The grazing season

Blackwater boy

Moderator
How are ye lads getting on with grass growth of late? We had a lot of grass around up until the 1st of June ish and had a few paddocks taken out today 3 weeks ago, we had no rain for 22 days until last Friday so things were quite slow. I've plenty nitrogen out and the last round spread between 6 and 9 days ago was 1.5 bags of 18-4-14+s, up to 18 odd units of sulphur out to date but just no bounce or kick in growth at all, pale and poor colour quality. Has anyone else got this kind of an issue? Meal up to 3.5kgs and I reckon silage will have to in tomorrow for a few days to slow things up.
 
How are ye lads getting on with grass growth of late? We had a lot of grass around up until the 1st of June ish and had a few paddocks taken out today 3 weeks ago, we had no rain for 22 days until last Friday so things were quite slow. I've plenty nitrogen out and the last round spread between 6 and 9 days ago was 1.5 bags of 18-4-14+s, up to 18 odd units of sulphur out to date but just no bounce or kick in growth at all, pale and poor colour quality. Has anyone else got this kind of an issue? Meal up to 3.5kgs and I reckon silage will have to in tomorrow for a few days to slow things up.
Rolling in grass here.grew 215 kg/ha the last week of may .have every paddock soil sampled and it's starting to show .grass is measured weekly with this
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Same issue's here grass is hungry looking despite getting 30 units of 24-2-5 on each round.
Much rather see consistent growth at lower levels than that massive burst we got in May.
 
How are ye lads getting on with grass growth of late? We had a lot of grass around up until the 1st of June ish and had a few paddocks taken out today 3 weeks ago, we had no rain for 22 days until last Friday so things were quite slow. I've plenty nitrogen out and the last round spread between 6 and 9 days ago was 1.5 bags of 18-4-14+s, up to 18 odd units of sulphur out to date but just no bounce or kick in growth at all, pale and poor colour quality. Has anyone else got this kind of an issue? Meal up to 3.5kgs and I reckon silage will have to in tomorrow for a few days to slow things up.
Just drought problems your suffering. I have yet to spread my lighter ground with fert as if we don't get another inch of water it just would be pointless.
Have allot of acres of reseed in this week and might just get me by as at the moment there is little about.
Only a few weeks ago I was saying we could potentially be carrying another 200kgs live weight per ac, but maybe I'm codding myself as I back buffer feeding some groups of cattle with 50% of daily DM

Presume by now we have gotten an inch of rain but as yet this land is still burned to a crisp. We dropped 2 weeks ago to little or no growth. Up to that we had an average Spring and two weeks rapid growth. I'm happy enough with the way things have panned out so far. Getting P into the ground irrespective of your soil indices mid season is very important I find as for some reason ground seem to run out of steam. Went with urea on most ground as I have it in stock, and will go with 2 bags of 18-6-12 on the 1st of next month across the board. I even see my dry ground that I would have a serious front loading of N on for this exact problem hasn't survived. We can aid nature, but there is no point going against it.
 
How are ye lads getting on with grass growth of late? We had a lot of grass around up until the 1st of June ish and had a few paddocks taken out today 3 weeks ago, we had no rain for 22 days until last Friday so things were quite slow. I've plenty nitrogen out and the last round spread between 6 and 9 days ago was 1.5 bags of 18-4-14+s, up to 18 odd units of sulphur out to date but just no bounce or kick in growth at all, pale and poor colour quality. Has anyone else got this kind of an issue? Meal up to 3.5kgs and I reckon silage will have to in tomorrow for a few days to slow things up.
I've 2 fields that were cut late May for silage, both given 3 bags 24-2.5-10 +S for 2nd cut, one is flying and the other on drier ground looks like it got nothing.
 
Up to our eyes at the minute with it. We'd be heavily stocked on the gp so would be trying to get the most out it. Taking out more surplus this week for the fourth time since the middle of may. We'd be on heavy enough ground here and have gotten our fair share or the recent cloud bursts with 30mm last monday and another 12mm yesterday.
We're not grass measuring at the minute but it's something I'll really have to start doing when I see how well some lads have their grass managed.
We would generally run short at some stage during the season and I can't see this year being any different and hopefully have some nice bales to get us through.
 
