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Grass growth: Grassland management strategies vary depending on location.
To be fair, most of the country is bursting with grass – it’s been a great summer across most of the north and west.
Those in the south and east and other areas that haven’t got much rain are still burning up. Last weekend’s showers offered some respite, but it wasn’t enough to stave off drought in most cases.
Where growth is good, you must take out surplus paddocks to prevent a big decline in quality.
Now is the time to do it. Get the paddocks cut and back growing nice leafy grass for next month when you will be starting to build covers.
Aim to have an average farm cover of between 180kg/cow and 200kg/cow now. Those in low growth areas need to conserve what they have.
Try not to let average farm cover go below 500kg/ha. Feed 2kg or 3kg of meal and good-quality bale silage if you have to.
The key thing is to keep walking and keep measuring to identify the surplus, the deficit and just to know when you can stop feeding.
Buying stock: At the Irish Grassland Association dairy summer tour this week we visited Westmeath – a county with huge dairy potential. The host farmers were both new entrants to dairy in 2014 and are thriving, with their herds producing over 530kg of milk solids per cow.
While the level of meal being fed might be considered to be on the high side at 800kg/cow in a typical year, two other things stood out.
Firstly, they both bought good stock when they started out. While they weren’t sure what they were looking for, they sought out good advice and it has stood to them well.
The second thing is both farmers are stocked at less than 2.2 cows/ha on the milking block, an appropriate stocking rate given how much grass they are growing and the nature of their farms. This allows cows to fully express their potential on a mostly grazed grass diet.
If they were stocked higher, there would be a lot more silage to be fed at the shoulders of the year.
This would increase the workload and reduce cow performance. Those thinking of getting into dairy should seek out the best independent advice possible when purchasing cows and planning stocking rates. Talk to trusted farmers and advisers in your locality.
Grassland farmer of the year: Applications are open for this year’s Grassland Farmer of the Year competition.
The competition is open to all farmers in the Republic of Ireland who are measuring grass.
There is a prize fund of €30,000 and seven category winners including two from beef, dairy, sheep, young farmer, disadvantaged area and a prize for the farmer that scores highest for sustainability.
The competition is part of the Grass10 campaign of which the Irish Farmers Journal is a partner, along with Teagasc, Department of Agriculture, AIB, FBD and Grassland Agro.
Closing date for the competition is 31 July. The Irish Farmers Journal continues to run grass courses once a month across the country. Specialised short courses are being planned for the autumn. For further details contact Stephen Connolly on+353 87 6696490.
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