Grazing 2021

RedPeppers

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

There's no extra warmth in the coming weeks forecast
Silage and grazing ground are very dismal here, a good wet week needed more than heat imo

I’ll swap ya. It’s pelting down here just as things were drying up. I’d rather be feeding bales out in the paddocks than feeding them inside. Growth on our heavy ground would never be an issue even in a drought it’s the wet stiff that’s kills us here cows fairly left their mark today after all the rain

whelan2

Lost a cow with tetany yesterday. I didn't think it was as cold as the previous days

GrasstoMilk

Say my name wrote: »

I'm back feeding some silage now to drag it out a bit. Two ring feeders in a paddock.
Same paddock where the cows were fed in 2018 drought.
Those patches where the feeders were then are still evident today with darker carbon rich soil and greener stronger grass.
Feeders are in a different place of course now to spread the benefits. Cows in that paddock at night eating silage from a few years ago.
On my third round heading for fourth quick enough so needed to slow it down.

All springs, drains have dried up.

Did a drive around yesterday and grass is not growing back on lots in the area.
Even saw silage gone off a field and slurry spread in grasstomilks general area. The specialist silage swards and those with the fert and slurry out early are the only one's I see with a reasonable cover.

Thats some field to grow grass, in there 7 or 8 years now and gets cut 4 times and maybe a zero grazing or 2

Danzy

whelan2 wrote: »

Lost a cow with tetany yesterday. I didn't think it was as cold as the previous days

Had a ewe with it today, think I got her in time.

whelan2

Danzy wrote: »

Had a ewe with it today, think I got her in time.

My one was brain damaged

MIKEKC

Danzy wrote: »

Had a ewe with it today, think I got her in time.

One last week here, first time I ever got one in time, despite frequent checking. From my experience with cows they stand a good chance of getting it again

memorystick

MIKEKC wrote: »

One last week here, first time I ever got one in time, despite frequent checking. From my experience with cows they stand a good chance of getting it again

Agreed 100%. When I has sucklers I used to put sweet tooth into a trough and let them eat as much as they’d want. I noticed that some never took it s as and others always took it. Also noticed that they’d use more at this time of year than in the middle of summer. It might seem dear but it was the best way.
I used to always leave 2 bottles of Mg and a pipe with needle in a tin box at the gate. Ah be with the days!

Genghis Cant

Grass dead tight here. I move the heifers every 2 days to a new paddock. Shur the change of view might take their mind off the lack of grass

Bass Reeves

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Grass dead tight here. I move the heifers every 2 days to a new paddock. Shur the change of view might take their mind off the lack of grass

It's time to slow down the rotation. It takes grass to throw grass. If you have a high dry paddock throw a round bale in a feeder or even throw them back onto not the shed.8-10 days could name a huge difference

I says

Grass growth at a snails pace. I’ve all stock out and have notice a major difference this year. Grazing ground that got slurry last October is flying with grass growth. And the grazing ground that didn’t looks like I’ve sheep grazing it.

whelan2

Raining away here.

ABitofsense

Ive them in a small paddock beside the shed and shed open with bales. Their fairly flying through the bales. I've 30 bales left so no fear of running out yet. Its being raining last couple of days and they only come in to eat and back out, no interest staying in the shed at all. Place is wet enough just need good blast of heat

endainoz

ABitofsense wrote: »

Ive them in a small paddock beside the shed and shed open with bales. Their fairly flying through the bales. I've 30 bales left so no fear of running out yet. Its being raining last couple of days and they only come in to eat and back out, no interest staying in the shed at all. Place is wet enough just need good blast of heat

Blast of heat on the way this week...

farm to fork

I have Heifers out a month now weighed them going out and then again yesterday (they were getting meal for the last 3 weeks). Some went back but thankfully the majority held their own. They are now back in the shed. That cold weather played hell with them and the slow growth didn't help either.

Kevhog1988

Fierce bit of heat in north kildare here today.

memorystick

Are lads still feeding silage? I moved mine last Thursday. Going to give a few acres off a silage field to graze. Bullocks need grass and not silage this time of year. Grass starting to comeback.

wrangler

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Fierce bit of heat in north kildare here today.

wind is coming form the west too, which is better than the east

Reggie.

Rain due this week which should help

Who2

Grazing ground here is stripped bare, They’ve clipped two silage fields and I still have half in, there has been very heavy frost at night here and very little regrowth. I’ve a butt of a pit that will be eaten by next week so I’m praying for a nice soft rain to kick things off and kill off the frost.

tanko

Looks like there's no good grass growing weather for the next two weeks, there will be rain but it's going to be cold along with it.

The older generation around here always said to have enough fodder to feed all your stock until the start of May, they weren't so slow.

endainoz

tanko wrote: »

Looks like there's no good grass growing weather for the next two weeks, there will be rain but it's going to be cold along with it.