It's funny how different the country, some lads can't control the grass and others have nothing. To give an idea of growth here I have only conserved 50kgs of DM of grass of each acre so far.
 
Seems like the West of the country has benefited most from this burst of growth since mid May.
We had a non existing spring with no growth and cattle very late getting to grass but since the tied turned the hot weather seemed to suit us perfectly. My own silage was cut in the early days of june and just had the nitrogen gone out of it ( only know this as i had the grass tested ) the crops were a bit lighter than usual but i took advantage of the good weather and went for quality over quantity.
I cut it on the Thursday morning and tedded it twice, was raked and baled by dinnertime Saturday. I bought a wrapper this year as some of my silage has to be drawn on a rough shared farm lane so suits better to wrap beside the shed. Averaged something like 7 or 8 bales to the acre of stuff that had absolutely melted in the heat of those hot days. Should be good stuff hopefully. Only spread the fert yestarday on some of it for the second cut, as the cattle were lingering about eating the headlands.
Have about fifteen acres pulled out of a 50 acre grazing platform, some of it is baled already and some of it will be done when the weather improves. That will be averaging approximately 5 or so bales to the acre. I dont go overboard with the fertiliser as i am rebuilding the herd here after a disastrous year or two here but have most of my land set up in paddocks for a 4 to five day at a time movement.
The growth hasn't stopped here at all and this rain we have just had has come at a perfect time for us. The late spring has left a lot of farmers with there fert out not six weeks yet so silage is only starting to get going yet. Theres been no big mad panic around here so far. Dont know what the feed quality of most of the uncut silage locally is going to be like as any of it I have seen seems to be gone to seed, so not good would be my thoughts anyway.
 
It's funny how different the country, some lads can't control the grass and others have nothing. To give an idea of growth here I have only conserved 50kgs of DM of grass of each acre so far.
If you dont mind me asking @Ozzy Scott how do you work out how the DM of grass you have conserved of each acre so far
 
If you dont mind me asking @Ozzy Scott how do you work out how the DM of grass you have conserved of each acre so far

just done a rough calculation of all the silage made (all bales so far as pointless getting a forager and yard is wedged with last years feed) So number of bales *weight*dry matter % and divided by total acres. Its a pointless calculation :laugh:
 
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just done a rough calculation of all the silage made all bales so far as pointless getting a forager and yard is wedged with last years feed. So number of bales *weight*dry matter % and divided by total acres. Its a pointless calculation :laugh:
Now now now ozzy i doubt you do too many pointless calculations in these areas.:Thumbp2::Thumbp2:
Still learning some more modern methods and fortunately they seem to be starting to show their benefits in cost saving and production on the farm at home. Getting there but still have a long way to go and a lot to learn. Am learning lots here though:Thumbp2:
 
Now now now ozzy i doubt you do too many pointless calculations in these areas.:Thumbp2::Thumbp2:
Still learning some more modern methods and fortunately they seem to be starting to show their benefits in cost saving and production on the farm at home. Getting there but still have a long way to go and a lot to learn. Am learning lots here though:Thumbp2:
I met some young lads (30 is young around here) from up your parts recently. They were refreshing, seeing there willingness to learn, and questions that they were asking. All small part time lads but looking to be as technically efficient as possible. I was moderating my advice know the type of land they are farming. They would kick 7 shades of some of the useless whores pretending to farm about here on some of the finest grazing land in the country and the same lazy bucks would put legs under chickens and take them away again
 
Grass around here is growing out of control atm. I've never seen the likes of it before. There's going to be a record amount of fodder around the place this year.
 
I met some young lads (30 is young around here) from up your parts recently. They were refreshing, seeing there willingness to learn, and questions that they were asking. All small part time lads but looking to be as technically efficient as possible. I was moderating my advice know the type of land they are farming. They would kick 7 shades of some of the useless whores pretending to farm about here on some of the finest grazing land in the country and the same lazy bucks would put legs under chickens and take them away again
Oh believe me there's a few of each type everywhere isnt there ozzy. I have some good land wich i try to make the most off but i have some of the other type too. As shown in some old pictures on here ( topping, stuck diggers )) same field has gone mad with grass ahead of yearlings so is going to be bailed apart from the very bad spot. Their is two i can think of on nice soil type ground growing great crops of rushes and yet anything they have would be " the best " you know the type.
 
