paddocks out for baled silage to get on top of all the grass. The cover per cow is 258kg and cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 1608kg DM/ha. He is all set for Croker this weekend.

Mid-Clare has an average farm cover of 765kg DM/ha and cover per cow of 235kg. His pre-grazing cover is 1,400kg DM/ha and he has a growth of 55kg DM/ha/day. He has got 3mm of rain over the week and 8mm the week previous.

Steven Fitzgerald, farm manager, TEAGASC Curtin’s Research Farm

We had thunderstorms last Thursday but we would still welcome more rain that is forecast for the weekend.

Growth is at 68kg DM/ha this week, down from 78kg DM/ha last week. Cows are entering heavy covers now of 1,600kg DM/ha and quality is not the best. Residuals are starting to creep up with more stem in the paddocks. Dry matter is down at 18% this week.

Average farm cover is 600kg DM/ha and cover per cow is 190kg. Stocking rate has reduced to 3.16 LU/ha because all ground is back in.

This week we are reseeding the paddock that was sprayed off before silage last week. It was sprayed with round-up at a rate of 2.5 litres per acre and the kill rate has been excellent. We will give it one round with the disc harrow to help break up the sod and then go in with the one pass.

Cows are milking 18 litres at 4.54% fat, 3.58% protein, 4.66% lactose and 163,000 SCC. Breeding is over now and we plan on scanning cows in the next two weeks.

Donal Patton, Farm Manager, Ballyhaise Research Farm

Things are in fairly good shape here in Ballyhaise. We have had an excellent growth rate of 95kg DM/ha again this week. We got 11mm of rain over the last four days and soil temperature is at 18°c. This has kept growth rates very strong for us.

Demand is high at 70kg DM/ha/day, but the super growths can more than meet this. We have skipped over 30% of the area for silage and stocking rate is pushed up to 4.2 LU/ha. We will bale and mow these paddocks as soon as we can in order to have them back growing to build up for autumn.

The average farm cover is 785kg DM/ha and cover per cow is 185kg. The quality of the grass is very good because a lot of it has been cut in the last two or three rounds. Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 1,400kg DM/ha and they are grazing them down to 4cm. We are still spreading 27 units of CAN. The 120 cows are milking 19.3kg at 4.39% fat, 3.55% protein (1.53kg MS) and 196,000 SCC. Calves are now on better quality grass and are getting a kilo of meal.

Mark Keenan, Dairy Herd manager, Gurteen College

The college is currently milking 88 cows consisting of 81 spring calvers and seven autumn calvers with 25 autumn cows dried off who will start to calve from 16 September. The herd are averaging 26 litres at 3.91% fat and 3.37% protein (1.9kg MS) and SCC 78,000 on 1.5kg kg of meal now, but they were on 2.5kg until this week.

Growth rates for the past week were 51kg DM/day with some paddocks performing a lot better than others.

Recently grazed paddocks are slow to come back and drought has definitely affected some paddocks with only 3.4mm of rain recorded here for the past week.

We have surplus grass and have taken 27 acres out of the system for silage which will be harvested next week. This will enable us to keep cows going into covers of no more than 1,300kg/DM.

Farm cover this week is 579kg DM/ha. We have a large grazing platform at present due to after grass and cattle area becoming available and this is allowing us to into covers of 1,000kg/DM/ha.

Stocking rate is 2.89LU/ha and this is made up of milkers and 25 dry cows + 20 in-calf autumn calving heifers following the cows. We are planning to reseed more silage ground next week having already reseeded five grazing paddocks earlier this year.

Breeding ended 20 July after seven weeks of AI and six weeks of a sweeper bull. We have had more repeats than expected after a good submission six week submission rate. We will await a scan at the end of August.

Sean Roberts, Old Ross, Newbarn, Co Wexford

It has been two weeks since we got rain here and we are starting to feel it. Growth rates have dropped from 75kg DM/ha last week to 47kg DM/ha this week. We are feeding 0.5kg of concentrates at the moment just to entice cows into the parlour, but this may be increased if no rain comes in the next few days. We have plenty of good-quality silage available if needs be. It is not quite at panic stations yet and we are holding our own with a cover per cow of 208kg and an average farm cover of 690kg DM/ha but rain is needed.

We will start following cows with a bag and a half of 18:6:12 to keep up P and K levels. Up until now it has been an excellent grass growing year. We have grown 10.5t already this year and we only grew 12t for all of 2013.

For silage, we keep cutting paddocks as they get strong and have cut every paddock once this year. The 127 cows are milking 18.6 litres at 4.19% fat, 3.58% protein and 91,000 SCC. About 70% of the cows are first and second calvers. Calves are doing well and on target weight with no cow calved after 12 March. This was a great help because it meant we were not struggling with April calves. Heifers will be scanned and weighed in mid-August. We are working on cubicles now and will reseed a paddock in the next week all in preparation for expansion next year.