It’s a bit of a tale of two halves this week, with ample rainfall in the west leading to excellent grass supplies, while the south and southeast is reportedly seeing little to no rainfall and a little bit of pressure on grass supplies.

Pasturebase Ireland figures this week show an average growth of 68kg DM/ha over the last week, with higher-than-average growth witnessed in the northern half of the country.

Ample rainfall, combined with soil temperatures between 14°C and 16°C saw growth rates hit above 100kg DM/ha for some farms in the northwest of the country, while below-average rainfall for the south and southeast has seen some farm growths as low as the mid-30s, though average growth throughout the region is in the high 50s to mid-60s on a per-kg DM/ha basis.

Surplus

Some 44% of farms measuring with Pasturebase have recorded surplus grass on farm.

The difficulty is that most of these farms are in the areas that are receiving the most rainfall and an opportunity to remove this grass as surplus is proving challenging.

In this case, taking out some paddocks out of the rotation as long-term silage and shortening the rotation length to keep up with the extra growth may be the viable option until an opportunity arises weather-wise to mow out this surplus grass.

As is always the case, weekly measuring will be able to show where growth rates lie and by tweaking the curve, you should be able to see exactly how much should be taken out of the rotation.

For those who are tight on grass supplies, early supplementation is key - there is no point ignoring a deficit early on.

Yes, rain may fall and pick up growth, but if you don’t have the cover there to grow it in the first pace, then growth will remain lower than it should. Fourteen percent of farmers measuring grass are below where they should be in terms of cover per livestock unit.