Grass growth has been rampant over the past two weeks, exceeding demand and leaving many farms in surplus.
However, despite ideal conditions for grass growth in most parts of the province, the situation still varies greatly from farm to farm, with a number of operators still experiencing deficits.
However, grass availability can change within days, highlighting the need for consistent walking on grass at this time of year.
Turf walks should be done every four to five days, so decisions can be made about correcting turf quality, or speeding up or slowing down rotation.
Farms with surplus grass need to make decisions about whether or not pasture should be taken out for baling, or whether additional stock such as dry cows can be disposed of after the milking herd.
It may be worth considering overlaying or pre-mowing pasture to ensure that the herd is grazing high quality 3-leaf grass with a cover of 1,400kg dry matter (DM)/ha.
If cows start entering pastures with grazing covers in excess of 1,500 kg DM/ha, a decrease in protein may be a direct result.
Grass growth
Grass growth last week according to Pasturebase Ireland was 68kg DM/ha/day with an average dairy farm located in an average farm cover (AFC) of 736kg DM/ha or 198kg DM/livestock unit (LU).
The typical diet across the country for those recording data for Pasturbase Ireland is 15kg of grass DM with 3.5kg of meal.
Cows were recorded on pre-grazing caps of 1,627kg DM/ha, which is not ideal and may ultimately impact milk screening.
This is primarily because 55% of farms that registered on Pasturebase last week exceeded the target.
These farms averaged 789 kg DM/ha, meaning cows were entering pasture with a pre-grazing yield of 1,711 kg DM/ha.
Meanwhile, 32% of farms met the target, while another 13% were in short supply.
At this stage of the season, farmers should ideally settle on 160-180kg DM/ha, ensuring that cows are grazing on covers of 1300-1400kg DM/ha.
If the cover/LU is more than 200 kg DM/LU, the on-farm demand must be increased, which can be done by feeding smaller amounts of diets or taking pastures out of the rotation to capture the surplus Bales of silage.
If a farm is comfortably over 160kg DM/LU, farmers should ensure cows are given a 36-hour allotment if possible to allow for optimal consumption.
Patton
Dr Joe Paton, Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer at Teagasc, recently reminded farmers that cows grazing in higher covers at this time of year fall behind in production and solids, while overall grass intake is also reduced.
Dr Paton stressed that grassland management should not be changed based on the price of milk, noting that the most profitable farms tend to remain the most profitable in years of high or low milk prices.
“It’s been a tough year in terms of the economics of milk prices, but if there’s one thing that will save you, it’s don’t change too much, set the right goals on grazing management, and stick to them,” he said.
