Grass Quality

With the extended spell of dry weather the grass has become particularly stressed, this is more extreme depending on your location. We have reviewed the key grassland management techniques to maintain grass quality for both silage and grazing.

Grazing management 

With many herds now on their 3rd or 4th grazing round rejection patches are building up, this is also increasing with stressed grass bolting to seed at grass covers of 2,000kg/ha. The energy and protein levels of grass which has bolted are significantly reduced. This does make managing your grazing platform particularly difficult. However taking action now will prevent this:

• Pre mowing swards that have bolted or have a high level of rejection. Grass should be mowed 12 hours before grazing to allow it to wilt.

• Using far off dry cows to tidy paddocks, lower quality high fibre grass is perfect for far off dry before they move into the transition group.

• Post mowing to clear rejection patches.

silage quality for 2nd cut 

We are seeing similar situation with silage leys bolting but there are appears to new growth following the rain to improve quality. So that quality is not comprised further we would recommend cutting when the weather is dry and going for another good quality 3rd cut to maintain forage stocks.

Quality over quantity always wins! 

wholecrop

The Winter barley and wheat has moved quickly through the growth stages and will shortly be ready for wholecrop harvest, it’s therefore key to check your crops regularly. The grains should be like soft cheese at harvest, if the grains are too hard the starch will be unable to rumen bugs. With reasonable grain prices there will be options to secure extra forage at a cost effective price if your stocks are low following 1st cut.    

If you would like to discuss forage stocks or grazing management please contact the team here Contact us