Grass growth this week averaged 64kg/day. Most areas received rain over the weekend and there was widespread rain during the week.
Soil temperatures are higher than normal for this time of year at around 18°C, so grass growth is expected to be higher than normal for the rest for the month and into September. Take this into account when planning to build covers.
Having a farm cover of around 220kg/cow now is a good place to start. For those of you familiar with PastureBase, the grass budget feature is a great tool to use to plan out the autumn grazing period.
I would suggest keeping it simple and start by just planning out the next month.
It only involves completing your grass walk as normal on PastureBase and inputting the average farm cover (AFC) and grazing hectares along with a finish date for the grass budget.
I would suggest entering 16 September as your end date and plan to build to around 1,100kg/ha average farm cover by then.
The system works off average growth rates for your region over the past few years but these can be adjusted. The budget clearly shows you what cover you’ll be at week by week between now and 16 September.
If the AFC is lower than the 1,100 target in the last week, you can adjust the concentrate level for a few weeks to reduce the grass intake and get back on target.
Likewise, if you experience higher than predicted growth rates, you can update the plan weekly to see where you’re at. This is just a plan but it will guide you in the right direction. Your weekly grass walks alongside the budget will ultimately decide what happens on the farm.
For those not using any software, rotation length should be extended from 10 August to reach 30 days by 1 September. So a 100ha farm should be grazing 4ha/day by late August.
Your farm cover should be around 220 kg/cow.Plan to build to an average farm cover of 1,100 by the 15 September.PastureBase grass budget feature will help put a plan in place to achieve this.
Grass growth this week averaged 64kg/day. Most areas received rain over the weekend and there was widespread rain during the week.
Soil temperatures are higher than normal for this time of year at around 18°C, so grass growth is expected to be higher than normal for the rest for the month and into September. Take this into account when planning to build covers.
Having a farm cover of around 220kg/cow now is a good place to start. For those of you familiar with PastureBase, the grass budget feature is a great tool to use to plan out the autumn grazing period.
I would suggest keeping it simple and start by just planning out the next month.
It only involves completing your grass walk as normal on PastureBase and inputting the average farm cover (AFC) and grazing hectares along with a finish date for the grass budget.
I would suggest entering 16 September as your end date and plan to build to around 1,100kg/ha average farm cover by then.
The system works off average growth rates for your region over the past few years but these can be adjusted. The budget clearly shows you what cover you’ll be at week by week between now and 16 September.
If the AFC is lower than the 1,100 target in the last week, you can adjust the concentrate level for a few weeks to reduce the grass intake and get back on target.
Likewise, if you experience higher than predicted growth rates, you can update the plan weekly to see where you’re at. This is just a plan but it will guide you in the right direction. Your weekly grass walks alongside the budget will ultimately decide what happens on the farm.
For those not using any software, rotation length should be extended from 10 August to reach 30 days by 1 September. So a 100ha farm should be grazing 4ha/day by late August.
Your farm cover should be around 220 kg/cow.Plan to build to an average farm cover of 1,100 by the 15 September.PastureBase grass budget feature will help put a plan in place to achieve this.
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