Grass Growth Rates

Bencroy said:
@Blackwater boy ,@Crops
this lad is recommending sodium to be sown aswell.
he was speaking at the fermanagh grassland club.
can't get the link copied but it's in the
impartial reporter news paper
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Can grass use some of the sodium as a potash replacement like beet can? I actually don’t think so. Often spread 20kgs per ac on beet, but is very bad from a soil structure POV. It’s also important for conductivity of plants and can be useful applied in August onwards.

Also improves palatability but use sparingly, alternatively spray on sea water
 
Green Grass said:
Where do you get sea water ,I presume it is ilegal to drive down to local strand wirh a vacum tank for a load
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It’s illegal, I buy it of a registered dealer. Can give you his number if you want …..

@Bogman I think you said you were in the west of Ireland somewhere, and there was a tanker there loading off the pier, when asked the haulier was taking sea water to Manchester aquarium
 
Ozzy Scott said:
It’s illegal, I buy it of a registered dealer. Can give you his number if you want …..

@Bogman I think you said you were in the west of Ireland somewhere, and there was a tanker there loading off the pier, when asked the haulier was taking sea water to Manchester aquarium
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He was to get me a load to put under the yacht so I could get into Ballycotton to see the Goldcrop trials .
 
Bog Man said:
He was to get me a load to put under the yacht so I could get into Ballycotton to see the Goldcrop trials .
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Deerehunter said:
Sea water would want to be used sparingly also. The salt can scorch plants and if used over the long term will raise the salinity of the soil.
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In Spain they did trials with seawater balanced with Chinese humic,fulvic acid. Performed well as a fert. But depends on the mixing rate. Seawater in Ireland is only a one time trick really for mineral soils. It's more of a benefit for peat or high humus soils.

I removed the sodium chloride myself from seawater with potassium hydroxide and added that to fulvic acid and seaweed in a spray once. It was a bit hippy I collected the seawater a few days before a full moon too. Anyway sprayed on. The grass and ground went hungry looking. But the cows the autumn of the year started going to their knees in the ground. The soil went black. I tested it and it came back just at 12 % organic matter. And this was mineral soil ground. I never repeated that anywhere else but it was from the seawater with sodium chloride removed. The growth in carbon was pulling N from the grass plants.
 
Good bit of rain forecast over the weekend here, not sure if we'll get it.
Should I get fertilizer out before the rain or leave it until the ground softens up a bit and spread next week?

Ground rock hard at the moment, don't want it floating away
 
Its-me-here said:
Good bit of rain forecast over the weekend here, not sure if we'll get it.
Should I get fertilizer out before the rain or leave it until the ground softens up a bit and spread next week?

Ground rock hard at the moment, don't want it floating away
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Spreading fertilizer is illegal in France from the 1st June to September, for a reason.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that there’ll be surface runoff.
 
Sheebadog said:
Spreading fertilizer is illegal in France from the 1st June to September, for a reason.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that there’ll be surface runoff.
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That's a long time,does it not affect grass yields a lot?
I know grass isn't as popular there as Ireland and maize is used a lot for silage but 3 summer months with no fertilizer seems a long time.would it be too dry for fertilizer to work then anyway?
 
Seedsower said:
That's a long time,does it not affect grass yields a lot?
I know grass isn't as popular there as Ireland and maize is used a lot for silage but 3 summer months with no fertilizer seems a long time.would it be too dry for fertilizer to work then anyway?
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Grass won’t grow when temps are 28*C or higher…so there isn’t any grass.
There seems to be a common belief that grass needs heaps of N to get growing now, but in fact what it needs is water. When water is the restraining factor all the N in the world won’t make the grass grow.

After a dry spell there’s a build up of mineralised N in the soil that’ll kick start growth. If you gave grass a run of a grass harrow before significant rain there’ll be a burst of growth without any artificial N…but guys will spread anyhow and comment on how efficient the spread N was.
 
Interest
Sheebadog said:
Grass won’t grow when temps are 28*C or higher…so there isn’t any grass.
There seems to be a common belief that grass needs heaps of N to get growing now, but in fact what it needs is water. When water is the restraining factor all the N in the world won’t make the grass grow.

