Colin Doherty

Adare, Co Limerick

The reigning grassland farmer of the year hosted a farm walk in early September.

At the time, the milking platform had an average farm cover (AFC) of around 180kg/ha but when we spoke to Colin this week he said that AFC is up to 300kg/ha. This is still well short of the target for the time of year of around 1,000kg/ha, so Colin continues to zero-graze feed in from the outfarm.

The contractor is bringing back two loads of the zero grazer per day, which equates to 10kg of red clover/grass per cow per day. The red clover sward, which is currently being zero-grazed, received no chemical nitrogen since being sown last year.

“We grew 45kg/day when I walked the farm last week but I reckon it’s growing over 60kg per day now.

“With the demand set at 30kg, we should be adding about 30kg/day to our average farm cover, so in three weeks’ time we should be at 1,000kg/ha which is what the grass budget was telling us we would be at,” Colin says.

The stocking rate on the milking platform is 2.65 cows/ha. Colin did sell five cull cows but has decided to keep the rest until October and then cull. Meal feeding rates have been reduced to 2kg per cow per day. The overall target is to achieve a closing cover of 800kg/ha on 1 December.

Colin Doherty, Adare, Co Limerick.

Early last week, 20 units/acre of nitrogen were applied on the grass swards, while the fields with a high level of clover got soiled water only. The whole farm received an average of 160kg of chemical nitrogen per hectare this year, which is back compared to other years.

“We didn’t spread any fertiliser when the weather was dry which saved a lot of nitrogen but I can’t say that we’ll be at 160kg N/ha next year. If we got more normal growth rates I’d have spread more nitrogen.

“Total average growth rate is back by about 1.5t DM/ha up to recently because of the dry spell so that has had to be replaced with extra meal and zero grazed grass.”

Donal Hayes

Killorglin, Co Kerry

Kerry Agribusiness and Teagasc held a farm walk last week on the farm of Donal and Eileen Hayes, who farm on the banks of the Laune river near Killorglin in Co Kerry. The Hayes family won the Kerry Agribusiness milk quality and sustainability awards for 2022. Donal is milking 77 cows and keeps all replacement heifers on a 37ha farm of free-draining land.

Regular rainfall throughout the summer meant that the farm continued to grow well for almost all the summer and still managed to get a bounce in growth since the rain came.

Eileen and Donal Hayes with Sean McCarthy, Kerry Agribusiness.

Average farm cover is now just shy of 1,000kg/ha and the farm grew 90kg/day last week. Pre-grazing yields are well over 2,000kg with one field which was reseeded last year up at 2,900kg/ha which is a bit too high.

The overall stocking rate is 2.75 livestock units/ha and with 3kg of meal in the diet, the overall demand is 44kg/day so cover on the farm is still increasing.

Rotation length is currently 28 days but Donal plans to increase this to 35 days by the end of the month. No silage has been fed this autumn and no silage should have to be fed for a long time to come.

“If we do end up getting tight for grass later on, I’ll probably house the in-calf heifers and give them silage which will reduce the demand for grass. We spread one round of protected urea back in the middle of August and we got a great response to it,” Donal says.

While Donal is on target for average farm cover, the fact that growth rates are higher than normal indicates that the farm could end up with too much grass on hand. At this stage, that’s a more likely outcome than having too little grass. The problem with too much grass is that pre-grazing yields get high, quality declines, regrowth is slower and it’s also harder to get a good cleanout.

In Donal’s case, he has a dry farm and a relatively high demand for grass so he should be able to manage it but on heavy farms, having too much grass at this time of year is a risk because if ground conditions get bad, there could be a lot of heavy covers which are unable to be grazed.

Alan Hughes

Bagenalstown, Co Carlow

Grass growth for the year to date is back by 16% for Carlow farmer Alan Hughes. A dry spell in June and a prolonged dry spell in July and August have meant that Alan has been feeding silage for most of the summer.

When the Irish Farmers Journal spoke to Alan this week, the situation was looking a lot better and silage was just being removed from the diet.

“We grew 48kg/day for the last week and, rightly or wrongly, I’m predicting that we’ll grow over 50kg/day for the next few weeks. The farm normally grows well at the shoulders so I think we will achieve those growth rates.”

Dairy farmer Alan Hughes with his children Jim, aged six, and Ali, aged two, on farm at Dunleckney, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow.

With a relatively low stocking rate of 2.65 cows/ha on the milking platform when 13 acres that were reseeded come into the round, Alan’s demand for grass is not exceptionally high. The diet for all of August and most of September was 8kg/day of silage, 6kg per day of meal and the rest in grass. Average grass growth rates went as low as 5kg/day just before the rain came.

Now that the farm is in recovery mode and average farm cover has reached 628kg/ha, Alan has decided to drop the silage from the diet, meaning grass allocation can increase to 12kg/day.

“We’ll continue to feed 6kg of meal for another while. I felt it was more important to get silage out of the diet because protein has been struggling and now that pre-grazing yields are going up to 1,500kg/ha, getting a good cleanout when there’s a lot of silage being fed will be difficult,” Alan says.

The demand with silage gone is 34kg/day so if the farm grows 55kg/day, an additional 21kg/ha of average farm cover will be added every day. Alan’s grass budget suggests that the average farm cover will peak in three weeks’ time at 940kg/ha. Twenty units/acre of nitrogen was spread across the farm early last week so it’s well set up for growth.

“We’ll measure every week and make adjustments if and when we need to. I’d like to reduce the meal feeding as soon as we can but if we don’t get the growth rates we expect we might have to go back in feeding silage. The target closing cover is 750kg/ha on 1 December but we might go a bit lower than this if the weather is good at that stage. Having 65% of the farm closed by the end of October is an important target though.”