Farmer writes: Shaping up like another 2016 in the northwest

Just under 50mm rain fell on Malin head over the first 10 days of June – 48.5mm to be exact.

The mean June rain fall for Malin is 70.2mm, so we have received two thirds of our average June rainfall in the first third of the month.

Grazing conditions on this farm have deteriorated badly in the last week. Cows are doing a fair amount of damage and cleaning out paddocks is just impossible.

My dry ground is reasonable, but my wetter ground is just saturated. If the forecast is correct hopefully by the time you are reading this we will be getting a bit of respite as this week is to be dry.

Covers

I took out a couple of paddocks for bales at the beginning of last week and in hindsight it was probably a mistake as my farm cover is now very low and growth rates have dropped from 128kg dry matter per hectare (DM/ha) last week to 53kg DM/ha this week, not even covering my demand of 58kg/ha.

On paper, I have 13 days grass ahead of me but, as ground is so wet and stock must be moved on quickly, I’d say it’s probably closer to half of that figure.

Silage

Looking on the brighter side I did manage to get my silage cut on 30 May, just before the weather turned really bad. It was mowed on 30 May and lifted on 31 May. The grass was mowed dry in the evening time and started to be lifted around 3pm the following day.

The crop was not overly heavy but quality should be excellent, fingers crossed

There was no sun to wilt the grass but drying conditions were good and the grass did not see rain from the time it was mowed to ensiled. I was lucky considering the weather we’ve been having since. The crop was not overly heavy but quality should be excellent, fingers crossed.

I probably took longer out of grazing the headlands of the silage fields than I should have, any more than a couple of days will effect regrowth, but at the minute it’s a matter of grabbing some extra days grazing anyway I can.

Leaving cert weather

The fine leaving Cert weather that often gets talked about is nowhere to be seen, but maybe it will make studying a bit easier for the students when they are not sitting looking out the window at glorious sunshine wishing they were outside enjoying it.

I can remember the feeling well, 1996 seems like yesterday.

New baby

Finally, my beautiful wife gave birth to our second daughter on Friday last 9 June in Altnagelvin hospital Derry.

A bruiser at 10llbs she has way more hair than her daddy – but in fairness that wouldn’t be hard! No names yet but her big sister Gemma is hot on the case.

Read more

Weekly weather: Signs of settled conditions returning

Grass plus: Heavy farms flying and dry farms thirsty