Alison is a Nuffield Scholar from Queensland, Australia and a friend of Colm’s. She arrived last week to stay for a night during her investigative travels. In the morning, she looked out the living room window and exclaimed: “It looks just like home!” That just summed it up for me. The place looked dry and burnt.

A DULL LOOKING COUNTRYSIDE

A few days previously we had come back from our holidays in Croatia and Slovenia. There we had visited the Lipica Stud Farm, home to the world-famous Lippizaner horses. White mares grazed underneath a canopy of trees, with their black foals at foot.

Another day we visited the magnificent Postojna caves, spending a half day underground admiring the splendour of the karst formations that run to 25km. Back over ground we could admire the green countryside.

Full of these spectacular views, we prepared to land in Cork. The beautiful green fields, the ripening corn fields and herds of cows never fail to give me a renewed sense of our beautiful green isle.

This time, the rectangles, squares and multi-angled fields blended to a colour between porridge and biscuit. The country looked dull. We knew that grass was running out before we went on holiday. We knew too that no rain had fallen while we were away.

Tim had several conversations with Colm about how things were going at home and how the drought management plan was working well. Yet, the reality of the view from the aeroplane was shocking.

CONSTITUENTS HOLDING

There was no inspiration to be had at home either. We were crisp and golden all over. Nevertheless, the cows looked remarkably well and are matching their demeanours with good production. The constituents in the milk have held up too. The most recent test results indicated 4.76% fat, 3.75% protein.

It is difficult to maintain enough grass in the diet to keep the protein from dropping. Hence, we’ve stretched and stretched the grass. But the elastic is running out and will soon break.

We are being promised nine millimetres of rain for the weekend, but will it be another empty promise? As I’m not the one managing the system, I feel a constant stress as we wait for rain. Realistically, it will be three weeks after that before we see adequate grass.

I imagine the cows are enjoying their wide and varied diet. It must be akin to a gourmet restaurant these days. The real similarity is the price. The feeding of the cows is costing thousands of euros every week. Our winter fodder is safe in the pit. Opening that is an absolute recipe for disaster. It is one we will avoid if at all possible.

In a way, our farm has taught us to be drought ready. We frequently burn up for a few weeks, but never as long as this spell. Having a drought-prone farm seems to mean that the pain will go on longer, because many of our friends around the country are reporting good showers of rain while we are still waiting.

Having a plan and sticking to it has been important. It takes some of the stress out of it. The men explain the strategy in steps, and most of it is boring in that it is dependent on continuous measurement and pushing the feed forward on the farm while watching costs.

Measurement allows us to know what grass is ahead of the cows and what we have in winter fodder. Step one was to slow the rotation by leaving more grass on the farm instead of making more bales. Step two, we started feeding quality bales made in May. Step three, soya hulls were introduced. Step four, palm kernel was introduced to stretch the grass further. Step five would be opening the pit of silage.

Some heifers were moved off to deferred grazing, and some cows were culled and sold. The objective was to get demand in line with grass supply as far as possible.

NETWORK SUPPORT

It is fair to say that our co-op Dairygold has been a tremendous support. Edmund Curtin, our area sales manager, ensured that he had a continuous supply of soya hulls ordered ahead of us making contact.

Most milk processors have held or increased milk price, and this is helping farmers. They have also been out there with advice and support meetings in conjunction with Teagasc. Our straw suppliers, Tom and Jerry Healy, have delivered the first loads of straw. It always pays off to stick with people and they will usually look after their regular customers. It is important to build that kind of network.

Whatever the next few weeks bring, the conditions are still far easier than the rain of last March. We’ve still enjoyed the sunshine. CL