Soil health: The autumn period is a great time to correct soil pH. In the majority of areas, ground conditions are most favourable at this time of the year and most of the silage has been harvested. Spreading lime now will encourage grass growth in the coming spring by releasing organic nitrogen and phosphorus. In turn this will have a beneficial effect in increasing earthworm and microbial activity in the soil. The value of having good earthworm and microbial activity is something that has been overlooked a lot but it has huge benefits when it comes to soil structure and root development. Liming also increases the uptake in utilisation of chemical N, P and K fertilisers. Check soil samples and target paddocks with low pH. Apply lime after grazing or to low grass covers, after second-cut silage or at reseeding. Target a pH of 6.3 for grassland.

Empty cows: A lot of farms are starting to scan to see what level of empty cows are in the herd. The next question is should these cows remain on the farm for much longer? The No 1 priority on farms should be to build grass to extend the grazing season and increase the tonnes of grass grown, which will have the greatest effect on profitability.

If you are too highly stocked to build grass, selling empty cows is certainly something you should be considering. However, if a grass budget is in place and you are able to build grass with your current stocking rate, the next area that needs to be assessed is winter feed. Now is a great time to assess the fodder supply on farms as most of the winter feed has been harvested. A lot of silage has been made this year and surplus fodder will be present on a lot of farms.

So, if you have the ability to build grass at your current stocking rate and the fodder supply is in excess, it certainly would be worth considering milking on the empty cows till the end of the season as milk price is relatively good. However, assessing grass supply and winter feed first is vital to understand the profitability of doing so.

Milk recording: Most farmers milk-recording are doing so four to six times throughout the year, getting an overall picture of the performance and health status of each individual cow. There is no doubt that this is the best way to get the full value out of milk-recording. However, for those not doing it, carrying out a milk recording over the next month could prove very beneficial.

Milk-recording now will help you identify cows in the herd with somatic cell count (SCC) problems and subclinical mastitis. SCC can fluctuate throughout the year so I would be very slow to cull young cows with high SCC based on just one milk recording.

The cure rate for older cows is 30% so if they are causing problems they might be better culled. Identifying young cows with SCC problems now will give you the opportunity to cure them before drying off. It also allows you to but a plan in place for drying off. Failure to dry off cows correctly on the basis of their SCC performance ends up with cows carrying SCC problems from one lactation to the next.