After a dry spell there’s a build up of mineralised N in the soil that’ll kick start growth. If you gave grass a run of a grass harrow before significant rain there’ll be a burst of growth without any artificial N…but guys will spread anyhow and comment on how efficient the spread N was.
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Interesting about the Harrowing it. Why does it make/help so much
 
Sheebadog said:
Grass won’t grow when temps are 28*C or higher…so there isn’t any grass.
There seems to be a common belief that grass needs heaps of N to get growing now, but in fact what it needs is water. When water is the restraining factor all the N in the world won’t make the grass grow.

After a dry spell there’s a build up of mineralised N in the soil that’ll kick start growth. If you gave grass a run of a grass harrow before significant rain there’ll be a burst of growth without any artificial N…but guys will spread anyhow and comment on how efficient the spread N was.
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You’re advice on how drought works in relation to N is invaluable .
 
Sheebadog said:
Grass won’t grow when temps are 28*C or higher…so there isn’t any grass.
There seems to be a common belief that grass needs heaps of N to get growing now, but in fact what it needs is water. When water is the restraining factor all the N in the world won’t make the grass grow.

After a dry spell there’s a build up of mineralised N in the soil that’ll kick start growth. If you gave grass a run of a grass harrow before significant rain there’ll be a burst of growth without any artificial N…but guys will spread anyhow and comment on how efficient the spread N was.
Click to expand...
Sheebadog said:
Grass won’t grow when temps are 28*C or higher…so there isn’t any grass.
There seems to be a common belief that grass needs heaps of N to get growing now, but in fact what it needs is water. When water is the restraining factor all the N in the world won’t make the grass grow.

After a dry spell there’s a build up of mineralised N in the soil that’ll kick start growth. If you gave grass a run of a grass harrow before significant rain there’ll be a burst of growth without any artificial N…but guys will spread anyhow and comment on how efficient the spread N was.
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28c, we don’t see much growth over constant 20c.

Inappropriate levels/types of N in the plant will require grass to use allot more water, so it becomes inefficient.

If I am to apply something now, I will be to try and de-stress the plants, or to make the soon to be mineralised N more efficient, so stuff like Mn, Mo. Excess N in grass will become an issue if we get adequate water
 
I'm coming to the conclusion that for the farm here (which is a mixed farm in a location that suffers heavily from droughts), that less is more, certainly front loading too much bag N in the spring leaves the grass less able to grow when under a heavy drought in the summer. For me I'd always prefer ro have growth matching or close to demand (around 50) for the entire year at a minimum, rather that say any willywaving figure of "I grew 16tons last yr", but that was a growth rate of 120 for may when the farm was out of control, and 20 in the height of a summer drought. I went with one bag of 18 5 12+s immediately after the leafy 1st cut mid May, (some of that is still sitting on the ground), and nothing on the later 1st cut ground. If the rain comes now proper I'll go with another bag per ac of 18s, and maybe a bag each month then, but this Teagasc line of 40uN per month on the milking block is beyond madness. 250uN/ha is the yearly limit, but I'm generally in around 150.
 
Tim818 said:
I'm coming to the conclusion that for the farm here (which is a mixed farm in a location that suffers heavily from droughts), that less is more, certainly front loading too much bag N in the spring leaves the grass less able to grow when under a heavy drought in the summer. For me I'd always prefer ro have growth matching or close to demand (around 50) for the entire year at a minimum, rather that say any willywaving figure of "I grew 16tons last yr", but that was a growth rate of 120 for may when the farm was out of control, and 20 in the height of a summer drought. I went with one bag of 18 5 12+s immediately after the leafy 1st cut mid May, (some of that is still sitting on the ground), and nothing on the later 1st cut ground. If the rain comes now proper I'll go with another bag per ac of 18s, and maybe a bag each month then, but this Teagasc line of 40uN per month on the milking block is beyond madness. 250uN/ha is the yearly limit, but I'm generally in around 150.
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But if you spread the nitrogen and had surplus early then you'd have the leafy bales that you do be talking about feeding when growth isn't quite matching demand. Otherwise where are these leafy bales going to come from?!
 
