Dairy Management: high grass growth poses a risk

The difference in weather, grass growth and farmer morale couldn’t be more different between now and this time last year.

A Tipperary farmer sent me a video over the weekend of when he was grazing the first paddock in the second rotation last year. The cows were ploughing it up and were visibly unsettled.

The same field this year is like concrete and the cows are very content, producing about 15% more milk solids per day.

I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but experience has taught us that when grass growth rates increase sharply in early April, grass growth deteriorates sharply in late April and early May.

This poses a risk to milk yield and milk quality in May and June. This is because instead of going into covers of 1,300kg to 1,400kg DM/ha, cows end up going into covers of 1,700kg to 2,000kg and leave a white butt in the sward behind them.

This then reduces quality in subsequent rotations, which is what affects milk yield and protein percent.

So while a burst of growth is good to see now and is certainly better than a grass deficit at this time of year, it’ll take good management to keep on top of grass quality over the coming months.

The best policy is to walk the farm every five days and remove surpluses as they come. There are a couple of options here;

Cutting surplus grass in April is far from ideal but it may be the right thing to do in order to keep quality right as we head towards peak milk production.