Growth has been relatively good since the rainfall has returned, but, as is always the case, someone upstairs could do with turning off the tap now - it’s made enough rainfall even for the driest of farms.

While a good deal of fieldwork had been completed before then, there is still a lot of farms that had held off on first cut now sitting on their hands for a few dry days.

Any silage that has been made in the last three weeks or so has been a smash-and-grab job, so a more settled period of weather (which is due to hit us next week) would be much appreciated.

The dry spell hitting when it did probably didn’t help grass quality. While there were good graze-outs being achieved on paddocks, that last week in May and first week in June is always a natural time of the year for grass to head out anyway and the drought stress exasperated this on some swards.

As mentioned last week, mowing out and baling is the preferred option, though if there is a large part of the farm that needs correction, pre-mowing or topping will be required.

Treating weeds

Paddocks getting a blow of the mower is also a good way of getting any weeds (particularly dock, thistles and nettles) back to a more manageable stage for treatment with spray, with the efficacy improved when it is applied at the correct growth stage of the weed.

Be cautious with paddocks with clover in them that the spray is clover-safe or, ideally, use spot treatment instead.

Using a dye mixed in with the sprayer is a good means of identifying what plants were sprayed.

Reseeds

Pasturebase Ireland this week pointed out that now is likely the time for spring reseeds to become ready for spraying with a post-emergence spray.

Dock leaves should ideally be about the size of a €2 coin before spraying.

There has also been reportedly some secondary germination on reseeds, whereby a percentage of seeds germinated soon after sowing, while other seeds remained in the soil and have only germinated in the last three weeks with the rainfall.

Where this happens, pre-emergence spray might have to be delayed for another two weeks or so to prevent damaging these seedlings.

For docks and larger weeds, the trusty knapsack can be deployed in the interim to prevent these becoming too strong.