Torrential rain over the weekend and again earlier this week has put the tin hat on the weather for this spring. Farmers, particularly those on heavy soils in the north and west, are very disillusioned as cows continue to do damage to paddocks.

Many herds in this region had to be re-housed on Saturday night after torrential downpours. The situation is much better down south, with cows just doing slight damage in the thunderstorms with utilisation suffering.

That’s the difference between soil types: poaching will happen to heavy soils in wet weather, whereas poor utilisation is the only real outcome on drier, free draining soils.

Both are problems but poaching is far worse than just poor utilisation. So what’s the answer? Dealing with poaching first, if excess damage is being done even on dry fields, then cows will have to be housed for short periods.

Land won’t dry out overnight so on/off grazing and using strip wires to allocate grass on a 12 hour basis will be the order of the day until the situation improves.

Where ground is holding up well but utilisation is poor, then the strip wires need to go back up. Otherwise too much grass will be walked into the ground.

As soon as conditions improve, the strip wires can be removed and cows put back to a 24 or 36 hour allocation.

These are better than being on 12 hour breaks all year, as it means that there is less competition for feed and younger animals are better able to express themselves.

What to do with fields that were damaged or a lot of grass left behind this week? Best policy is to leave them for a while and aim to go in and graze them early in the next rotation (i.e. in two weeks’ time) at a low cover.

In other cases these paddocks could be selected for silage when there is a surplus, so get a machine to correct the residual for you.

The predicted grass growth map is showing high grass growth rates for the coming week, and most farms will be growing more grass than the cows can eat so meal feeding rates should be reduced and more fields will have to be closed up for silage or reseeding.

Sward Watch

  • Grass growth rates are predicted to be above 80kg per day in most places this week as growth rates really take off.
  • Farmers will have to manage grass carefully to avoid surpluses by walking the farm every four to five days and taking early action to avoid grazing covers which have gone too high.
  • Now is the time to reduce nitrogen on high clover fields by either spreading half rate or no chemical nitrogen.
  • Grass only fields will need around 0.8 to one unit of nitrogen per acre per day for the summer months. Go at the higher rate if you need to build up silage stocks.

    • Dairy Farmers

    Patrick O’Neill – Mostrim, Co Longford

    Things are absolutely saturated here. We’ve had some bouts of torrential rain but we are lucky in the sense that we can keep cows out whereas some people locally have had to house them.

    Growth is much lower than it should be because land is so wet. We grew 45kg last week, but that has increased to 55kg this week and I expect it to increase further next week.

    Cows are still on 4kg of meal, but I will drop that as soon as growth takes off. I am concerned about some of my good clover fields because they got such a hammering this spring. I’m spreading one bag/acre of 18:6:12 after the cows and dirty water on the clover fields.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 2.6

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 55

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 155

    Yield (l/cow/day) 27

    Fat % 4.02

    Protein % 3.33

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 2.04

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 4

    Jack Kearney – Rathcormac, Co Cork

    It’s been a long, hard slog of a spring even after a very good February. Ground is holding up fairly well and cows are on 24 to 36 hour grazings.

    I took out 10% of the farm for reseeding in April thinking grass was going to take off but it didn’t, and so I had to feed extra meal because grass went very tight.

    We’re feeding 4kg of meal now but will drop that back as soon as cover gets over 180kg per cow and cows are going into covers of 1,400kg consistently. Whereas we’ve been struggling to do that up to now.

    I measure every four to five days and adjust the plan accordingly depending on growth rates.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 3.9

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 72

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 171

    Yield (l/cow/day) 29.6

    Fat % 4.09

    Protein % 3.49

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 2.3

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 4

    Caroline O’Sullivan – Teagasc Curtins, Co Cork

    Grass growth is flying it and it’s a big challenge to keep on top of it. Even though the growth rate is down at 75kg per day, that’s after taking out two more paddocks, so the actual growth rate is higher.

    Paddocks that were at 1,400 a few days before being grazed are at 1,600 to 1,700kg by the time the cows go in, so we’ll have more paddocks to skip over.

    We cut 10% of the farm last week for bales and we’ll probably cut more before the weekend.

    It’s difficult to get the weather windows to cut silage but it’s important we take any chances so as not to get caught with a high demand.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 4.02

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 75

    Average Farm Cover (kg/cow) 158

    Yield (l/cow/day) 25

    Fat % 4.61

    Protein % 3.6

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 2.11

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 1

    Beef Farmers

    Trevor Boland – Dromard, Co Sligo

    Grass is growing well thanks to the bit of heat we have received recently.

    Even with the heavy showers ground conditions are holding up and the cattle are being moved every three days and they are leaving behind very good clean outs.

    Currently we have paddocks nineteen days ahead of the cattle so I will be closing up paddocks to reduce this back to ten days.

    I hope to cut our first cut silage at the end of the month, with the intention of cutting these surplus paddocks at the same time.

    All the slurry had been used up on the silage ground, and grass growth is pushing on now in these fields from the heat that’s been gained from the recent good spell.

    System Suckler to beef

    SoilType Mostly dry

    Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 924

    Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 122

    Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 55

    Niall O’Meara – Killimor, Co Galway

    Ground conditions are still tricky for grazing. Its proving difficult to get good clean outs.

    When the cattle were housed grass grew well, but its hard to achieve good covers of 1,300-1,400 now with slow regrowth.

    One third of the farm is closed for silage and I hope to get it cut soon enough to have the regrowth for grazing stock.

    10 acres are ready to cut but ground is too wet to travel, so hopefully with the next good spell I will get it cut.

    I have sown nine paddocks with white clover with sowing dates spaced out. I have been applying 10 units of protected urea to grazing paddocks the past two weeks.

    System Suckler to weaning

    SoilType Variable

    Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 740

    Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 74

    Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 57

    William Treacy – Hackballscross, Co Louth

    With the recent heat and the moisture in the ground, grass growth has really kicked off.

    I have no paddocks taken out for silage but I may allocate some within the next week, which we would cut along with our first cut in two weeks’ time.

    I’ve been applying slurry on paddocks that were cleaned out well and there has been some that received a top up of fertiliser.

    I had one paddock which went too strong, which I have 70% zero grazed and I am currently grazing areas of it which were too difficult to travel. With the slight improvement in the weather, ground conditions are beginning to follow suit compared to earlier in the year which is promising.

    System Suckler to finishing

    Soil Type Free draining

    Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 913

    Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 72

    Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 58