Rain has come over the last week for most. However, the distribution and total amounts that fell varied widely over short distances.
Soil moisture deficits (SMD) last week sat at 50mm-80mm around the country. To get grass growth back to its full potential, this needs to be back below 30mm.
So if you were in a badly affected area with a SMD of 80mm and received 20mm to 40mm over the weekend, you’re heading the right direction. However, any significant rise in growth will be slow to come as the current moisture deficit may still be close to 60mm. So if grass is in short supply, supplementation must continue.
For farmers in the south and west of Ireland who may be at a 50mm moisture deficit or less, receiving 20mm to 40mm of rain could really turn growth around on your farms and managing grass quality will be the challenge.
The main thing now is to walk the farm. Assess the grass covers and the grass quality, both of which seem to be under pressure at the moment. Quality has come under pressure due to the moisture deficit and the stress on the plant makes it go to seed.
If the farm cover is well over 180kg/LU and growth is higher than demand then there is an opportunity to correct grass quality by taking poor quality grass out as surplus bales.
Farmers in this situation should also try to match the demand with grass growth by reducing any extra supplementation that may have been introduced over the last week or two.
If fertiliser spreading had come to a halt with the dry weather and you received the rain over the last week, now would be a good time to blanket-spread the farm with 15 to 20 units/acre of nitrogen.
Teagasc Curtins Farm, Co Cork
Things are starting to green up here this week. We received 12mm of rain over the weekend and another 7mm Monday night. I have one paddock taken off the wedge for surplus bales as quality was poor. If we get more rain and growth holds we will cut the paddock early next week. Until then, we will wait in case growth drops back and we need to graze it. We have 50 cows out of 125 scanned in-calf after two weeks of breeding and plan on scanning another 25 this week that seemed to have held to the service in the third week of breeding. We are now in week eight and there is very little activity.
Athea, Co Limerick
The cold north wind is slowing growth here more than the moisture deficit. We grew 66kg/day over the last week but I except it to be higher this week. The soil moisture deficit here was 57mm and after the 25mm of rain we received it was measured again and down to 37mm. A jump in growth this week will give me a chance to manage grass quality as some fields are going stemmy from stress. Ground that was reseeded the 8 May is also ready to come back in and will be grazed next week at a cover of 800kg/ha. I am still following the cows with fertiliser going with 20 units of protected urea.
Eyrecourt, Co Galway
We got no rain here over the weekend. It just seemed to miss us here. Grass is tight on the ground with pre-grazing yield dropping back to 800kg/ha. We are currently feeding 5kg of silage and 5kg of meal in the parlour along with 8kg of grass. If we don’t get rain this week, we will go in with 2kg of soya hulls on top of current supplementation. Cows are getting grass day and night and are being fed silage in feeders in a paddock close to the yard. It’s a young herd, all first- and second-calvers, so cows are still milking well which is probably down to the quality of the silage.
Rain has come over the last week for most. However, the distribution and total amounts that fell varied widely over short distances.
Soil moisture deficits (SMD) last week sat at 50mm-80mm around the country. To get grass growth back to its full potential, this needs to be back below 30mm.
So if you were in a badly affected area with a SMD of 80mm and received 20mm to 40mm over the weekend, you’re heading the right direction. However, any significant rise in growth will be slow to come as the current moisture deficit may still be close to 60mm. So if grass is in short supply, supplementation must continue.
For farmers in the south and west of Ireland who may be at a 50mm moisture deficit or less, receiving 20mm to 40mm of rain could really turn growth around on your farms and managing grass quality will be the challenge.
The main thing now is to walk the farm. Assess the grass covers and the grass quality, both of which seem to be under pressure at the moment. Quality has come under pressure due to the moisture deficit and the stress on the plant makes it go to seed.
If the farm cover is well over 180kg/LU and growth is higher than demand then there is an opportunity to correct grass quality by taking poor quality grass out as surplus bales.
Farmers in this situation should also try to match the demand with grass growth by reducing any extra supplementation that may have been introduced over the last week or two.
If fertiliser spreading had come to a halt with the dry weather and you received the rain over the last week, now would be a good time to blanket-spread the farm with 15 to 20 units/acre of nitrogen.
Teagasc Curtins Farm, Co Cork
Things are starting to green up here this week. We received 12mm of rain over the weekend and another 7mm Monday night. I have one paddock taken off the wedge for surplus bales as quality was poor. If we get more rain and growth holds we will cut the paddock early next week. Until then, we will wait in case growth drops back and we need to graze it. We have 50 cows out of 125 scanned in-calf after two weeks of breeding and plan on scanning another 25 this week that seemed to have held to the service in the third week of breeding. We are now in week eight and there is very little activity.
Athea, Co Limerick
The cold north wind is slowing growth here more than the moisture deficit. We grew 66kg/day over the last week but I except it to be higher this week. The soil moisture deficit here was 57mm and after the 25mm of rain we received it was measured again and down to 37mm. A jump in growth this week will give me a chance to manage grass quality as some fields are going stemmy from stress. Ground that was reseeded the 8 May is also ready to come back in and will be grazed next week at a cover of 800kg/ha. I am still following the cows with fertiliser going with 20 units of protected urea.
Eyrecourt, Co Galway
We got no rain here over the weekend. It just seemed to miss us here. Grass is tight on the ground with pre-grazing yield dropping back to 800kg/ha. We are currently feeding 5kg of silage and 5kg of meal in the parlour along with 8kg of grass. If we don’t get rain this week, we will go in with 2kg of soya hulls on top of current supplementation. Cows are getting grass day and night and are being fed silage in feeders in a paddock close to the yard. It’s a young herd, all first- and second-calvers, so cows are still milking well which is probably down to the quality of the silage.
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