According to Met Eireann data, soil moisture deficits are running at between 40mm and 55mm across almost all of Munster and Leinster.

To put this in context, during the peak of the 2019 soil moisture deficits, levels were running at over 80mm in the worst affected parts.

Soil moisture deficits are usually running at between 30mm and 40mm for the summer months on free-draining land with no real restriction on growth so while a 50mm deficit will affect growth rates, it’s not that severe yet.

What happens if it doesn’t rain? This is the main issues for farmers now and judging by the forecast, it looks as though most of Munster and Leinster will avoid the most of the rain this week and into next weekend.

Most farms in these regions are now growing less than 60kg per day which is a good bit less than the herd demand.

As a result, extra supplement is being fed both in the form of additional mean but also silage with a lot of dairy farmers now feeding some high-quality bales or good-quality pit silage to supplement what grass is available.

In most cases, grass is still growing but at a much slower pace than normal and in these circumstances it makes sense to want to protect average farm cover and not let it drop too low.

However, it could happen that grass will start to burn up later this week and if that does happen, then farmers shouldn’t be trying to protect what grass they have and should instead maintain a 21 to 25 day round length.

In terms of feeding silage, there are three options here. It can be fed in the shed, in a sacrifice paddock near the parlour or in the field where the cows are grazing.

There are pro’s and con’s to each but feeding out in the field that they are grazing in is probably best from a nutrient use point of view as a sacrifice paddock means there’s a lot of nutrients applied to a very small area.

Feeding in a shed is fine but it does mean that cows will be lying on cubicles and risks getting hurts or getting mastitis.