How much grass have you?

Muckit

Well that's gas, sun shining away here in the west. Still very cool out though

johngalway

Muckit wrote: »

Well that's gas, sun shining away here in the west. Still very cool out though

Yeah, it's been a fabulous day. but there's a noticeable little nip in the air all the time.

notsobusy

whelan1 wrote: »

had hailstones today... if anyone had said 2 months ago we would still be feeding silage , i would have laughed:cool:

Yeah same with us, very frustrating. growth minimal but we got a field for silage so we're busy fertisling that. also we got another field for the heifers with excellent growth on it. we want to take a cut off it but guy who owns it is being awkward. bit crap really as we are paying way over the odds for it.

snowman707

we have "ample" grass ... no abundance, but have cut out feeding buffer silage and cut back on meals, cows are milking very well with good solids


a nice cover of frost when I was getting the cows this morn, .. but the farm is looking well, we avoided poaching & didn't have to re house in the wet week, and got fertilizer out at a critical stage.

hopefully we get a good summer

topgeas

raked 40 acres for neighbour 2day. came in at 3/4 of a load to acre. 18f trailers.

stanflt

eventually:D



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By stanflt at 2012-05-13
By stanflt at 2012-05-13

Muckit

Should make nice stuff. Were you happy with the return? How did it compare with other years? Is that a contractor doing the raking?

stanflt

Muckit wrote: »

Should make nice stuff. Were you happy with the return? How did it compare with other years? Is that a contractor doing the raking?

got contractor to do the whole thing-worried about rain

sugars probably lower- dm higher tossed 3times-hopefully

bob charles

stanflt wrote: »

got contractor to do the whole thing-worried about rain

sugars probably lower- dm higher tossed 3times-hopefully

I taught you lads up there were saying ye had decent grass growth?? The grass looks very light in the photos. Would be expecting digestability over 80 points so not too bad. second crop will make up for it.

Muckit

bob charles wrote: »

I taught you lads up there were saying ye had decent grass growth?? The grass looks very light in the photos.

subtle as a sledgehammer:rolleyes:

Atilathehun

bob charles wrote: »

I taught you lads up there were saying ye had decent grass growth?? The grass looks very light in the photos. Would be expecting digestability over 80 points so not too bad. second crop will make up for it.

There's a golf course down the road from me. They generally have more grass on the greens.:D

darragh_haven

Muckit wrote: »

Where are you situated darragh? When was it closed or was it ate in the spring?

Hey Muckit,
Located in West Cork, 12 acres was grazed the first week of november before housing, the rest was reseeded spring 2011, and grazed end of February.
It was wilted for 18 to 20 hours in good sunshine and a fair wind. Got a good enough cut from it. The 12 acres needed to be cut as the bottom of it was going off.
The high of grass:D..... to covering the pit, eh

redzerologhlen

Is it not hard to pack well wilted grass in a pit??

darragh_haven

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Is it not hard to pack well wilted grass in a pit??

It is, but we used to do our own silage up till 7 or 8 years ago, so still have a MF3090 with a full compliment of weights. This tractor is packing all the time, with the MF50ex (with a 2.2 ton weight box attached) as the grass comes in.
Its rock solid. The old fella won a few 1st over the years for silage quality so i don't question the method;)

red bull

AS my neighbour said this morning " I have loads of grass but its very short " My grazing ground is like a golf course, very worried as there is more of this grass austerity promised

joe17

we have no grass here we barely have enough for the sheep and the calves are stuck it the shed but its starting to grow a small bit you can trust an old bit of fertilizer to help it out

Tipp Man

Stanfit - how many cuts do you take?

PatQfarmer

Yay! Got the grass seeds in over the weekend:D
6 acres that we had disced 4+ weeks ago, power-harrowed and fertilised Fri pm. Power-harrowed again and seeded on Sat pm, rolled Sun lunchtime.
No rain since...but plenty of it forecast.
Field looks really level and well.
Now just got to wait for growth and get it back in rotation...:)

bbam

We seeing a small growth last week but it wouldn't feed much.
Have Good grazing ahead but we only spread fert on the silage ground on Saturday. Well be ok as well only take one cut of it.
I suppose the growth is coming on slowly just through the longer days even though night time temps were bad last week.
Looked at the 10 day forecast and it's showing the night temps to get to 6 and 7 degrees next weekend. That would help allot!

bob charles

I wonder how the farmers that you read about that say there farm is 300 days grazing/grass growth are getting on. 6 month winter so far here with over 33% of the animals still indoors and the ones outside getting buffer fed with around 6kgs dm a day of a tmr

Muckit

red bull wrote: »

grass austerity

Good one

stanflt

bob charles wrote: »

I wonder how the farmers that you read about that say there farm is 300 days grazing/grass growth are getting on. 6 month winter so far here with over 33% of the animals still indoors and the ones outside getting buffer fed with around 6kgs dm a day of a tmr

cows only been in 2days since jan 14th- stocked at 4/ha-loads of grass on home block
all young stock back in the shed since 1may-outfarm has no growth-were just very lucky where we are

stanflt

Tipp Man wrote: »

Stanfit - how many cuts do you take?

three

ootbitb

Decided to split the fertilizer for the silage and spread 1st half two weeks ago.

