Farmers with stocking rates of over 3.5 cows/ha on their milking platform may get used to feeding silage over the summer, head of dairy knowledge transfer at Teagasc Joe Patton has said.

Farmers, he said, would need to be growing over 70kg DM/ha to sustain such a high stocking rate, adding that the window to achieve this is relatively small.

On a mediocre year, at this stocking rate, there may only be two months of the year where you wouldn't be feeding silage, Patton explained.

"It's the farms that are stocked at over 3.5 cows/ha - those farms will be feeding silage for sure, based on the growth rates we have achieved up to this point.

'Not a weather issue'

"The farms stocked on the [milking] platform of less than 3 cows/ha probably were growing enough grass to keep them going, but what they weren't able to do was close area to make silage. If you're over 3.5 cows/ha and you're feeding silage in the summer, you may get used to it - that's not a weather issue," he said.

However, he argued that these dairy farmers who are feeding are probably more aware of a fodder deficit arising next winter and have secured extra silage.

"If you were feeding silage today, you'd be panicking about next winter, but if you're not feeding silage and you're treading water, it mightn't be as apparent," he said.

Patton stressed that farmers need to "open their eyes" to the fact that the weather this year provided farmers with very little opportunity to close off areas in order to accrue surpluses.

"The interesting thing over the course of this year is that the growth rate never dropped to the point where it was catastrophic and people had to feed a pile of silage or a pile of palm kernel.

"That hasn't happened to a large extent - it has happened on some farms, but what has happened is that growth has in and around matched demand, which meant that people had to graze silage ground to keep going or maybe graze some of their second cut.

"There was enough grass on the farm to maintain the grazing of the herd, but no surpluses have accumulated to push into the winter time," he said.

Forecast growth

Grass growth over the next week is forecast to return to relatively normal levels for this time of year, according to Teagasc figures.

This, Patton said, should allow dairy farmers to get their rotation lengths back to 20 or 21 days and sort out issues with quality.

"If the budget allows or if the farm cover allows, it might be an opportunity to tidy up some poorer-quality pastures or take out a couple of areas for surplus grass, if needed, to fix a quality problem," he said.

However, he emphasised that this return to more normal growth will not put a "major dent" in a potential feed shortage for next winter.

He advised farmers to be aware that they may need to source extra silage to cut in the next few weeks.

"A lot of the time, the people who run into trouble, they wait and they wait to make a move and then it's too late.

"We were saying three or four weeks ago that it was still early in the year [to make silage], but that's three high growth weeks of the year gone. You really have about 10 weeks now to sort out any issues with fodder deficits," he said.