alternative forages

I seen a lad zero grazing what looks like fodder rape near Goresbridge yesterday, I'd imagine it's being fed straight from the wagon as it seemed like there was a round cut the previous day.
there,s a lad zero grazing some a few miles away from his yard and he,s only bringing half loads at a time, someone asked him why half loads and he said the wagon is on trial and he,s afraid it will break in the middle with the weight of the fodder rape
 
@Mid cork how did your gorilla fair out after? You had it in well before mine and it looked super I think
It grew like hell up to about mid October and then almost over night it started to turn purple. It only got two bags of can at sowing. I should should have given it more in September. I didn’t want a very heavy crop as I have only 45 weaningls to graze 20 acers of it.Still a reasonable crop there but it could be a better. It is on very worn ground with no residual N.
 
394DED2F-B5A0-4E5E-8259-586E4702813E.jpeg CF72C9DE-BBBA-4BDF-8BEA-6B480386C240.jpeg The first of the ewes from home are gone to rape which a tillage farmer grew for us after winter barley he got the subsidy for growing it, we hope to get away 350 or 400 ewes on it to keep them going until January the idea is that we get the ground at home held up and build up a good bank of grass for when they lamb down, it should be a good experiment and if it goes well we’ll try doing it again next year everyone is benefiting grass is important to us in the spring and getting ewes away this time of year should give us a good head start next spring. And the land should be in good order for the tillage men to sow in the spring. We’ve finished lambs successfully on rape at home every year for the last few years but this is the first time we’ve tried ewes on it they got an iodine bolus before they went on and any lame or thin ones were picked back and left on grass.
 
Cutting westerwolds at the mo here also, grew some amount in November and December, did a little under 4 bales/a.c. in October, being cut with a zerograzer now and doing 5T/a.c. freshweight
What date in October did you cut them. Did you fertilise them again?
 
Cut around 10th October as they were going to seed, no fert since then but had 80 units on it for the first cut which wouldn't all have been taken up then, what's your plan for N now? 50 units ??
Mine got 2k gallons of slurry the last day of October, might give it more slurry or else I’ll give it maybe a bag of 0-7-30 and a bag of urea and see what happens, I’ll leave it there until the first of May and I to open maize then. U going for a spring cereal?
 
Some of it has to be cut before mid March to get the beans in, the rest is destined for maize so is ok until early to mid april.
Will give it 50 units of N and another 75 units of K ( allowing about 10 units of K offtake for every T of freshweight)
 
Are they milking well on the westerworlds.

It's really been an unusual 12 months hasn't it. Plenty of different ideas Bern tried
 
Have westerwolds here cut in October and perfect for cutting again.

Would there be any hope of successfully making silage bales at this time of year?
 
That's my gut feeling as well. I wouldn't have the stock numbers for zero grazing and doesn't seem to be much interest from fellas around here to zero graze as there is no zero grazer close by so it becomes expensive as contractor wants so much extra to travel
 
Are they milking well on the westerworlds.

It's really been an unusual 12 months hasn't it. Plenty of different ideas Bern tried
Only on them 3 days now so I don’t know, I have cut the grass silage out of the diet and replaced it with the grass, the maize and beet stayed similar to where I was. I’m not expecting a jump in yield
 
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