Ideal conditions for grass growth are present in areas that received sufficient rainfall over the past week. The situation is somewhat different for those areas that have received little to no rain.

Average growth rates are between 20kg and 50kg/day on affected farms, which is below the demand. However, grass is still growing albeit at a slow rate.

Last week I suggested potential ways to help build up grass. The next six weeks will be crucial, as the rate of grass growth (supply) will be less than what is eaten (demand) by mid-September.

Making a plan now will help to prevent early housing of cows this year. Doing a grass budget is the place to start.

Grass budget

This is a very useful tool for PastureBase users to help map out grazing and to reach targets to extend your grazing this autumn. It uses information specific to your farm to allow you to monitor grass supply and allocate supplement level.

The first step is to walk your farm, so you know what your average farm cover is and enter the results into PastureBase.

Next, create a grass budget, entering in the dates for the start and the end of your grass build up plan, enter in the average farm cover from your walk, and the farm area you are working off.

There is also an option to enter in the region you are in e.g. Munster, or if you are a frequent grass measurer there’s an option for “My farm”.

Then you need to include the grazing animals per week.

Finally, enter in grass allocations and supplement levels to reach your target farm cover on 1 October.

There is a bit of playing around with the grass and supplement levels per week to ensure you hit the target.

Swardwatch

  • Average grass growth across the country is 54kg per day, but within this there is big variation, with some farms outside of soil moisture deficits growing 80kg/day, while some dry farms are growing less than 20kg per day.
  • If short on grass, consider selling culls or drying off low yielders as a means of reducing demand for feed.
  • A grass budget should be done in the next week or so to help extend the 2024 grazing season.

    • Farmers

    Shane O’Loughlin – Monasterevin, Co Kildare

    Stocking rate is slightly high, but we have 50 acres of second cut silage ground that will be coming into the rotation this week. This will help extend our rotation and allow us to start to build up covers.

    We got away without having to feed any silage during the summer, but our meal fed to date is a bit ahead of last year.

    We blanket spread the farm with 35 units of protected urea last week to take advantage of the growth before it begins to slow down.

    Our heifers will get their first shot for salmonella and the cows will get their booster shot in the next week or so.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha) 3.75

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 62

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 220

    Yield (l/cow) 22.5

    Fat% 4.01

    Protein% 3.65

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.75

    Concentrates 3

    Ben Tyrell – Kildalkey, Co Meath

    Cows are milking well. They are up 12% on this time last year. We ensured that they were fed well all year, and this is reflected in the protein, which is .17% up on this time last year.

    Grass quality is reasonably good, but it will be a struggle to build covers for the autumn.

    We corrected a good few paddocks by pitting them when both the first and second cuts were ensiled. Our third cut is only a few weeks away, which will be followed by a pit of maize.

    We scanned our cows last week and we are very happy with how it went. We had 4% empty in our heifers and 11% empty with our cows.

    We will milk away the empties for the time being.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha) 3.97

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 58

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 197

    Yield (l/cow) 16.2

    Fat% 5.96

    Protein% 4.32

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.72

    Concentrates 5

    Tony Byron – Teagasc Curtins, Co Cork

    The farm has gotten very dry, and we could badly do with some rain. Growth is as low as 30kg/day, but we dropped our demand back to 20kg/day.

    We went in with 5kg of meal and 5 kg of bale silage. We will do this for a week and alter the plan then.

    We blanket spread the farm including the clover and multispecies ground with 20 units of protected urea. This would be very uncommon for these trials, but we felt we had to act to help encourage growth rates.

    Third cut silage received 60 units of protected urea last week. We’ll aim to cut this towards the end of September.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha) 2.52

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 30

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 205

    Yield (l/cow) 15.5

    Fat% 5.32

    Protein% 3.83

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.46

    Concentrates 5