Grass: The next three weeks are normally the most important three weeks of the year in grassland management terms. There are usually a number of key decisions to be made around supplementation and when to start the second rotation. I say usually because this year everything is up in the air, and for once it’s not COVID-19-related, but weather-related. The west was once again badly affected by heavy rain on Tuesday. The cumulative effect of all this rain is severe. It will take longer for saturated land to dry out. A lot of farmers in that region have no grazing done. The only advice we can give is to continue to monitor the dry fields and when ready let cows out for a few hours at a time.

The long-range forecast is good. Free-draining land will dry up quickly, so farmers on these soils will need to make decisions. Those who are on or close to target for area grazed and average farm cover should be getting nervous about running out of grass. It’s a great position to be in as it means you’ve made good use of the grass that was available. There are three things to be looking at:

  • Cover on the first grazed paddocks.
  • Growth rate versus herd demand.
  • Average farm cover not going below 500kg/ha.
  • Those on free-draining land who haven’t much of the farm grazed will need to take swift action. Ignore all the high covers and concentrate on the low covers to get as much grazed before the end of the month as possible. Consider turning out dry cows on really heavy covers to get them grazed off, weather permitting.

    Reseeding: This weeks’ Focus is on reseeding. It seems early to be thinking about it but I predict that reseeding could be early this year. We are due a dry spell of weather – it’ll have to come some time. When it does come there’ll be a flush of grass and taking paddocks out for reseeding will be a good way of dealing with a grass surplus. Now is the time to identify the paddocks for reseeding and the varieties to be sown. Mixtures are fine once there’s only good varieties in the mix. Looking at the on-farm variety research, it’s clear that tetraploids are outperforming diploids. That’s from data across a range of soil types. AI bulls should also be ordered by now. I’m hearing that some scarcity is likely with some of the top bulls already booked out.

    Discussion groups: Most events and meetings are now cancelled, so the support network for farmers has changed. Obviously, the priority must be people’s health. However, farming issues remain and this spring has been challenging from a weather perspective. With uncertainty in the markets, this is not the time to let farming standards slip. Most discussion groups have WhatsApp accounts. On-farm information should continue to be gathered and shared among group members, with issues discussed and problems solved. This can be done by texting into the group, or setting aside time to have a group chat over WhatsApp. If you have any questions about how coronavirus will affect your farm or questions for our specialist team, email corona@farmersjournal.ie or call 01-419 9555.

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