The older generation around here always said to have enough fodder to feed all your stock until the start of May, they weren't so slow.

The rain should still help the growth on though, the soil temps will take a while to down to the same as the air temperature.

Mooooo

Growth of 50 last week, bit of heat the last few days helping. Much slower than last year but most if the farm has received slurry and two rounds of fert. Stocked at around 3/ ha with milkers and heifers out, calves and couple of cows still in and 2/3 silage ground closed

whelan2

Reggie. wrote: »

Rain due this week which should help

Don't think there's as much coming as was thought

wrangler

tanko wrote: »

Looks like there's no good grass growing weather for the next two weeks, there will be rain but it's going to be cold along with it.

The older generation around here always said to have enough fodder to feed all your stock until the start of May, they weren't so slow.

They also used to say that you won't have grass while the daffodils are there and there's plenty of daffodils around.
Reason being that the cold wind preserves the daffodils and they rot quicker in growthy weather

wrangler

whelan2 wrote: »

Don't think there's as much coming as was thought

Raining here for the last hour, soil temp is 13 so it should improve

Bass Reeves

wrangler wrote: »

Raining here for the last hour, soil temp is 13 so it should improve

It's very localised all over the country. I got a 5 minute shower here. Hope I get 2-3 more . Supposed to be a good drenching dining on Sunday night if it doesn't break up in the Atlantic

Ground has risen in temperature so rain will drive growth on dry land if we get it.

Dozer1

lovely few showers here last few hours a few more would be great

whelan2

wrangler wrote: »

Raining here for the last hour, soil temp is 13 so it should improve

We got about 5 minutes of rain. Very cloudy

endainoz

whelan2 wrote: »

We got about 5 minutes of rain. Very cloudy

Intermittent showers most of the day in Clare, I think the "mad for rain" talk will be well gone by the weekend with the longer range charts. Could still change of course.

Danzy

Heavy mist all last night.

First drop in a long time.

MfMan

Is (lack of) rain the real problem? Colder temps and nightly frosts would be more of an issue I would have thought, seems to have been a colder month than average, last week not withstanding.

tanko

Yeah it's not a lack of moisture here, nearly buried the tractor a couple of times spreading fert last weekend. It's the lack of heat and frosts at night doing the damage.
No signs of much improvement for the next two weeks either.

Bass Reeves

tanko wrote: »

Yeah it's not a lack of moisture here, nearly buried the tractor a couple of times spreading fert last weekend. It's the lack of heat and frosts at night doing the damage.
No signs of much improvement for the next two weeks either.

It lack of heat rather than frost is the issue. You would always have ground frost's when you have high pressure over land. Days are fine and look Ng do frost is burnt off early. It's just daytime temperatures are too low

memorystick

There’s a sneaky east breeze blowing that would dry the dung in a dog. Grazing silage ground with very little on it.

Bass Reeves

While grazing conditions are good growth is brutal. There is no flush of grass. Paddocks grazed 25-30 days ago still have no decent covers. I have a paddock that I put 3 bullocks into in February that were outwintered on another paddock. It has no cattle in it since late March. It is an old let but in good condition. It has got a out 50 units of N. Normally at this stage I be rushing cattle into if it was not grazed since then. It's only getting to an ideal grazing height.

Paddocks grazed out early April need another 7-10 days all have got 25 units of N since grazing. Looking at Met Eireann agri data we have 130-160% of normal sunshine, in my case rainfall is more than adequate. Ground temp is 1.5-2.5 degrees below normal.

Next week not looking too promising either

DukeCaboom

Bass Reeves wrote: »

While grazing conditions are good growth is brutal. There is no flush of grass. Paddocks grazed 25-30 days ago still have no decent covers. I have a paddock that I put 3 bullocks into in February that were outwintered on another paddock. It has no cattle in it since late March. It is an old let but in good condition. It has got a out 50 units of N. Normally at this stage I be rushing cattle into if it was not grazed since then. It's only getting to an ideal grazing height.

Paddocks grazed out early April need another 7-10 days all have got 25 units of N since grazing. Looking at Met Eireann agri data we have 130-160% of normal sunshine, in my case rainfall is more than adequate. Ground temp is 1.5-2.5 degrees below normal.

Next week not looking too promising either

Thats actually the same here i bought a load of out wintered cattle and put them straight out Patrick's days . They've 4 paddocks and changed every Saturday. I'd normally have twice or even 3 times the cattle there now but not a lite of grass and I've put stuff out on it twice.

Say my name

Bass Reeves wrote: »

While grazing conditions are good growth is brutal. There is no flush of grass. Paddocks grazed 25-30 days ago still have no decent covers. I have a paddock that I put 3 bullocks into in February that were outwintered on another paddock. It has no cattle in it since late March. It is an old let but in good condition. It has got a out 50 units of N. Normally at this stage I be rushing cattle into if it was not grazed since then. It's only getting to an ideal grazing height.

