Grass growth: there seems to be a bit of contagion this week when it comes to soil moisture deficits and the impact on growth.

High winds are drying soils out quickly, with parts of Cork now at soil moisture deficits exceeding 60mm.

The rest of the south and east is at soil moisture deficit of 40mm or more, but increasing daily.

With no significant rain forecast and temperatures set to hit 28 degrees over the coming days evapotranspiration will be high and so a more widespread slow down in grass growth rates is now very likely. Many farmers have noticed a big difference in growth even over the last few days. It’s not a nationwide issue. I was in Clare during the week and the ground the cows were grazing was soft. The soil moisture deficit in Donegal is zero, so farmers in these regions have too much moisture.

Dry conditions: what should those that are getting dry do? First thing is don’t panic. Reduce demand by opening up as much ground as possible for grazing. If this means grazing some covers that were intended for second- or third-cut, and are still at a cover appropriate for grazing then do so. Next step is to remove non-essential animals from the milking platform (where possible) to prioritise grass for cows.

I’m always slow to put in too much feed too soon as all this does is slow down the rotation length and preserves grass that is going to just wither away anyway if it does get very dry. I am inclined to let average farm cover drop down to 120kg to 130kg/cow before slowing down sharply by putting in extra feed and maintaining a round length of 20 to 25 days. Remember, even in a bad drought where grass goes yellow, it is still very good feed and cows are happy to graze it.

Moorepark: on pages 30 and 31, we carry the second report from the Moorepark open day. One of the key points made was around the importance of budgeting and benchmarking financial performance. Greg and Rachel Roadley benchmark their costs of production against other farmers’ costs and in the process they learn tips and tricks from each other.

This in turn makes them more resilient and profitable. The importance of knowing costs and returns was also highlighted as essential when looking at an opportunity. Each of the farmers said that by knowing their costs they can quickly and easily assess whether an opportunity will deliver a good return or whether they should let it pass over.

By not knowing their costs, farmers that take on land or expand to a second unit risk being busy fools by not generating enough profit and free cash to justify the extra workload involved. In many cases farmers would be better off deriving more margin from their existing business before looking to expand.

Working out costs doesn’t have to be complicated or overly time consuming. In most cases the simpler it is the better. Using a spreadsheet or ledger, divide the total costs for each cost category by the total kilos of milk solids sold off the farm to get costs per kilo of milk solids.