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With the new year coming in, we have had the chance to sit down with our six Focus farmers to review the progress over the past 12 months and make plans for the next 12 months. One element of the plans is to re-evaluate the grazing systems on each farm.
The initial decisions for grazing success in 2018 were taken back in autumn as we decided on the fields that will best suit for early grazing this year and getting them closed up. This has allowed a nice cover to develop on the fields over winter and come early spring, stock will be turned on to them to clean off the over-wintered grass.
Bringing a light cover of grass through the winter in to the spring gives several benefits. Firstly, because the grass plants have some green leaf present, they continue to photosynthesise, meaning that growth continues, albeit at low levels. This also means that come spring, when the soil temperature rises, the grass plant will begin growing immediately. The leaves that are on the plant come spring are ready to photosynthesise immediately, rather than have to establish an initial leaf mass using root reserves as is the case for grass plants that are bared off in the autumn. Using root reserves means that there will be little growth until the soil temperature reaches 5°C, whereas using the leaf, growth will occur before then. This leads to more grass being available in the early spring.
The Duguids
This early season growth leads to more soil activity, meaning that the soil warms quicker, leading to greater early season growth. Once soil temperatures reach and maintain 5°C, the grass plant will be able to utilise applied fertiliser. Last year, Arthur Duguid applied fertiliser a month sooner than he would have previously to his field for rotational grazing and saw a significant result from doing so. Early season grass growth outstripped demand so much so that he had to both cut one quarter of the field for silage to preserve quality and also graze some cows and calves in another quarter to make use of all of the extra grass grown.
Soil temperature is a key to growth.
This season, most of the Focus farmers will be out with fertiliser once soil temperatures reach and maintain 5°C. General application rates will be 40kgN/ha (around 1cwt/ac of 34.5%N). This will give the grass the kick it needs for good early season growth.
40kg of nitrogen should see around 480kg of extra grass dry matter produced (early season nitrogen has a response rate of around 12kg of grass dry matter per kg of nitrogen applied). With AN costing around £240/t at the moment and allowing for £10/ha to spread the fertiliser, the extra dry matter produced has a cost 8p/kg. For sheep pre- and post-lambing, this is very cost effective when compared to purchased concentrates at 22p/kg of dry matter.
Indeed, in a season such as we are in this year, with straw prices where they are, working toward being able to turn cattle out sooner will have a major impact on profitability. Between feeding, bedding and other costs, housed cattle are currently costing £2+/day to keep inside. While conditions are not yet fit to turn them out, having a plan in place to get them out as soon as possible will offer some relief. Using the same early nitrogen strategy, the cost to graze a 300kg stirk would be in the region of 70p/day, nearly a third of the cost of having them housed.
The Gammies
Last season, Andrew Gammie planned for early turnout of his cattle and had heifers on grass six weeks earlier than he normally would and the cows followed two weeks later. This led to a saving of over £3,000 when compared to having them housed. Bad weather did see him housing the cows and calves for one night to both save damage to the grass and give shelter to their young calves but apart from that, it was a far cheaper option for keeping cattle.
The Websters and the Biffens
There are a number of different ways of resting grass over winter but one of the options that has been adopted by the Websters, the Biffens and the Duguids has been to use a forage crop to put the sheep on post scanning. The Websters will start lambing in five weeks and have just put their ewes on to their swedes. Charles went for a simple, low cost approach for establishing his swedes. He mixed the seed with one 600kg bag of 10:20:30 fertiliser and drilled straight in to the barley stubble with his power harrow one pass. All costs for the 2ac of swedes have been £500, meaning a cost/kg of dry matter around 6p.
Post-lambing the sheep will be moved on to a new ley and rotationally grazed. Currently, Charles is setting up the fences for this. He has purchased a solar powered fencer to run the temporary fence around the swedes and once they are finished, he will move it out on to the rotational grazing. For the fences, he is going to set up a four line, narrow guage high tensile fence and is using a mixture of wooden and plastic posts to reduce the cost.
Initially post-lambing, there will be three paddocks and as ewes lamb the paddocks will be stocked up. After lambing, the ewes will then be gathered in to one mob and rotated around the paddocks. Should grass growth start to get away, temporary fencing can be brought in to create more paddocks (allowing some to be taken as silage) and should grass growth lack, there is another field adjoining this one that can have a section fenced off and grazed.
The fencing will be done as cost effectively as possible and to make the shifts in the rotation simple, Charles is erecting gates at either end of each division. This will give greater flexibility through the grazing season.
The Mackays
Meanwhile in Caithness, the Mackays are looking at increasing the number of divisions in their rotation. Last year, a simple three paddock system was in operation. This year, with a few more posts and another single wire, the three will become six. This will give a greater level of control over grass growth and with quicker shifts, will see an increase in the total quantity of grass grown due to a shorter grazing period followed by a longer rest.
cow on rotation at Greenvale last year, showing simple fence in the background.
The Duffus family
Andy Duffus also has more rotations set up, including across some of the silage fields. Last autumn, he erected a fence to divide the lamb grazing from three fields in to six. Grass growth kept ahead of the lambs and the surplus generated gave a good start to tupping, before the snow came in and buried what was left. This will still be available once the snow melts and it will be cleaned off then.
Sub-divided silage fields at Auchriachan.
The next steps with each farm will be to review the 2017 plans and benchmark the results. With this done, the plans for this year will be finalised and the plans for 2019 will be drafted. With the hard work and dedication to the project demonstrated by the families in the past year, 2018 looks to be another rewarding year for Declan Marren and myself.
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