Thankfully, grass growth is gaining momentum
Much of it was just sitting there ready for take-off once conditions improved.
Many have reported growth rates approaching 100 kg of /DM/ha over the last week.
Everyone I speak to is making the assumption that silage crops are very light at present. This however is not the case on many farms, as there are plenty of bulky crops around. I cut my own last weekend, and was very happy with the volume of silage that ended up in the pit. Don’t delay in cutting at this stage. Remember that once the first cut is in, the second starts growing.
I walked a number of farms on Tuesday of this week and all of them are now running a large grass surplus on the grazing platform.
One paddock I looked at was grazed last Monday week, and already had 900kg of cover on Tuesday; that’s only nine days growth.
If that growth rate continues, that paddock should be grazed again after 14 days if quality is to be right.
The common question on all these farms was how much grass should they take out and bale? As a very basic rule of thumb, you need 10 days of grass ahead of you on any one day. The major issue for most is that during the poor weather, growth was very poor, and a lot of paddocks had very similar covers when growth improved.
This has resulted in a large number of paddocks having the same or very similar covers. But you can’t graze them all on the one day.
For most farmers, ground conditions are now perfect. For some, amazingly, the ground has even got very hard and is starting to crack.
As mentioned above, grass is flying out of the ground. Now is the time to build silage stocks for next winter, rather than waste strong swards. Grass has headed out in the last 10 days in particular and needs careful management.
What are the consequences of grazing too high grass covers?
* Animals forced to graze high covers will have lower intakes, as they become more selective about what they graze.
* High covers have more stem, which means they have lower energy per kg of DM
* Paddocks not grazed out properly will produce poorer swards for the remainder of the grazing season.
* Animals perform poorly on grass with a high stem ratio.
* If stock fail to graze out paddocks, you will need to top the stem and dung pads in order for the next rotation to have quality grass.
* Take out surplus paddocks once you have identified them as surplus, so that they can re-enter the next rotation in sequence.
* Don’t skimp on nitrogen application — we are now in the peak grass growth period — keep it growing.
Beef animals of all types will now consume approximately 2-2.5% of their body weight in dry matter each day.
* Spring calved suckler cows with calves require approximately 16 kg of dry matter from grass per day.
* Dry sucklers close to calving should not be given unlimited access to good quality grass, as this will lead to increased calving difficulties. A forage source such as, straw or hay should be fed in a paddock with restricted grass. Don’t forget to supply a dry cow mineral.
* Weanlings/stores on grazed grass will in many cases no longer need supplementation, as long as grass quality is kept right. If you try to get these animals to graze covers that are too strong, you will not achieve target weight gains, because the total energy intake will not suffice.
