Autumn grazing: Building covers to achieve extra days at grass

It is important to set your autumn grazing targets now in order to avoid having poor average farm covers (AFC) come the latter end of the grazing season.

The focus of autumn grazing management is to increase the number of days at grass and improve on animal performance where possible.

Autumn grazing is also very important to set the farm up for the final rotation to grow grass during winter and to provide grass the following spring.

It is a little too early to be thinking about the final rotation, but building those covers starts now.

It has been a tough grazing season so far this year, however, the good weather in the last number of days has boosted growth and could be a sign of positive growth rates to come throughout the autumn.

It is important to get the most out of the remainder of the grazing season and keep cows out at grass for as long as possible in order to convert the cheapest form of feed in grass to quality milk production.

Autumn grazing targets

The grazing rotation should aim to be extended from August 10 onwards, focusing on gradually building pre-grazing covers, targeting pre-grazing yields of 2,000kg DM/ha in mid-September.

Any paddocks over 2,500kg DM/ha should be harvested as surplus silage and should be ideally removed in August to allow the cover to build back up.

Building covers in August is important in order to achieve extra days at grass in the autumn, and to extend the rotation from early August by 2.5 days/week.

Farmers must aim to go from a 21/22-day rotation in late July to a 30-day rotation by September 1, in order to build covers around the farm.

In order to achieve this, farmers must build peak farm cover in early September, to ideally 350-400 kg DM/cow and 1100 kg DM/ha AFC or 900 kg DM/ha AFC on heavy soils farm.

How to build grass, is as follows:

• ​Increase grazing area – bring in silage ground/reseed ground;
• Reduce demand;
• ​Remove young stock or surplus stock;
• Supplement with meal and/or silage;
• Complete a grass budget for the autumn and continue to walk the farm weekly.

The autumn grazing targets for different stocking rates according to Pasturebase Ireland are as follows:

By following the targets, you will be able to achieve the right farm cover at the right time which will make decisions a lot easier to make and allow for a smooth autumn grazing.

It is important to not fall into the trap of building farm covers too late into the season and being forced into harvesting surplus grass in September, as it won’t give the grass a chance to grow back.