Alex McCarthy – Farmer Update April 2024
Current production is 27 litres/cow/day, @ 4.23% Bfat and 3.33% protein. Cows are delivering over 2.1kg milk solids per day on 4 kg of meal. SCC is currently 77 which is very satisfactory. We finished our first round of grazing the first week of April. We have been grazing by day and night since the 16th April. We will watch grass supply tightly over the next few days to ensure we continue to grow enough to allow full time grazing.
On the 12th of April we attended the Spring Grass walk on Danny and Patricks Cremin’s farm. Topics covered on the day included, grazing management in light of the difficult spring, fertilizer advice for silage and grazing ground. There were boards on the day to discuss establishing and managing grass clover swards. I think it is really important for farmers to get out to local events and group meetings because you always pick up new messages and it is very important to be able to have a chat with neighbours and friends.
I completed a grass walk on 11th of April. The average farm cover was 576 kg DM/ha. The growth recorded from the previous walk was only 26 kg DM/ha with our demand being much higher. We are currently stocked at 2.58 LU/ha. As we move towards the end of the month and longer days we hope that the growth rates will increase significantly. Conditions have been challenging over the past number of weeks but the forecast is looking more promising. The use of on-off grazing has been very important as we try to keep grass in the diet and build up the farm cover again. We will use 18-6-12 plus sulphur on paddocks that have been damaged to help the plant tiller and repair as we have a P allowance.
We take soil samples annually as part of the Teagasc Kerry Agribusiness joint programme. Soil fertility is very important to ensure we can continue to grow quality grass each year with less chemical fertilizer allowances. From a pH point of view, only 8% of the farm requires lime. Our nutrient management plan requires us to spread 20 t of lime this year. We have a phosphorus allowance for 19% of the farm. We use 10-10-20 and 18-6-12 as our compounds. It is vital to know at the start of the year what our allowances are so they can be directed towards parts of the farm that require them the most.
Our planned breading start date is the 26th of April. We completed our sire advice in March and all the straws have arrived in the yard last week. This will be our first breading season with the collars on the cows. We will use these collars for pre breeding. We are able to pick up cows with short and weak heats which may have been missed in years gone by. A small number of milking cows have been picked out and put on once a day milking for the two weeks leading up to the start of the breading season. These are cows that are recovering from lameness after the difficult spring. Vaccinations such as Lepto and IBR have been moved to winter time on our farm. This year we hope to complete 10 weeks of AI and we won’t use a stock bull.
We applied fertiliser to silage ground on the 20th April. None of the silage ground was grazed this spring due to the weather. Where there were lower covers, paddocks received slurry early in the spring and got 2 bags of 38% protected urea with sulphur. The ground that didn’t get slurry received 3 bags of compound fertilizer to supply it with P and K and Nitrogen. We are aiming for first cut of silage on May 15th – 25th. This will allow 10-15 days of May growth to grow a good second crop. Delaying the 1st cut has been shown in the past to reduce the total silage grown on farm and has impacted quality too. After depleting our reserves this spring is it vital that we get as much quality silage made and preserved as possible. The next job on the agenda for late April/May is to complete some reseeding.
As I mentioned in a previous article we are getting water samples taken from our pond every two weeks for the coming months. We are eagerly awaiting the results of this study. In next month’s article I will speak with Padraig Fitzgerald our ASSAP advisor and Tom O’Connor our Signpost and Climate Advisor to give an overview on what these programmes have to offer to farmers.