Banding: Cows have been milking very well this back-end, with most co-ops reporting increases in week-on-week milk deliveries between this year and last year in the high single digits. While this is good from a farm performance point of view, farmers need to be careful to stay within their nitrates bands.

While it won’t make any difference for this year, it could affect it next year. However, when selecting bands, farmers have the option of either picking the milk yield for the last year or the last three years. So even if 2025 milk yield is in one of the higher bands but the average of the last three years is not, the farm can still stay in a lower band.

The bands are 80kg N/cow if milk yield is less than 4,500kg, 92kg N/cow if milk yield is between 4,500kg and 6,500kg and 106kg if greater than 6,500kg. Milk yield per cow is worked out from total milk sales in kilograms of milk (1l = 1.0297kg) divided by average number of dairy cows over the year.

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A cow is considered a dairy cow even if she is marked as dry or marked for culling. If a farm is at risk of exceeding the band, drying off early and/or keeping cull cows until the end of the year will reduce average milk yield.

Genotyping: Farmers that signed up to the National Genotyping Programme (NGP) this year are reminded to send back the full herd samples to the lab as soon as possible.

ICBF are concerned that if full herd samples are not delivered to the lab soon, they will be caught up in the spring rush, resulting in a backlog for calf testing. ICBF are saying farmers that enrolled in the programme for the first time this year must send samples to the lab by 1 December to ensure free genotyping and avoid a backlog.

Grazing: Extremely heavy rain over the last week in Munster has put an end to grazing on many farms. Only farms with enough dry land and plenty of grass are still out grazing. The last few weeks have been really good from a grass growth point of view, but ground conditions are the challenge now.

I always think that a day at grass in spring is worth twice as much as a day at grass in autumn, so carrying over grass to spring is never a concern. The only concern I would have is carrying over paddocks that have a cover of 1,500kg or more now, as a high proportion of this is likely to die back over the winter.

Dairy Day: All roads lead to Limerick this Saturday 15 November for Dairy Day. Read more about the event on pages 32 and 33 and check out the ads for the full lists of exhibitors. New for this year is a live cubicle sweeping demonstration area and a new careers and education clinic for those looking to take their next step in their dairy career or wondering what courses to pursue.

Tickets to the event costs €20, but subscribers to the Irish Farmers Journal and those that purchase the paper get a 50% discount if they use the promo code DAIRY10 when booking tickets on ifj.ie/dairyday. Doors open at 9am and the first talks start at 10.30am.