Plan ahead for autumn grass and winter fodder

Knowing exactly how much grass is on the milking platform is allowing Co Tyrone dairy farmer Henry Stewart to make informed decisions about building fodder stocks for winter.

“If I was not measuring grass, I know for certain that I would think I am short and would be grazing third-cut silage ground. The grass wedge gives me the confidence to know that I am alright,” Henry said at a GrassCheck event on his farm near Stewartstown, last week.

Fodder stocks could be tight this winter on the Stewart farm, so being able to manage the grazing platform so that as much ground as possible can be harvested for third-cut silage at the end of the month is important.

Henry runs 200 Holstein cows, with half the herd calving in spring and the other half autumn-calving. Average yield is 8,069 litres at 4.18% fat and 3.34% protein from 2.65t of concentrates.

There is strong focus on getting cows to grass on the farm. Grazing infrastructure is well developed, with a centrally located parlour and a network of laneways throughout the milking platform.

Land is also relatively dry, with cows usually getting out in mid-March and not housed full-time until the end of October.

This year proved different however, with cows not getting out until 12 April due to the delayed spring.

Grass growth

Grass growth was also slow to start and suffered another setback during the dry period, with baled silage having to be fed.

“Nothing happened in April, there was a right bit in May and then nothing happened in June and July. We are really only getting going with grass now,” Henry told visitors.

Grass growth on the farm stood at 62kg dry matter per hectare per day (DM/ha/day) last week, and average cover was 2,697kg DM/ha, which is around 350kg DM/ha ahead of target.

Henry is one of 48 farmers participating in AgriSearch’s GrassCheck programme and his weekly grass measurements showed that the farm grew 10.7tDM/ha in 2017.

This year, the farm has grown 5.5tDM/ha to date, so reaching last year’s total grass yield is unlikely at this stage.

“There has been no excess grass on the farm this year whatsoever, the ‘should we make round bales with surplus’ question was never asked once,” Henry said.

Fodder

Speaking at last week’s event, CAFRE adviser Gavin Duffy said that between first- and second-cut, there is approximately 349t of silage dry matter (DM) in-store on Henry’s farm (see Table 1).

He estimated that 80 acres of third-cut would yield 5t/acre at 25% DM (equating to 100t DM), so 449t DM silage should be available for the winter.

As Table 2 shows, monthly silage requirement during the winter is 92.1t DM, so there would be around 4.9 months of feed. Henry said that this was tight for a normal winter, so he is making plans to buy in additional silage early on.

He has been active in getting rid of problem cows to reduce demand for feed, with around 240 cows on the farm last year compared with 203 at present.

“We only want to keep the cows that are doing what we want. I don’t want to be buying silage for any cow that is not paying her way,” Henry said.

Unknown

He added that there are several unknowns in the fodder budget calculations, for example the area of third-cut could be as big as 110 acres if grass growth holds up well for the next two weeks.

This could give close to an additional 40t DM of silage on top of the calculations.

On the other hand, Henry said that demand could be greater than estimated if an upcoming TB test goes the wrong way.

“Make sure and do some planning this year. Ask yourself ‘what do I have on the farm?’ and ‘what do I need?’ It is easier to save silage when the pit is full,” Gavin Duffy from CAFRE said.

Visitors were told that silage replacers, such as soya hulls, can help stretch supplies but availability and price can be an issue. Duffy said that a feed value calculator available on the CAFRE website can give farmers an idea of the feeding, and relative financial value, of various feed types.

Capitalising on autumn grazing

Although the growing season has been disappointing for farmers in drier parts of Northern Ireland this year, there is still potential to close the deficit during the remainder of the season.

Dr Debbie McConnell, from AFBI, told visitors to the Stewart farm last week that daily grass growth in Northern Ireland during August, September and October usually averages 68kg DM/ha, 50kg DM/ha and 23kg DM/ha respectively.

“There is a pretty steady drop off once we hit September, but at the same time from August to October there is potentially 4t DM/ha of growth to be had,” she said.

“We have got to feed the grass plant. Sowing 24 units of nitrogen/acre (approximately one bag of CAN/acre) or 2,000 gallons of slurry is what is needed to support autumn growth,” McConnell added.

With typical metabolisable energy levels of 11.6MJ/kg DM and crude protein of 21.6%, McConnell said that autumn grass can be a good-quality feed.

But to ensure quality remains high, it is important to hit target residual covers of 1,600kg DM/ha when grazing animals out in the previous rotation.

However, an issue with autumn grass can be dry matter, with it typically dropping to 15.3%.

“This means cows may need to eat up to 25% more [fresh weight grass] to get the same amount of dry matter intake,” McConnell said.

Research finds cows prefer artificial grass laneways to stone dust ones

Research conducted at AFBI Hillsborough has found that artificial grass laid on farm laneways helps improve cow flow and cow comfort.

When given the option to walk on artificial grass, also known as astroturf, or a standard stone dust laneway, 75% of cows in the trial chose the astroturf.

“The preference for artificial grass was even higher with lame cows,” said Dr Debbie McConnell.

The study also investigated walking speed and found that on average cows walked at 3.3mph on artificial grass, compared with 3.1mph on stone dust. McConnell said that 6cm of stone dust on a laneway typically costs around £1.20/m2, whereas astroturf is only marginally dearer at £1.25/m2.

Host farmer Henry Stewart has astroturf on two different sections of laneway on his farm. The first section had a base of broken concrete that was packed with a vibrating roller before the astroturf was put on top.

“It is as we left it. We keep machinery off it and only cows are on the lane,” Henry said.

The other stretch did not have the broken concrete base vibrated and was on a slope. In this section the astroturf moved and had to be re-laid, with steel pins inserted to keep it in place.

“My advice to anyone contemplating getting astroturf is to get the base right first,” Henry said.

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