The heavy rainfall over the week has seen mixed growth rates around the country. A mixture of rainfall and heat has led to grass growth taking off in some areas, with growth rates of up to a 100kg a day being recorded, well above the 10-year average for the week of 67.

In other areas, growth hasn’t been as good, which in some cases may be down to fertiliser not being out as some farmers where inclined to hold back during the dry spell. Making sure there is enough nitrogen out is important to maintaining grass growth and quality.

As we come to the end of the summer grazing, now is a good time to plan out your last fertiliser applications.

August is only around the corner and there may only be two more rounds of fertiliser going out before the closing date of the 15 September. Making sure there is a unit per day out between now and the last round of fertiliser goes out in late August or early September is very important to maximising grass growth during a vital period for building grass for the autumn grazing.

The last round may be an application closer to 33kg N/ha (40 units/ac), which should help hold growth rates into October and maintain the grass quality over the winter.

Poor grazing infrastructure limits a lot of farmers from growing and grazing more grass in the shoulders of the year.

Good roadway access to paddocks and a number of entry and exit points for each paddock is essential to helping extend the grazing season. Ground conditions are ideal at the moment for any construction of additional roadways that might be needed on farms. Assess your farm and see where improvements could be made. The furthest point in a field should be no more than 250m away from the roadway and no more than 200m for wet land.

  • Average growth this week of 64kg DM/ha.
  • Plan out your last rounds of fertiliser, making sure enough is out to help build grass for the autumn period.
  • Ground conditions are ideal at the moment to improve grazing infrastructure for autumn and spring grazing.