Breiffne Daly, Co Wicklow

Breiffne Daly.

We’re in drought mode here. Growth has dropped back to 50kg/day over the last week, which is back from being slightly shy of 70kg/day for previous weeks. Rotation length has been stretched out to 30 days.

Two fields originally intend for silage with covers of 3,500kg/ha are now going to be grazed. We will graze them by night and graze more ideal covers by day to help minimise the hit to production.

Cows are still on 15kg of grass and 2kg of concentrates. However, concentrates may have to be increased after the grass walk this week. We will only increase meal to 4kg, after which it will be surplus bales coming in to help fill the gap.

Nitrogen (N) went out last week in the form of NutriFert fertiliser, with phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) where needed. The P and K should help keep the plant growing and hopefully we will get most of the value out of the N.

Padraig McCarty, Lixnaw, Co Kerry

Padraig McCarthy.

Grass is tight on the ground. We got a growth rate of 42kg/day on our last walk and the cover/LU is at 140kg. We bought in soya hull and upped the level of supplementation for the last five days to 5kg in the parlour.

Up to that, grass supply was good and we were just feeding 0.4kg of a 14% dairy nut to get the cows into the parlour and giving them their mineral requirement through the water.

We are hoping to get this rain forecast for the second half of this week. If it doesn’t turn things around, we plan to go to 6kg with the hulls in the parlour and our next step after that will be introducing palm kernel.

We are holding the rotation length at 25 days and won’t go any higher for the moment, as the stress is making grass head out sooner. We only recorded a total of 21mm of rain for the month of May.

Philip Tyndall, Bunclody, Co Wexford

Philip Tyndall.

We’re not in a bad position here at the moment, but the drier fields on the farm are starting to burn. Our cover/LU is at 160 this week, with growth sitting around 50kg/day.

If we don’t get rain towards the end of this week I can only see growth dropping more. At the moment, we are feeding 4kg of meal in the parlour and the rest of the diet is grass. Pre-grazing yields are at 1,200kg and rotation length is around 23 to 25 days.

The stocking rate is still up at 4LU/ha, with reseeded ground slow to come back in.

The plan here will be to go in with high-quality bales of silage that were made in early May if we don’t get rain or anything substantial to turn growth around.

We were following the cows with protected urea on the farm, but have switched to cut sward (24:2.5:10) this round, as the K will benefit the roots and hopefully help hold growth rates on the farm.

Pat Walsh, Durrow, Co Laois

Pat Walsh.

We are in a drought situation here. We have recorded just 26mm of rain since 18 March, with only 12.5mm recorded for the month of May. The farm average farm cover is at 450kg/ha and growth last week was 35kg/day.

We grazed all the higher covers that were drying up in the fields, which was important, as grass was going backwards.

We are now left with pre-grazing yields of around 800kg/ha and are supplementing with 6kg of concentrates in the parlour, 4kg of palm kernel (PKE) and 4kg of silage in a sacrifice paddock at night.

Unlike mid-June in 2018, we don’t have the silage ground ready to come back in, as it has only been cut earlier this week. With no silage left in the pit from last year and grass going backwards in fields, there was no real option to graze silage ground.

We have the first cut of silage saved and 200 bales of silage in the yard. The plan from here is to supplement until the rain come and things get back on track.