It has certainly been a slow start to the year in terms of grass growth, with many farmers struggling with grass covers for a lot of the first rotation.
However, soil temperatures have increased to 8-10℃, which has spurred on grass growth significantly over the last week.
Grazing conditions have been brilliant over the spring, which has allowed many farmers to get cows out since early February, but the fear initially was that regrowths were slow to return and that farmers would run tight before the start of the second rotation.
Now, many farmers have still been stretching out their first rotation to delay the start of their second rotation in order to build covers and to have the first five paddocks of the second rotation with average covers of 1,200kg of dry matter (DM)/ha.
Grass growth
The current grass growth is actually ahead of the five-year average, according to Pasture Base Ireland, after being behind the average since the the start of spring.
Rainfall is predicted to amount between 15-31mm across the country, with showers occurring in places over the weekend and into next week, which will hopefully improve grass growth even further, as some parts will need a bit of moisture in the soil.
Current average grass growth nationally sits at around 40kg of DM/ha/day, with predicted growth over the next week to be between 43-51kg DM/ha/day.
Of the farms recording data into Pasturebase Ireland, the average diet is currently at 13kg DM of grass with 4.5kg of meal and 1.5kg of silage.
Average farm cover (AFC) has improved significantly in the last number of days, and sits at 735kg DM/ha.
If you are below 550kg DM/ha AFC or a cover/livestock unit (LU) is below 160kg DM/LU, then the rotation will have to be slowed down by allocating 12kg of grass DM/day, having the cows out by day and in by night if at all possible.
Farms with AFC over 650kg DM/ha and between 160-220kg DM/LU, cows should be out full-time, getting allocated 15-17kg DM grass while maintaining meal feeding levels and silage should be completely cut from the diet.
If AFC is up near 800kg DM/ha or above 220kg DM/LU, cows should be allocated 15-17kg DM of grass and the amount of meal should begin to get reduced, with silage completely cut from the det.
Ideally, before starting the second rotation, farm cover should be at 650-700kg DM/ha or 200kg/LU if at all possible.
Fertiliser
The focus at this time of the year is getting silage fields fertilised, which is understandable, but farmers must not forget to keep the milking platform up to date with nitrogen application while including sulphur (S) at this time of the year.
Compound fertilisers work well at this time of the year and farmers should work off their nutrient management plan and soil results to target paddocks low in phosphorus (P) and potassium (K).
Your next application of fertiliser should be considered, as getting compound fertiliser out on ground that got no slurry could be beneficial, and for paddocks that received slurry, an N and S product is advised.
If there is a P allowance on the farm, the next application of fertiliser should be a compound like 18-6-12 in the coming days, as you want to build up the low P index soils now.
Every 1,000 gallons of cattle slurry with a 6% DM applied per acre equates to a bag of 9-5-30 when applied using low emission slurry spreading (LESS) and is worth €28 per 1,000 gallons.
This slurry would have been targeted on low index soils in early spring on many farms, which are using it to great effect and getting the best out of its value.
If sulphur is spread between March and July during the main grazing season, studies have shown that up to 2.5t/ha of extra grass growth can be achieved.
Sulphur level recommendations are 20kg/ha per year on grazing ground and 20kg/ha per each cut on silage ground.
