The Grass Week: miniscule rainfall lends to more field work

Rainfall is nearly non-existent and while it is not exactly ’T-shirt farming’ weather with the cooler breeze, it is still very much welcome.

Over a seven-day window (13 March to 19 March), none of the weather stations across the country recorded more than 2mm of rainfall.

In saying this, soil temperatures in a lot of these weather stations were still below 7C, something that farmers could expect given the lacklustre growth recently.

While there is some rainfall coming into play in the next week, warmer temperatures are set to come with it.

Combined with slurry and fertiliser application, this could kick grass growth into gear, so application of both should be considered if it hasn’t happened in the last three weeks or so.

Silage ground

Silage ground should be prioritised for grazing to remove any old growth that is sitting on it.

If cattle or sheep grazed it into the new year, then it is likely fine to skip grazing and apply slurry and/or fertiliser, but if grass is sitting on it since last October or November, then this is better cleaned off before closing up for silage.

Prudent use of slurry

Slurry is a valuable asset and should be treated as such when it comes to application.

While we are all guilty of hitting the same dry fields to relieve pressure in a bad year, when ground conditions allow it (such as now) we should aim to hit the forgotten paddocks that are most in need of it.

It’s not too late to do a soil analysis of paddocks or fields, provided they haven’t been targeted with any slurry, dung or compound fertiliser. Paddocks that have been spread with straight N can be sampled, as it is the P and K levels that are most important.