“The last grazing of 2019 is essentially your first grazing of 2020,” stated Teagasc Grass10 adviser John Douglas at the farm walk on Newford Farm on Tuesday. He went on to explain that “the grass you have on your farm next spring is going to be grown now” and, with this in mind, he stressed the importance of correctly managing the final rotation this autumn.
“The last grazing of 2019 is essentially your first grazing of 2020,” stated Teagasc Grass10 adviser John Douglas at the farm walk on Newford Farm on Tuesday.
He went on to explain that “the grass you have on your farm next spring is going to be grown now” and, with this in mind, he stressed the importance of correctly managing the final rotation this autumn.
Douglas was speaking on Newford Farm in Athenry as part of an autumn Grass10 event, where a group of 40-plus farmers and advisers braved the heavy rain and cold conditions.
Grazing planner
Following on from Douglas’s point, Teagasc specialist and Grass10 programme manager John Maher stressed the importance of implementing a grazing planner.
“We have two objectives this autumn. The first is to make best use of autumn grass. Every extra day an animal is at grass this autumn is worth about €1.80 in cost savings. Our second objective is to set the farm up properly for grazing next spring.”
The autumn grazing planner is a tool to help meet those two objectives. It suggests to start closing the farm on the first week of October, to have 60% closed by the first week of November and have 100% closed by late November or early December.
On heavy farms, these dates can be pulled forward by one week. The 60% target is vital, as this is going to be the grass available for grazing next spring.
Heavy closing covers
Maher acknowledged the difficult weather conditions so far this autumn, but he warned farmers about the consequences of not getting ground grazed off.
“If we don’t get to graze heavy covers before closing, there a number of consequences,” he said.
“We are going to lose a portion of grass dry matter over the winter. The grass will reduce. That’s inevitable.”
But according Maher, the knock-on effect next spring could be even more serious: “When we get out next spring to graze this heavy cover, there is a strong chance that we will be left with a white butt after grazing and the recovery and regrowths are going to be very slow.
"If there is a soil fertility issue on top of this, the recovery time is going to be even longer.”
Maher suggested it will be a fine balance between getting ground grazed off and not poaching ground at the same time. He said proper grazing management is essential and explained the merits of strip grazing and block grazing.
“Most importantly,” he said, “you are going to need a reel and pigtails to manage grazing properly.”
Newford
Farm manager Iarlaith Collins and Teagac technician Michael Fagan were on hand to explain autumn grazing from a Newford perspective.
While the farm has a good cover of grass (approximately 950kg DM/ha average farm cover [AFC]), ground conditions are extremely bad.
Collins said: “We were forced to wean four to five weeks earlier than we had hoped due to the conditions.”
On the day, all weanlings were outdoors and 60% of the dry cows were outside. The rest of the cows and all beef cattle were housed.
Within the next 48 hours, Collins expects to have the remaining 60% of the cows housed too.
We will do our best to keep the weanlings out for as long as possible
“We will do our best to keep the weanlings out for as long as possible, hopefully another month anyway, and they will get through the grass we have left on the farm.”
Weanlings are currently receiving 2kg of concentrates per head per day in the yard, after being upped from the 1kg they were receiving prior to weaning.
It was suggested that weanlings should be cut back down to 1kg of concentrates to encourage them to graze more grass per day. This would speed up the closing process and possibly ensure all ground is grazed before housing.
This idea was met with mixed opinions, with some citing low grass DM and low grass sugars as being potentially very damaging to weanling performance.
Concerns
Fagan pointed out the concerns the farm now has as a result of early housing: “We need 1,100t of silage on this farm for the winter. That’s based off a five-month winter for the cows, four months for the weanlings and about two months for beef stock.”
Prior to any housing, the farm had 1,200t in stock.
“We have lost about three weeks of feed already and that’s going to pretty much erode our buffer. We will be hoping for a good spring and to get cattle out next February,” Fagan added.
Silage test from first-cut bales returned positive at 72% to 76% DMD. The second-cut pit silage will be tested next week.
Protected urea
Teagasc researcher Brian McCarty presented a board on protected urea. He encouraged all farmers to consider using the product next year.
“It is proven to have lower greenhouse gas emissions than CAN and lower ammonia losses than urea," he said.
He added: “It can be spread throughout the grazing season and is proven to deliver better grass yields than urea and similar yields to CAN.”
When asked about protected urea in a compound, he said that “you can get protected urea with sulphur and potassium (K), but it currently does not come with phosphorus (P) – if someone tries to sell you protected urea with P in it, it’s not protected urea.”
In terms of a fertiliser plan for next year, it was agreed that the product could, in fact, simplify nutrient programmes.
It was recommended to go with two early applications of protected urea, followed by a late-spring compound application (for example 18:6:12), then continue to spread protected urea plus sulphur for the rest of the year.
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