This week, we saw a big jump in grass growth across the country.

For many, this has led to pre-grazing covers getting ahead of target.

The average pre-grazing cover for farms on PastureBase was 1,649kg DM/ha.

Regardless of how good the quality is, once pre-grazing covers have gone over 1,500kg DM/ha, graze-outs will suffer.

Strong paddocks

Up to now, wet conditions had made it very difficult to cut paddocks that had gone strong, which means there are now a lot of strong paddocks with surplus grass ready to cut.

Getting this cut as soon as possible and back into the rotation is very important.

These surplus bales will be of excellent quality and will be ideal for feeding in the shoulders of the year.

Target average cover per livestock unit (C/LU) is between 160kg DM/LU and 180kg DM/LU.

This week, during our grass courses, many participants were well in excess of 200kg DM/LU.

The average figure from farms across the country on PastureBase was 191kg DM/LU.

Rising growth rates

As growth rates continue to rise further above demand, these figures are only going to get higher.

This highlights the need to remove surplus grass from the wedge and have high-quality regrowth coming back.

As many are now walking the farm every five days, it provides a great chance to stay up to date with grass availability, making it possible to react quickly to surpluses.