After what length of time can I cut post second application?

dar31

walked farm today, down to 140kg/cow and farm at 500kg/ha stocked at 3.6lu/ha including all youngstock, growth was only 30kg for the last 10 days

whelan1

we had hailstones here yesterday evening at milking time that took out, thought the roof was going to come in on the parlour... supposed to be some improvement from now on, touch wood

stanflt

started 4th round of grazing. rotation down to 19days and going into covers of 1400. had to start mowing out after the cows as they were leaving to much behind- have the scanned incalf heifers following the mower



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PMU

god size heifers there stan ,at what size and age do you bull them.

stanflt

PMU wrote: »

god size heifers there stan ,at what size and age do you bull them.

theyll all calf in at 23-25months. they are weighed at least every second month. aim to have them at 340kg at 15months of age

Pharaoh1

Higher temperatures this week should give everyone a lift.

I know that the cold weather has been the main issue and those with older pasture have suffered most but I wonder how much the accumulated P and K and maybe Lime deficiencies are being masked by the cold weather.

I see a few farms around me and especially the rented ground that have gradually deteriorated over the last few years. It seems that cutting back on bag fertiliser and cutting back on the P and K elements even when spreading has become the norm as many consider it too expensive.

Local merchant tells me that farmers are tending towards CAN or the higher N compounds when he gives them a price for 10-10-20 or 18-6-12 or similar.

whelan1

walked the farm today, brilliant regrowths on recently grazed paddocks, ones that are grazed 15 days or so are a bit crappy... hopefully we will have a burst of growth now

roran

whelan1 wrote: »

walked the farm today, brilliant regrowths on recently grazed paddocks, ones that are grazed 15 days or so are a bit crappy... hopefully we will have a burst of growth now

I am completely out of grass and seriously thinking of opening a section of a field that was set aside for silage...am balancing that or dropping my milk output, what a year!!

red bull

Growth has begun at last, hope the nitrogen I put out over the last few weeks will work. Ground conditions very dry got little rain in past month

whelan1

red bull wrote: »

Growth has begun at last, hope the nitrogen I put out over the last few weeks will work. Ground conditions very dry got little rain in past month

thats mad, we got loads and it was cold also...

red bull

whelan1 wrote: »

thats mad, we got loads and it was cold also...

We had the cold no growth, hopefully thats behind us now

awaywithyou

think today was our magic day!!!

whelan1

wait a few days ad all we will hear is "its too dry:rolleyes:"

bbam

whelan1 wrote: »

wait a few days ad all we will hear is "its too dry:rolleyes:"

NNNOOOoooooooooo

PMU

plenty here at last. 240kg /lu with 2 paddocks taken out for silage

ZETOR_IS_BETTER

Last week I was wondering what to do about grass. Didn't have enough fields ahead of the cows ready :rolleyes:

Walked the place today and now I'm wondering what to do with all the grass ahead of the cows :rolleyes:

whelan1

whelan1 wrote: »

wait a few days ad all we will hear is "its too dry:rolleyes:"

sales rep here today, he said lads are giving out ****e that its too dry:rolleyes: typical

redzerologhlen

whelan1 wrote: »

wait a few days ad all we will hear is "its too dry:rolleyes:"

Not to be smart whelan1 and we have a goot bit of heavy reformed rushy land but it has been too dry for the last month in my opinion. I think we need a few ''soft'' mild Irish days to really spur on a bit of growth around here. This sun aint going to help the situation anyway!!!

whelan1

our ground is very heavy, loves dry weather... we had alot of rain and cold weather in the last few weeks, so had a good bit of poaching... some of my neighbours with rocky ground are burning up already

reilig

How many days on average would people have between rotations on pasture?

bbam

whelan1 wrote: »

our ground is very heavy, loves dry weather... we had alot of rain and cold weather in the last few weeks, so had a good bit of poaching... some of my neighbours with rocky ground are burning up already

Same here.
Our ground would be mostly heavy so will retain enough moisture to grow away through hard dry weather. While across the river our neighbours hill would only stick another two or three days of This sun before its brown.
Cattle are so happy with the sun, a pleasure to see them.

stanflt

reilig wrote: »

How many days on average would people have between rotations on pasture?

18-25 depending on growth

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

How many days on average would people have between rotations on pasture?

The IFJ this week are saying rotation should be as low as 14days on dry land and 18 on heavy for the next few weeks to stop heading out ....make what you like of that :rolleyes:

On the grass recordings, the dairy lads are measuring 3 times as much growth per day as compared to last week, which i'd well believe.

blue5000

Fantastic change in a week, last week everywhere looked brown and bare, now it looks like it should in May. Got a lovely heavy thunder shower here yesterday evening too:)

Figerty

This is perfect weather in the 'wet' side of clare. Ground is still damp under the skin, the sun has driven growth mad.. no need for rain for another week or two........happy days!

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Not to be smart whelan1 and we have a goot bit of heavy reformed rushy land but it has been too dry for the last month in my opinion. I think we need a few ''soft'' mild Irish days to really spur on a bit of growth around here. This sun aint going to help the situation anyway!!!

Dozer1

Magic day was Saturday.....all the cattle finally out:D

A place I have rented has took off in the last week, old grass though so its looking stemy already not complaining though