Tomorrow is 1 November and all farms should have at least 60% of the farm closed and highly stocked farms closer to 70%.

Most of the grass available in early spring will grow in October so anything grazed from now on will have a low cover in early spring.

There are two options for the last 30-40% and that is to keep grazing strong and house the cows when grass is gone or try to stretch it out by adding silage. There are pros and cons to both the biggest win was achieving the 60-70% closed.

Closing up the farm at the target average farm cover (AFC) on 1 December is now the most important thing to focus on. This target will be anywhere from 550 to 750kg/ha depending on stocking rate, land type and six week calving rate as previously mentioned.

Close up

Grass is disappearing fast on some farms now and it’s important to close up in time and leave

grass for the spring. So how do we know when to stop?

The average growth for November over the last 10 years was around 10kg/day. The most grass you are going to build is if you close the farm today and grew an average of 10kg a day for the month of November you would add 300kg/ha to your AFC today. So anyone hoping to close up at 700kg/ha on 1 December and their average farm cover is near 400 today, grazing should be finished. Similarly if you’re at 500kg/ha next week your grazing season should end then in order to hit the 700kg/ha on 1 December.

Covers

While the closing farm cover is the most important thing to focus on now, another area which is worth looking at is the highest cover you’re bringing across the winter.

Ideally no paddock would have a cover higher than 1,500kg on 1 December. So if we work back to today any field at 1,200kg DM/ha or more should be considered for grazing before the farm is closed up.

  • Grass growth this week averaged 25kg/day.
  • By 1 November all farms should have at least 60% of the farm closed.
  • Average growth for November over the last 10 years was around 10kg/day.