The wet Saint Patrick’s weekend is still better than the freezing temperatures and biting cold winds of March 2018.

This week on the Greenfield farm in Kilkenny, there are about 15 paddocks with a great cover of grass (over 1,300kg) and about 15 paddocks with very little grass (less than 400kg).

Growth rate was under 10kg per day for the last week when growth was recorded on Tuesday.

This is the main reason why there are 15 paddocks with low covers. Average farm cover was 1,142kg on Tuesday. So in terms of grass, it’s steady as she goes with on/off grazing and allocate what’s left into early April.

Meal

Bulk meal was delivered to the bins this week. Just over 15t of GAIN starter 16% protein (4kg) nut landed at a retail price of €307/t. The last delivery was in early February for 18t of GAIN starter 16% protein (5kg) nut at a retail of €285/t.

Not good for farmers to see the retail price go up yet raw materials prices seem to be going in the other direction (see p71 of the Irish Farmers Journal this week – ration survey price by region).

The last purchase of bulk fertiliser for Greenfield was at the end of February and was a product called Supertopper (38N & 7S) – over 9t was delivered at a retail price of €365/t.

Milk protein

Milk supply and milk protein has come right back up from the low result of 3.38% protein reported last weekend. Since then, every result was 3.56% protein or above. Fat percentage is jumping around a bit but is very good, and again the last two results were 5.44% and 5.31% fat respectively. Somatic cell count is around the 200,000 mark.

There was a collection every day on 13, 14 and 15 March this week and the average collection each day was about 6,050l.

To date in March over 82,000l at 3.57% protein, 5.31% fat, 4.89% lactose, and 187 SCC has been collected. A similar time frame last year (during the snow and low grass growth period) saw 71,000l collected and protein was closer to 3.45% and 5% fat.

So while the very heavy rain is problematic this Saint Patrick's weekend, it’s nothing compared to not having any grass in the fields and exceptionally low temperatures similar to March 2018.

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Greenfield farm update: protein takes a dip