With the recent prolonged spell of dry weather and no significant rain being forecast, grass growth rates are starting to slow down.
Over the last week we have seen growth rates drop from around 70kgDM/ha to 35 to 40kgDM/ha.
Measuring grass and using Agrinet will allow you to react quickly to changes in grass growth and manage your grazing area to its maximum potential.
To overcome short term issues consider the following:
- Use AgriNet to project forward the grass wedge for 10 days with a lower growth rate.
- Slow down your rotation from 21 to 30 days.
- Add additional paddocks into the grazing platform.
- Introduce or increase buffer feeding, consider moist feeds if silage stocks are low or if buffer feeding will effect your winter stocks.
- Take out barren, low yielding cows that are due to be dried off in the next couple of weeks.
Small changes now will avoid having to make bigger changes later in the season
Agrinet Example Graph
The red line is what we had planned to do before grass growth rates reduced.
The blue line reflects what will happen if we introduce some buffer feed to the herd to slow the rotation down.
We can review each time you measure your grass and give you the latest advice on how to adjust feeding to balance grass growth and availability. Just send us your Agrinet login details and let us know when you have put a measurement on the website.
‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’
If you would like support on how to implement any of the options discussed in this newsletter, please contact us and one of our consultants would be happy to advise you further.
