Why is grass growing faster now than it was a month ago?

A field of grass is like one big solar panel and the more sun it captures, the more energy is created and thus the more energy is available for growth.

The sole purpose of grass growth is to become big and strong enough to support a seed head and to produce seed - survival of the species.

Longer daylight hours is a big factor in increased grass growth at this time of year.

Soil temperatures

Higher soil temperatures is another big factor and, at the moment, soil temperatures are running at between 2°C and 3°C higher than the long-term average with an average of about 9°C, depending on where you are in the country.

If the sun provides energy to the leaf, higher soil temperatures provides more energy to the roots.

Higher temperatures awakens soil microbes and enzymes from their winter slumber.

These in turn helps to create a natural chemical reaction in the soil, which is conducive to grass and other plant growth, for example, releasing background nitrogen and phosphorus and making these available for plant growth.

Chemical fertiliser

Applying chemical fertiliser increases this growth further - it acts as an accelerator to what growth is already there.

So, with higher soil temperatures and longer daylight hours, we can expect to see extra grass growth over the coming days.

I would expect that average grass growth rates are close to 30kg/ha/day on many farms.

Good covers

Farms with good grass covers will grow more compared with farms with low grass covers.

This refers back to the first point in that grass is like a solar panel, so a farm with an average farm cover of 800kg/ha will have twice as many 'solar panels' as a farm with an average farm cover of 400kg/ha.

The one worry is a drop in temperature is forecast for next week, so be prepared for growth rates to either level off or fall again over the coming days.

As the saying goes, 'don't cast a cloth 'till May is out'. Well, we're not even in April yet.