Weather

The rainfall of late has helped shore up growth no end. It was looking like a drought was imminent on some drier farms in the south and east, but thankfully sufficient rain arrived in time.

However, paddocks did come under some moisture stress which led to some stemming out. Even if we had perfect weather conditions, it’s just the natural time of the year for paddocks to stem out, with correction being required.

Topping

Topping is a bit of a dirty word. Some say it’s a sign of poor management or too low of a stocking rate. In my experience, every paddock needs to see the blades of a mower or topper once in the year. Grass invariably stems out and dung pats accumulate, and where it is not possible to whip a paddock out in bales for whatever reason (stony, uneven ground, too small of paddocks) then topping a paddock isn’t going to hammer your growth that much that it should be avoided.

Yes, it will check growth, but quality will be corrected. My advice on topping is to use a disc mower as opposed to a ‘topper’ with one or two large blades. The disc mower seems to leave a finer cut, as opposed to the bigger blades of a topper which work a bit like a flail head of a hedge cutter, bashing the grass a bit more than your smaller mower blades.

Building silage stocks

While May was a great month to get some quality silage in the bag, talking to contractors (particularly in the northwest), yields are well down. I’d assume it is the same for much of the country, as the dry spell did impede growth and stopped some late application of fertiliser being washed in.

Now is the time to assess how you look to be set for winter 2025, not at the end of July. Calculate what you will need for winter, then assess what is in the yard between this year and last years stock.

Finally, estimate what you are hoping to make in second cut. If the back of the matchbox figures are showing a deficit, then you need to act now through taking out more ground for silage or topping up some silage ground for a heavier, later cut. The earlier first cut meant ground was quick to green up again, so even delaying second cut to allow it to bulk up should tally with the normal cutting date.