John Maher, Teagasc Grass10 Programme Manager, joins Stuart Childs to discuss the current PastureBase figures and he explains the idea of autumn build-up and autumn grazing management.

Firstly, John outlines the figures for the week explaining that on the majority of farms, there is currently way too much grass and that action needs to be taken to manage this situation sooner rather than later. 

He also talks about the impact of another spell of long rainfall on a proportion of farms along the south and east coast and what is happening there.

Then he gets into the topic of autumn build-up and how to go about it:

·      Increase N application rates in August to increase supply

·      Remove young stock from the platform to reduce demand

·      Silage ground coming back increases supply

·      Reseeded ground coming back increases supply

·      Remove poor performing cull cows will reduce demand

·      Introduce supplementary feeding in the form of meal (may not be enough), silage, zero grazing etc. will lower the demand for grass thus giving it a chance to build

The majority of people need to make autumn grazing management happen by doing something is the long and short of it and John recommends that people farm with ‘the head up’ to see what is happening and responding to it. 

For those that do and don’t measure, rotation length is a useful guide and the objective is to move to a 30 day rotation by Sept 1st. This is grazing 1/30th of the farm each day so 3 acres a day on a 90 acre platform for example.

The objective is to build a wedge of grass to graze into in the autumn when growth eventually drops below herd demands which will normally start to happen in mid to late September. If you don’t have it then, you won’t be able to create it.

John finishes by saying that the grazing season starts in the autumn not in the spring.

The week’s Grass 10 newsletter features Cork dairy farmer Con Lehane and can be accessed at:

https://sh1.sendinblue.com/3iqx0f848slpfe.html?t=1754411905519

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com