Paula Hynes: The weather has been a-maize-ing

A first for the farm this week was growing maize; we purchased maize from our contractor Niall Canty last autumn
Paula Hynes: The weather has been a-maize-ing

Colin Murphy setting maize for Niall Canty on the Hynes farm this week.

If you are wondering where the fine weather has gone, I have taken it on holidays with me for what is a well-deserved break. 

We went to Paris in April over the last number of years, but this year, we decided to head for a warmer climate, feet up on a sun lounger sipping on a cocktail.

We booked the holiday in early January so that we would have something to look forward to when times were busy during the spring. 

Dare I say the drop of rain was badly wanted at home anyway.

It was all systems go on the farm before we jetted off. 

I often think it is easier to get all the work done before a holiday than face a hectic workload on return, and once we come home, we head straight to Emerald Expo in Virginia with the show team. 

All the silage fields have received their top-up of nitrogen, looking at current growth rates, we will most likely add a few more fields to our first cut, grass always seems to come under pressure in late May but we have the safety net of having a reseed due back into grazing and its is nearly easier to manage a tight grazing platform in late May than a grazing platform with too much grass.

Our contractors were also in spraying 42 acres for docks to clean up the silage ground. 

It’s easier to spray them now before they go to seed, and they can drown out a lot of grass in a silage crop. More than anything, docks are unsightly, bloody things.

When I see a heavy silage crop awash with docks, it somewhat compares to going out for dinner and not realising there was cow dung on the back of my jumper.

It is so much easier to get the contractors in to do spraying; their sprayer can hold enough to cover 21 acres, and Colin has great knowledge of sprays so he understands the correct mix rates of each product and has great attention to detail. 

He also knows the entire farm, so it is easy to explain which fields need to be sprayed. 

With calm winds and the spraying being done in the evening, hopefully, it will be effective, and silage swards will be clean in May.

A first for the farm this week was growing maize. We purchased maize from our contractor Niall Canty last autumn. 

It was super feeding, and I feel it really stood to the cows this spring. They are peaking on milk really well and they have a super shine on their backs and have put on tremendous condition over the spring. 

I can honestly say I have never seen the herd look so well this early in the year.

Niall has a lot of knowledge about growing maize so it is a simple enough task for us to grow it here, the 10-acre field received 3,000 gallons of slurry to the acre prior to ploughing, it then received a compound fertiliser and a top up of potash as we are always trying to improve potash levels on the farm. 

The seed variety we chose was Saxon, which was recommended to us by Goldcrop. It is the highest-yielding variety and has superb early vigour. 

Niall set all the maize under plastic, which we supplied ourselves. 

The plastic is costly, but given we are setting early, it is crucial, so hopefully, the cost will be overridden by earlier harvesting and increased yield.

Niall will be contract growing more maize for us as well; we plan to calve more cows along with all the heifers in January 2026, so the extra volume of quality feed will be welcome.

With most of the calves now having left the farm, it is quite easy to take a holiday as we will simply be tipping away at showing until first-cut silage comes along. 

The week has also been busy for Becky as she had her leaving certificate oral exams, which also coincided with her 18th birthday.

It is amazing how fast life passes you by; she was one of the first babies born in the Cork University Maternity Hospital. 

It seems like only yesterday and certainly not 18 years ago. It was a big decision to allow her to switch to remote access study for the leaving certificate, but I am so glad we took that step. 

It has allowed her to pursue her passion for showing dairy cows; she certainly wouldn’t have won back-to-back Sheri Martin showmanship titles at IDW in Australia had she been going to conventional secondary school.

It is a huge achievement for her to have juggled both over the last two years, so I am immensely proud that she has gotten to the stage where she is sitting the exams. 

Her former school, Coachford College, kindly agreed to let her sit her exams there, so at least the surroundings are familiar for her.

The last big job of the week before winding down for a little break was our second milk recording of the year with Munster Bovine. 

It is great to have two early milk recordings to get a good handle on any SCC issues. 

Our bulk tank's SCC is fine and hasn’t raised any issues, but one high SCC cow could inflict a lot of cross contamination and do harm to other cows. 

Our milk recorder, Denis, is always very accommodating, even though he has been busy lambing his own sheep lately. 

We will do four more milk recordings during the year, two of which will be held in the autumn to get a clear picture of cows prior to dry off. 

Within 24 hours of spraying, it looks like our docks have taken a little holiday as well, all shriveled up and hardly noticeable in the fields, but no doubt they will be back full of energy sometime in the future.

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