We knew we were going to be later than normal taking our first cut silage but I didn’t expect it to be this late.

We are in fact three weeks later than normal mainly because of weather conditions in the February / March period that delayed grazing and slurry spreading.

But while weather may be the reason, it’s not an excuse.

ADVERTISEMENT

While we have the silage made and the vast bulk of it is from new leys, it should have been of excellent quality but not surprisingly, it is fully shot out and clearly much steamier than we would like.

I will get a sample tested as soon as it has settled and fermented which I reckon will be in about three weeks’ time.

The torrential rain we got last week added to the delay and the bulk. At this stage, it looks to be a very heavy crop so I am wondering if we should in fact skip taking a second cut and use the saved cash to buy bulk concentrates. We will have to do the sums.

Meanwhile we had our Bord Bia audit. At this stage, we have had a number of them so there were no unpleasant last minute surprises. Safety

We had safety statements as well as feed and medicine records ready, though I must admit I found filling out the pre-audit online sustainability survey a real challenge.

If the person on the Bord Bia helpline had not been as competent as well as helpful, I would not have got it remotely completed. Side by side with the Bord Bia audit, on the cattle side we also have a quality assurance scheme on the grain side.

The format of the Irish grain assurance scheme is very different from that operating on the beef or dairy side but the concept is the same – a hoped for top-up on the basic commodity price.

It’s a condition for some of the crops we are growing that we are members of the grain assurance scheme and one of the stipulations is that our crop sprayer is routinely inspected.

We had the inspection, at a fee, during the week and apart from a slight leak in one of the pipes which we can easily fix, there were no problems. So we are cleared in advance of the harvest.

On reading the details of one of our grain contracts, I was interested to see the end user of the crops explicitly states that no sewage sludge is allowed to be used.

This stipulation echoes the general approach of the Bord Bia quality assurance schemes which, in my view, should be reinforced in future legislation.