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Grass should be blowing in the wind on your farms in the next fortnight. In an ideal year, where control is maintained over grass 100% of the time, our farm cover should be reaching its annual peak in the next fortnight.
A farm stocked at 2.5 LU/ha should be targeting an average farm cover of 1,500kg DM/ha in the middle of September. This equates to 30-35 grazing days. In simple terms, that means that if you were to look at all of your paddocks, the average grass height would be 10cm.
You might think you have a lot of grass at this point with second-cut ground having returned, but have you got this much?
Cost of grass
Grass costs 7c per kg/dry matter to produce. Grass silage costs around 20c and concentrates from 25-30c. Feed accounts for 75% of the direct costs in beef production, so a change to the diet can mean a lot for our bottom line.
By getting more grass into the diet, and reducing the need for silage and concentrates, we improve margins and the BETTER farm programme has showed this consistently for nine years now.
So, with this in mind, fertiliser should be on the menu in the coming days
The 1,500kg target is designed to set up a farm so that there will be enough grass into the back end to keep stock out into November, while having a good amount of grass in the bank as stock are housed for the winter.
This will show its worth in the spring: according to Teagasc, every extra day at grass is worth €2.70/head versus being in the shed.
So, with this in mind, fertiliser should be on the menu in the coming days. Depending on stocking rate, farmers should consider a blanket spread of 27 units of nitrogen across the whole farm. If farmers have more than 25 days of grass ahead there is less of a need to go with this spread.
With the recent wet conditions farmers should consider strip-grazing cattle in 24-hour blocks to prevent any major poaching occurring.
Those very tight on grass could consider housing forward stock slightly early. With the unsettled weather, performance will undoubtedly be dipping.
Tullamore Farm
System suckler/calf to beef
Soil Type variable
Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 954
Grass Demand (kg DM/ha/day) 40
Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 66
Grass growth is still exceeding demand despite all the bad weather over the past seven days. Cows are currently grazing in 24-hour blocks to prevent any poaching occurring.
Towards the end of last week in periods of very high rainfall, the cattle were moved after they had grazed the grass to approximately 6cm instead of the normal 4cm graze-out.
I have also earmarked 1.4 acres to be taken out as bales towards the end of the week, weather permitting. We spread a half bag of urea/acre on over 40 acres last week to build covers for the autumn with urea being selected because of the damp weather.
Drainage of five acres is also taking place at the moment.
This soil is quite heavy in nature and is easily poached in some parts of the year so we took the decision to install several shore drains along the field. The 32 acres that was reseeded in early August recently received two bags of 0-7-30/acre followed by 1t/lime/acre to lift soil pH.
Co Louth
System suckler to bull beef
Soil type free-draining
Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 651
Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 50
Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 42
Grass supply is reasonable enough on the farm. In the last few days the place has dried out well and grass utilisation has increased.
I spread around 25 units of Sulphur Can late last week on some of the farm and the remainder will get around 25 units this week in order to build covers as we head into the autumn.
Autumn calving is taking place and is going OK and as cows calve the demand will increase.
With the very wet weather last week, I took in a group of heifers I was feeding meal to at grass as I felt they were getting very poor utilisation from the grass.
Now I have them on good-quality silage and 6kg of meal and they should be fit for slaughter in a month or so.
Autumn-calving bulls were taken in three weeks ago for finishing under 16 months they are on ad-lib meal now and are doing very well. Scanning took place last week and I was very happy how it went.
Co Cork
System suckler/calf to bull beef
Soil type relatively dry
Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 958
Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 41
Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 76
I am currently growing 76kg DM/ha with a demand of 41kg. I am stocked at 2.51LU/ha on average but a number of these stock are calves I purchased in the spring so demand is low.
They are getting 1kg of ration at grass. I have begun feeding ration to my stores that I intend finishing before housing.
They have access to a bale of silage in the field as I feel dry matter in the grass is low.
I am spreading 1.5 bags of 18:6:12 per acre on all my ground now for the last rotation.
Some of the fields that had two cuts of silage will receive a higher application to make up for P&K offtake. I took my second cut last weekend after a long delay due to bad weather and made all bales. Quality was good as the first cut was delayed also due to rain.
No further bales will be made as I will be building covers from now on. I dosed all my calves for worms last weekend with a drench and they received their blackleg booster. A fluke dose will follow in the fall of the year.
Co Mayo
System suckler to bull beef
Soil type variable
Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1,806
Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 28
Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 74
The month of August has brought a lot of rain up here and ground conditions are challenging to say the least. I housed 11 of the heaviest bulls last week at an average weight of 500kg. I’m slowly building them up to ad-lib and I hope to have them hanging on the hook before Christmas.
The remaining bulls will remain at grass for another two weeks or so unless the weather gets any worse.
Despite the inclement weather I have plenty of grass and if ground conditions allow I hope to get slurry out on the majority of paddocks as I close off sections of the farm in early October. I’m going with a half bag of urea across parts of the farm this week. Urea works well on my ground as soil fertility is quite good.
I’ve culled almost half my herd of cows at this stage. I’m moving away from the Angus-type cow as I wasn’t happy with the carcase weights and the poor weaning weight was a key contributor to this.
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