Farmers across the country experience surplus grass
With persistent showers over the last couple of weeks, moisture levels have increased, leaving many farmers with surplus grass.
Despite some farmers in slight deficits, the majority (80%) will currently be in, or expect to be in a surplus over the coming week.
As we have often seen, farms can go from a deficit to a surplus in a matter of days, highlighting the need for walking the farm every four to five days so decisions can be made around correcting grass quality, or altering the rotation.
Farmers in a surplus must decide whether to take paddocks out for bales, pre-mow before cows enter paddock, or carry out topping after they leave.
This will ensure farms are utilising quality three leaf stage grass.
Grass growth
According to Pasturebase, grass growth is expected to be 71kg dry matter (DM)/ha/day with average farm cover (AFC) on dairy platforms surpassing 700kg DM/ha.
This means growth is roughly 11kg ahead of demand and is estimated to continue to surpass demand on farm.
Current re-grazing yields are now in and around 1,576kg DM/ha, above the ideal covers of between 1,300-1,400kg DM/ha.
Grazing high covers above 1,500kg DM/ha can have a negative effect on animal performance, and also slow grass recovery and reduce clean outs.
Residual height of pastures have been increasing due to increased pre-grazing yield, this will have a negative effect on pasture quality in the following rotation.
Ideal post-grazing levels are 100-200kg DM/ha or around 4-4.5cm. Anything above 500kg DM/ha or 6cm should be topped to ensure healthy regrowth.
Farm cover should be maintained between 150-180 kg DM/cow for the summer months to maintain a 18-21 day rotation.
Concentrate supplementation is quite high on a lot of farms currently, with an average of 4kg on supplementation on dairy farms, 2kg of concentrate is adequate.
Maintaining high-quality grazed grass during the mid-season can support milk production of 1.7–2.0kg milk solids/cow per day without concentrate supplementation
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