Growth has held it’s own for the most part this week, with only a handful of farmers reporting a dip in growth due to moisture stress. The more worrying issue is that the forecast for the next week to ten days is showing little to no rainfall, which will push things in to drought territory.

I mentioned last week about taking out surplus, but this was in the understanding that rainfall would occur, but unfortunately it didn’t for the majority of people. I also mentioned the long term silage option, where a strong paddock can be taken out and owed in a few weeks, tightening up the rotation length. Unless you have a very high average farm cover or a very low demand, you should probably graze this paddock now to help maintain farm cover.

Whatever hope we have of keeping growth up, we must maintain farm cover above 550kg DM/ha. If it’s looking to dip below this, supplementation must go in.

On the fertiliser front, there seems little sense in spreading slurry (unless very watery) or bagged fertiliser until we get some rainfall. Caution would need to be exercised as well around this, as thundery bursts could just take fertiliser that is sitting on the ground and wash it away as opposed to in to the soil.

Farmers

Shaun Diver,

Tullamore Farm, Co Offaly

Although our farm cover and days ahead are high, we won’t be mowing out any surplus until we get some rain. First-cut was planned to be pitted towards the end of May, but again if there is no sign of rain next week, we will cut it before it stresses and stems out and look to get a bulkier second- cut thereafter.

A nitrates test will be done on this to ensure nitrogen levels are okay pre- mowing.

Quality of the grazing swards is good, due to good cleanouts in the last round. I haven’t spread any fertiliser of late due to the dry weather, bar on the 10 acres of barley which was top dressed on Friday after hoping for rain Sunday, which never materialised.

System: Suckler to beef

Soil Type: Variable

Farm cover: (kg/DM/ha) 1,029

Growth: (kg/DM/ha/day) 71

Demand: (kg/DM/ha/day) 46

Stephen Frend,

Newford Herd, Co Roscommon

We are okay so far for grass, as we are carrying a decent farm cover. The 12 acres that were mown as surplus two weeks ago are back now with 1,200kg DM/ha, while we have no cover above 1,700kg DM/ha. Hopefully we will see some rain in the next 10 days, but I would expect growth to hold around 40kg DM/ha this week, which should mean we won’t be eating in to our covers too much. First-cut silage is being cut today (Wednesday) and picked tomorrow. It was measured at between 4,600kg DM/ha and 5,200kg DM/ha, so it should be good quality. Breeding is going well, with 73 of 76 cows bred so far. Three weeks of breeding was completed on Saturday, and I’ve only had four repeats since then.