There has been a nice drop of rain over the last week and with Storm Francis bringing 30-60ml on Monday night ground condition are getting challenging in places.

Heavy soil farmers need to adjust their management for the current conditions. On/Off grazing may need to come back into play, grazing three-hour blocks, minimising the amount of time stock are on the land. Look for the driest paddocks on the farm with the best access. Look to graze covers around 1,400kg or lower if possible. Keep walking the farm to assess ground conditions and identify suitable areas for grazing.

For other farms that may have got the heavy rainfall over the last number of days it’s important to pick and choose the paddocks for grazing when ground conditions may be a little more challenging. Strip grazing with 12 hour allocations should help reduce trampling of grass.

Also try not to have cows walking back over grazed ground as it will poach and get damaged much easier.

With a lot of bales taken in August there is plenty of after-grass coming back and these paddocks can be let go to stronger covers to help build grass. Farmers should be moving closer to a 30 day rotation as we move into September.

Growth has dropped off and it’s important that you ensure growth stays higher than demand until at least mid- to late September when you want to be at your target AFC of 1,000 to 1,200kg/ha. With growth unlikely to increase going into September demand will need to be lowered if you’re not on track.

There are three ways to lower demand on farms, increase supplement, reduce stock numbers or bring more ground into the grazing platform.

Caroline O’Sullivan

Teagasc Curtins Farm, Cork

Growth has dropped significantly in the past week, from 92kg to 60kg DM/ha. Thirty units of N fertiliser will go out on the grass paddocks this week. The grass clover sward and mixed species sward won’t get any until next week. Grazing conditions are more difficult at the moment, especially with a lot of the ground still tender after reseeding. We are targeting grazing the non-reseeded ground in the very wet weather to allow the reseeded paddocks to dry. As a result, we are grazing slightly heavier covers of 1,700-1,900kg DM/ha. SCC is 181,000. We had two cases of mastitis recently, which affected the SCC.

Damien McEntee

Co Monaghan

The herd is divided into three: the main herd grazing closest to the parlour, a once-a-day herd grazing a block over 800m from the parlour, and a few lame cows beside the parlour. The cows are going into a cover of 1,750kg, with 11% of their block closed for silage/deferred grazing. We are on a very dry farm so current conditions are not creating any problems yet, but we missed getting part of second-cut silage completed. Cows are on 24hr blocks with good clean-outs. we have started back feeding meal and currently we are feeding just under 1kg of meal.

Kevin Ahern

Shinagh, Co Cork

There was 40ml of rain here Tuesday night so things are getting sticky on the ground. We are using different entrances for entering and exiting paddocks to try and minimise damage and have also brought back in strip wires which have helped increase the utilisation of grass in this spell of unsettled weather. Cattle are grazing covers of 1,800kg and clean-outs are good. We are spreading a half bag of 30-0-15 on the grazing block this round. The target AFC we will build to here is 1,250kg/ha and we are on target at the moment. We did 11 and half weeks breeding here this year and are scanning this Wednesday.