Heat disappears but strong growth remains

The warm, dry period really landed at a good time, right on cue for children going back to school.

One farmer I talked to in recent weeks suggested pulling the start date of schools back to mid-August to better utilise the annual ‘back to school weather’.

While ground conditions have dried out considerably, at this stage of the year the tides can turn very quickly. The drying power of a fine day or two in-between a wet spell does little to no good with the shorter days and lower temperatures.

While farmers have managed to build up farm cover nicely over the past two to three weeks, grazing this may soon become a challenge, with between 23-88mm of rain forecast by Met Éireann for the next week.

While conditions are still dry underfoot, it might be worth considering getting grass off some of the wetter paddocks. Strip wires and back fencing are always your friend when it comes to grazing and utilising heavy covers, so use them as needed.

Despite the excellent and consistent growth we’ve seen over the past few weeks, farm cover at 297kg DM/ha is at the lower end of where most farmers would like to be.

For heavy farms or those with a lower stocking rate, this type of a cover should be pretty spot on. Rotation length should be at circa 35 days at this point.

It’s also worth making a note at this time of the year of paddocks with high clover content in them, with a target of grazing these paddocks towards the latter end of the final round.

A heavy cover of grass on these over the winter will smother out plants and prevent light getting to the base of the swards.

Donal Patton – Teagasc Ballyhaise, Co Cavan

We’re a good bit behind our target cover, with this being a result of the wet July and August stopping us grazing out some of the lower paddocks. These were cut in the recent fine couple of weeks, with some of our reseeds sown in late June included in this.

As a result, meal feeding is at 4kg and we will look to pull out culls and empties earlier this year. To date there’s 190kg N/ha spread on grass-only swards, with this likely to finish at 210-220kg, with the clover swards at 80kg N /ha spread.

Any of the grass swards not spread in the last week will get 30kg N/ha before the closing date.

Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 2.74

Growth Rate (kg/day) 71

Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 764

Yield (l/cow) 16

Fat % 4.62

Protein% 3.83

Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.39

Concentrates 4

Diarmaid Fitzgerald – Cratloe, Co Clare

We are grazing some covers of 2,200kg DM/ha, having taken out three paddocks of heavy covers in bales last week. The last round of fertiliser has gone out, with grass-only swards receiving 20 units/acre of N and with the clover swards targeted with watery slurry.

We earmarked 40 acres that did not receive fertiliser in the last round for watery slurry. Target is to be at 400kg DM/cow by the end of September.

Grazing conditions are good, as are graze outs. We are preparing for our farm walk, which came from winning the 2022 Overall and Young Farmer of the GFOY competition.

Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 2.52

Growth Rate (kg/day) 46

Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 784

Yield (l/cow) 16.5

Fat % 5.12

Protein% 4.04

Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.55

Concentrates 0.5

Conor Creedon – Rathmore, Co Kerry

We fed silage for 10 days around the time of the fine spell, with the reduced demand and increased growth rate really lifting farm cover.

The fine spell also helped dry ground out a lot, though we are forecast to have a lot of rain again this weekend. We didn’t spread much chemical N in the last round, with a lot of clover incorporated in to paddocks with slurry and dirty water tanks nearly all emptied.

We are a bit anxious about grazing heavy covers should the weather turn bad, especially leaving covers on our clover swards, but we can easily drop meal and increase demand if needed to get these grazed.

Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 4

Growth Rate (kg/day) 70

Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 1,100

Yield (l/cow) 16

Fat % 5.15

Protein% 4.00

Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.5

Concentrates 5