As we move into the second week of October, most farmers have started their final grazing rotation. Despite the less favourable weather, it remains important to continue to walk and measure the grass on the farm. A grass budget should be done to evaluate the current grass supply and to help you reach a target closing cover on the 1 December of between 700-800kg DM/ha.

According to PastureBase, 50% of farms have a cover <800kg DM/ha at present. All these farmers can do now is to try maintain this for the next five to six weeks, making sure the demand doesn’t exceed the grass growth. The predicted growth for the coming week is on average 34kg DM/ha. So, if your stocking rate is three cows/ha, then you should be allocating 11kg DM/ha to maintain your average farm cover. The remaining diet should be filled with supplement or silage.

Rainfall

In parts of Cork and Waterford, nearly 60mm of rainfall was recorded over the past week. While the rain was welcomed, it arrived too late to significantly boost grass growth. Despite this, most farmers, even those on heavier land, are generally satisfied with ground conditions.

However, as we move deeper into October, conditions are expected to become more challenging. For instance, Moorepark experienced 230-240mm of rainfall in October over the past two years. In contrast, only 50mm has fallen so far this month, with forecasts for the coming week predicting rainfall in the low teens.

Many farmers have wetter paddocks that can become challenging to graze once the weather worsens. It’s advisable to graze these over the next week to 10 days, while conditions are still manageable. Delaying until the end of October could create serious issues, forcing housing.

Swardwatch

  • Ground conditions are reasonably good, but we are in our final rotation now and we have to start planning for when conditions deteriorate.
  • Having multiple access points will be key. A few extra gaps along a passage could be the difference in cows ploughing a corner of the field or not.
  • A few spur roadways up along the side of the field should also be put in place.

    • Stephen O’Keeffe, Kilmallock, Limerick

    We began closing paddocks last Thursday. The current farm cover isn’t hectic, our plan is to continue full-time grazing for the next two weeks. After that, we’ll aim to graze during the day and house the cows at night. To bridge the gap, we’re feeding 4kg of PKE at the feed barrier. Our goal is to maintain farm cover over the next five to six weeks, with a target closing cover of 800kg DM/ha by 1 December. At present, we’re focusing on grazing the wettest 25% of the farm. We have 1.2t of DM of silage per cow, which should see us through a four-and-a-half month winter.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha): 3.01

    Growth Rate (kg/day): 39

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow): 238

    Yield (l/cow): 15.5

    Fat%: 5.17

    Protein%: 4.39

    Milk Solids (kg/cow): 1.52

    Concentrates: 4

    David Fennelly, Emo, Laois

    We’ve been fortunate to avoid much of the heavy rain, so grazing conditions remain good. However, our farm cover is lower than we’d like. Last week we housed 18% of the cows that were culls, to reduce demand. These are now receiving 6kg of feed in the parlour, along with another 4kg mixed with silage through a diet feeder. Our plan is to keep demand below growth, to ensure we hit a target farm cover of 800kg DM/ha by 1 December. The final decision on when to end grazing will depend on the average cover. Cows scanning results showed 13% empty after a 10-week breeding season, and only 3% of the heifers were empty.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha): 2.3

    Growth Rate (kg/day): 38

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow): 344

    Yield (l/cow): 17.2

    Fat%: 5.19

    Protein%: 4.18

    Milk Solids (kg/cow): 1.66

    Concentrates: 6

    John McNamara, Hospital, Co Limerick

    We’re on a 32-33-day rotation, but plan to skip to our wetter paddocks over the next week. Regrowth has been strong, especially in paddocks that were reseeded this year, with 12.6t of grass grown so far. We switched from applying chemical fertiliser monthly to following the cows. We got our K out earlier as well and we believe this has made a difference in regrowths. We had 10% empty in our cows and these will be moved off this week to lower our grazing demand. We haven’t needed to feed any silage and if we can get through October without it, we should have enough for a four to five-month winter.

    Stocking Rate (cow/ha): 2.84

    Growth Rate (kg/day): 56

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow): 349

    Yield (l/cow): 17.8

    Fat%: 4.88

    Protein%: 4.31

    Milk Solids (kg/cow): 1.68

    Concentrates: 3