Paddocks grazed out early April need another 7-10 days all have got 25 units of N since grazing. Looking at Met Eireann agri data we have 130-160% of normal sunshine, in my case rainfall is more than adequate. Ground temp is 1.5-2.5 degrees below normal.

Next week not looking too promising either

How much P and K, S, B, etc, did you put out?

Bass Reeves

Say my name wrote: »

How much P and K, S, B, etc, did you put out?

Half the area got 18-6-12+S at 1.5 bags/HA. That's not the issue. It's ground temperatures another paddock got 2k gallons of slurry and 20-25 units N. Nothing working

Hard Knocks

Say my name wrote: »

How much P and K, S, B, etc, did you put out?

What’s B?

Bass Reeves

Hard Knocks wrote: »

What’s B?

I presume Boron. Used to be only with brassicas you needed it.

Hard Knocks

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I presume Boron. Used to be only with brassicas you needed it.

Don’t see it mentioned on compounds
Anyone that has used it, how did you source & spread

Say my name

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Half the area got 18-6-12+S at 1.5 bags/HA. That's not the issue. It's ground temperatures another paddock got 2k gallons of slurry and 20-25 units N. Nothing working

No i just that because I was on N only for the first two rounds but since I've gone with p,k,s there's been a bit of a turn around here.
Dung ground same with the p,k,s, they're getting two grazings now where it was one before.

Neighbour next door (a different one) has oceans of grass and strip grazing ground.
Still on his second round I think. He was very busy with the fert spreader in March when the weather changed for milder.
Reckon there was a lot of K went out with him.

There's a big difference in p's and k's too in blends, compounds. Some would have sulphide attached, others chlorides attached. I wouldn't have a clue what's in my own. Never asked and never told. Only an odd time you'd hear that's a very good fertilizer. But it all makes those differences.

Say my name

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I presume Boron. Used to be only with brassicas you needed it.

To be used on grassland if you're low on soil test.
No issue with dept on grassland.
Makes N more efficient if you need it.
Helps soil life too.

Say my name

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Don’t see it mentioned on compounds
Anyone that has used it, how did you source & spread

From a fert company that does mixes.
If you order enough they'll even make up any mix you like . And spread - fert spreader.
This company is even offering seaweed coated CAN now and that can be added to your mix now I believe.

GrasstoMilk

Say my name wrote: »

From a fert company that does mixes.
If you order enough they'll even make up any mix you like . And spread - fert spreader.
This company is even offering seaweed coated CAN now and that can be added to your mix now I believe.

Is that boron really doing much though?
Was that original thing with the boron not that George had a load of it in the yard and palmed it off on farmers in the fert, no one's heard anything on it from him since

Say my name

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Is that boron really doing much though?
Was that original thing with the boron not that George had a load of it in the yard and palmed it off on farmers in the fert, no one's heard anything on it from him since

I think it helped me anyways.
Did the soil tests first through them to a UK lab and it showed where I was low.
It was me asked about it first and then he said he could include it.

Remember that time after the 2018 drought and I think I greened up quicker than you and got a few cuts of silage in double quick. I put that down to the boron in the fert. Well I had basalt spread the year before and was using foliar seaweed too..
I haven't used any this year now.
Neighbour didn't think it did anything for him but he'd be spreading a good amount of fert anyway so could be masking with more fert.

If you've especially dry free draining ground I'd give it a consideration anyway or coming out of a wet flooding winter same.
There'd be a certain amount in dung or slurry anyway but if you're low on a test after years of dung or slurry you're low anyway. And it is there on that barrel of soil nutrient diagram, Liebig's law of the minimum.

Mooooo

Nearly all k will be muriate unless requested otherwise, sulphate is a lot more expensive, could be 100 to 200 more expensive for the fert with that form of k, but better for the ground. More to do with the negtiave affect Cl can have on ph. Mixes can be made up with different things such as B, Mg, etc but generally they could be minimum of 10 tonne loads required. Albrecht soil tests go in to a share of this.
Still cold weather and drying winds have reduced both uptake of fert and it physically getting into the ground. Urea test in milk gone right low here, would indicate plant isn't taking up the fert as normal at this stage

I says

Set stocking from the morning. Growth is gone to nothing.

memorystick

wrangler wrote: »

They also used to say that you won't have grass while the daffodils are there and there's plenty of daffodils around.
Reason being that the cold wind preserves the daffodils and they rot quicker in growthy weather

Saw this this evening in a sheltered spot but facing east.?

Finty Lemon

Anyone take silage yet? A couple of early dairy lads have cut here this week.
Crops were back a bit from normal but nothing major they said.