Nashty said:
But if you spread the nitrogen and had surplus early then you'd have the leafy bales that you do be talking about feeding when growth isn't quite matching demand. Otherwise where are these leafy bales going to come from?!
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Ah yep no matter what growth will always be well ahead of demand for much of May, and I'll be taking off leafy bales. I'd guess we had a good 2wks of growth of over 100 in may, lets call that 60 over demand for them 14days, that will add 840 onto the farm AFC in that time! I got 150 of leafy bales off the milking block this may. But my point being they all came from reasonably conservative amounts of nitrogen. I had a further 35ac (about 25%) of the milking block put into the pit 3rd of june, that got in around 60units of bag nitrogen late April (that took effort, still tracks in the fields). I could of gone with 100 units and got a heaver crop off that 35ac, but it would grow almost nothing for the rest of the summer then
 
Tim818 said:
Ah yep no matter what growth will always be well ahead of demand for much of May, and I'll be taking off leafy bales. I'd guess we had a good 2wks of growth of over 100 in may, lets call that 60 over demand for them 14days, that will add 840 onto the farm AFC in that time! I got 150 of leafy bales off the milking block this may. But my point being they all came from reasonably conservative amounts of nitrogen. I had a further 35ac (about 25%) of the milking block put into the pit 3rd of june, that got in around 60units of bag nitrogen late April (that took effort, still tracks in the fields). I could of gone with 100 units and got a heaver crop off that 35ac, but it would grow almost nothing for the rest of the summer then
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Surely still cheaper than buying standing crops of grass as you were pondering though too?
 
Ozzy Scott said:
28c, we don’t see much growth over constant 20c.

Inappropriate levels/types of N in the plant will require grass to use allot more water, so it becomes inefficient.

If I am to apply something now, I will be to try and de-stress the plants, or to make the soon to be mineralised N more efficient, so stuff like Mn, Mo. Excess N in grass will become an issue if we get adequate water
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When grass is short of water all the artificial N/micro elements/snakeoil in the world won’t make it grow…only water will.

It’s my belief that any Irish/Welsh bred grasses are designed to live in the top 6” of soil. Those varieties need the soil to be used as a sponge/matrix for slurry and artificial N to hit top production. That’s fine when you get ‘Goldilocks’ type growing conditions, but when conditions are less than ideal they fall flat on their ass.

There’s a couple of cocksfoot varieties that are designed for grazing with elevated sugars and thus highly palatable. Cows will shave the ground every time. When I’m on a 16-18 day rotation (Goldilocks growing conditions!) with Aberxxxx, we’re on a 10-12 day rotation with the cocksfoot. There’s only 2 varieties of cocksfoot that are suitable for grazing. Forbak is one, I can’t think of the name of the other. Unfortunately the cocksfoot that’s available to ye is only useful on the top of a dry mountain for cutting 1 crop of hay per year!

There’s some very useful fescues also. One is called Poalo I think, I can’t remember the others.

On my land the cocksfoot will outyield the Aberxxxx even in perfect growing conditions and is more palatable. Likewise for the good grazing varieties of fescue.
 
Sheebadog said:
When grass is short of water all the artificial N/micro elements/snakeoil in the world won’t make it grow…only water will.

It’s my belief that any Irish/Welsh bred grasses are designed to live in the top 6” of soil. Those varieties need the soil to be used as a sponge/matrix for slurry and artificial N to hit top production. That’s fine when you get ‘Goldilocks’ type growing conditions, but when conditions are less than ideal they fall flat on their ass.

There’s a couple of cocksfoot varieties that are designed for grazing with elevated sugars and thus highly palatable. Cows will shave the ground every time. When I’m on a 16-18 day rotation (Goldilocks growing conditions!) with Aberxxxx, we’re on a 10-12 day rotation with the cocksfoot. There’s only 2 varieties of cocksfoot that are suitable for grazing. Forbak is one, I can’t think of the name of the other. Unfortunately the cocksfoot that’s available to ye is only useful on the top of a dry mountain for cutting 1 crop of hay per year!

There’s some very useful fescues also. One is called Poalo I think, I can’t remember the others.

On my land the cocksfoot will outyield the Aberxxxx even in perfect growing conditions and is more palatable. Likewise for the good grazing varieties of fescue.
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Is the other cocksfoot variety roulon? Any chance you would have a seed label for mixes you have? Have cocksfoot here, diceros is the variety. I don’t have enough stock to keep on top of it as the season progresses but they clean it all up when it’s younger.

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