It's a heavy farm here and all was pottering along dandy until last week when the place started to scorch. Stocked at 4.14 on the grazing platform. We skipped strong paddocks in early May and pitted them on the 23rd of May. We are exposed here so between two no over 3 weeks without precipitation, the heat and the wind, the grass stubbles burnt up, you could get the smell of hay off of them, I measured a growth of between 20 and 30 on these paddocks which doesn't work on high stocking rate. Mistake we made was not taking out these paddocks when we decided they were too strong and wrapping them instead.

Still, since the rain at the weekend, the place looks a whole lot different. Weekly measure in 2 days so that'll tell all.
 
Last sunday I was at a friends and he couldnt understand my good mood. Was fecking smiling like a eijet even though it was torrential showers, thunder and lightening. It was cos we finally got a nice drop of rain.
That said I wasnt complaining either before it. We were just getting to the point of needing rain but not full on drought. Recorded 100kg+ growth and managed to take out a 5ac field for silage off the GP, thats the first time we've been able to cut extra off the GP in six years. Came down from a SR of 5.25 lu/ha to 4.75 this year
Last week has been just great, warm with plenty of rain so I expect a surplus next week. But the farm walk this week shows the place is still handling the end of the drought and sluggish
Worst bit is the amount of stem and seed that got ahead of us and the fecking pollan is killing me. This smiling though
 
Came down from a SR of 5.25 lu/ha to 4.75 this year

Do you mind me asking how many kilos of liveweight per ha your stocking rate is? As I find livestock units can be a bit subjective and also kilos/ha per ha is the only way us beef boys can relate back to you dairy lads. I run just above 3000kgs per ha across all grassland but reckon I should be able to take this another 500kgs
 
Do you mind me asking how many kilos of liveweight per ha your stocking rate is? As I find livestock units can be a bit subjective and also kilos/ha per ha is the only way us beef boys can relate back to you dairy lads. I run just above 3000kgs per ha across all grassland but reckon I should be able to take this another 500kgs
Roughly speaking the cows would weigh between 500-600 kg (with the odd montbelliardX being in or around 650 and most heifers being 520ish).
So that'd be roughly (and very roughly) I'd put it at 2600kg/ha.
I'd be more comfortable at a stocking rate of 4.5lu/ha or 2,475kg/ha.

The way I'd generally look at it though is demand/ha of kg DM grass. At the moment its 76 kg/ha.
What would be the demand for stores or weanlings vs dairy cows though? Dairy cows are min 17kg
 
Roughly speaking the cows would weigh between 500-600 kg (with the odd montbelliardX being in or around 650 and most heifers being 520ish).
So that'd be roughly (and very roughly) I'd put it at 2600kg/ha.
I'd be more comfortable at a stocking rate of 4.5lu/ha or 2,475kg/ha.

The way I'd generally look at it though is demand/ha of kg DM grass. At the moment its 76 kg/ha.
What would be the demand for stores or weanlings vs dairy cows though? Dairy cows are min 17kg
I would consider the demand for a 500 kg beef animal to be 12 kgs per day. My demand is similar so around 70kgs/ha maybe a bit less
 
The feast of May has turned into the famine of June, despite plenty rain and nitrogen grass has stalled badly throwing up plenty stem and seed heads.
Milk supplies are dropping like a stone according to the tanker driver this morning.
 
I have suffered here for the last 3 weeks and good enough on me, when I was grazing in February on most of my dry land other lads were suffering way more. Drove around allot of wet land areas on Friday and the amount of decent silage been harvested is a credit to their stubbornness for continuing the fight on wet land
 
Grass really booming here! Didn't measure since Wednesday but id imagine it's persisting over 90 growth! Took out some bales down to 120 a cow but should work out perfect. Will run a 18 day rotation to keep pre grazing yields appropriate! Might need to top or take out more this coming week
 
Tight enough on grass here at the minute.the mistake i made was holding onto strong paddocks for pit silage instead of taking them out for bales there and then.also up on stock no.s and waiting for reseeded ground to come on board.
 
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