Dairylink: spring plans delayed on programme farms

The spring workload is starting to run behind schedule on Dairylink Ireland farms, as another week of heavy rain has set ground conditions back further.

It marks a big difference from February 2019 when weather conditions were favourable and it was a record early turnout date for some programme participants.

However, ground conditions can change quickly at this time of year. An improvement in weather, coupled with longer daylight hours, will soon get things back on track.

For autumn-calving herds, cows are being grouped according to yield, stage of lactation and pregnancy status

For that reason, Dairylink participants are getting organised so that they can move once conditions allow. Fertiliser is being delivered and the driest paddocks with adequate grass covers and good accessibility have been identified for on-off grazing.

For autumn-calving herds, cows are being grouped according to yield, stage of lactation and pregnancy status. In particular, cows that are past peak lactation and settled in-calf have been identified for going to grass once ground dries out.

Programme farmers who have invested in grazing infrastructure will be first out of the blocks when it comes to starting the 2020 grazing season.

A well-developed laneway network and multiple entry points to paddocks pays dividends when conditions are touch and go.

Also, having multiple water troughs in paddocks allows cows to be back-fenced so that they are not causing unnecessary damage by walking over grazed ground to get to fresh grass.

Slurry is the other item on the spring agenda for Dairylink participants

Fodder supply is not an issue on programme farms this year and this has helped take a lot of stress and worry out of a potentially late spring.

Slurry is the other item on the spring agenda for Dairylink participants.

Some farmers got slurry spread earlier this month before the weather broke and although tanks are filling up for those who did not get out, there is no imminent pressure on slurry storage yet.

Weekly round-up

David Brady, Stradone, Co Cavan

We had a lot of rain over the last two weeks and it has left ground wet, but if weather holds up this week, we should hopefully get some cows out to grass for a few hours during the day.

We run a block spring-calving herd and we are almost halfway through calving. On Monday, we had 45 cows calved and another eight are due within the next few days.

There is plenty of grass on the milking platform

Calving was due to start on 7 February, but it kicked off a few days earlier.

There is plenty of grass on the milking platform and a grass walk last week showed that there is an average available farm cover of 1,080kg DM/ha.

There has been no fertiliser spread yet due to the wet and cold weather this month. There is urea in the shed ready to go for when ground conditions improve.

If we get spreading in the next week or two, we will go on at half a bag to the acre.

Although if the first-round fertiliser is delayed, then we will probably spread a bag of urea.

There has been no slurry spread so far this year

Slurry tanks are filling up in the main yard, although slurry can be moved to a tank with spare capacity in an outfarm if we are stuck.

There has been no slurry spread so far this year. That’s why I would like to get a few paddocks grazed shortly and get some slurry on after cows, but, again, it’s all dependent on the weather over the next week or two.

Robin Clements, Trillick, Co Tyrone

There is plenty of grass on both the milking platform and silage ground at present. We are putting it down to a relatively mild winter and potash fertiliser (0:0:60) that was spread in the autumn.

The slow-release nature of the fertiliser means it is taking effect now. It was targeted at paddocks which had low potassium indices in soil analysis results.

We got some slurry spread on a few dry paddocks at the beginning of the month and we are fine with slurry storage

Grass covers could be too strong in places for slurry to go on later in the spring, but we have a zero grazer so it can be used on any heavy covers if need be.

That said, conditions can soon change and a cold wind in February or March can dry the ground out and clean off grass covers at the same time.

We got some slurry spread on a few dry paddocks at the beginning of the month and we are fine with slurry storage.

There is also no issue with fodder stocks and there also seems to be plenty of silage available for sale locally.

Cows are yielding 27 litres/cow/day at 3.40% protein and 4.33% butterfat

Ground conditions have taken a turn for the worse over the last two weeks, so we won’t be going back on with slurry again, or getting first round fertiliser out, for a while.

We have a mainly autumn-calving herd and there are 200 cows going through the parlour at present. Cows are yielding 27 litres/cow/day at 3.40% protein and 4.33% butterfat from 8kg/cow/day of concentrate on average. We have been building cow numbers and there are still 10 cows to calve.

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