Growth seems to have finally caught up - albeit a few weeks slower than normal - with demand across most farms.

A lot of dairy farmers I had been talking to in the past two weeks had some volume of surplus mown out, some of it being the end of the first round that they didn’t get around to grazing.

After a long spring, the value of high-quality silage has been highlighted. If it is not used for summer droughts, it’s invaluable to fresh calved cows in a wet spring like we just had.

Forecast for rain

The Met Eireann forecast predicts anywhere from 15mm to 30mm of rain across the country in the next week, which will likely halt much silage or reseeding work.

At this stage of the year, areas prone to drought would ideally have any reseeding work completed, while farms running on heavier soils are just getting going on spring reseeds.

Even where there is pressure regarding time, always spray off the old sward to avoid competing with new seedlings.

Important steps

The two most important steps of reseeding in my eyes are the two sprays; spraying off the sward with glyphosate and the pre-emergence spray to get new weedlings.

Pasturebase data is indicating that dairy farms are running at 737kg of an average farm cover, with drystock farms at 812kg.

This is an indicator that swards of 1,550kg to 1,600kg DM/ha is what stock are being turned out to at the minute, which is higher than ideal.

Target grazing covers of 1,300kg to 1,400kg DM/ha to maximise energy intake in all types of stock.

Heavier covers will also lead to poorer graze-outs and with swards likely to head out in a few weeks, we really need to be nailing residuals.