It’s important to do a final grass walk around 1 December to see what your closing cover is. This will help you plan for the coming spring.

It also helps give you a more accurate measure of the tonnes of grass grown across the full year.

So what should your closing cover be on your farm?

Well there are a number of things to take into account: your farm stocking rate, your demand for grass in early spring and turn-out date on your farm.

Table 1 shows the different categories and what the target closing cover should be for each.

It is worth noting that on any one farm you may tick the box for one thing in different categories, in which cases it is important to go with the average.

Another thing to take into consideration is the grass growth on your farm over the winter period.

This can vary from farm to farm, with some farms able to add 300kg DM/ha to their average farm cover over the winter and others only growing 100kg/ha in the same period.

Location has a big effect on this and as you move northeastwards up the country, it tends to be lower, as ground temperatures tend to be lower over the winter period.

So when assessing your closing cover, if you find yourself ahead of target, you may have an opportunity to graze another field this year if it doesn’t drop the average farm cover below your target.

For those who are behind their target, it's important to stop grazing if you haven’t already do so.

You should also start planning to get back on track as soon as possible. Getting out with slurry on low covers in January once you’re allowed to spread will be a must.

If soil indices for K are low, you could also target getting out some potash over the next month to help set up the farm to grow grass in the spring once ground temperatures start to rise.

The same could also be said for spreading lime and getting field as close to the target pH of 6.3 as possible.

The final grass walk is also a good time to take note of what needs to be done on the farm between now and the start of the grazing season in 2021.

Grazing infrastructure is a consistent work in progress and there is always some maintenance to be done, with room for improvements on farms.

Assess the fences, roadways and water systems and see where improvements can be made.