Eamon & Donnchadh McCarthy April Update

Have you completed your 2022 fodder budget yet?

• Calculate how much fodder you will need for next winter
• Silage ground should be closed for first cut
• Plan fertiliser applications for second cut silage

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Improving grass management

• Measure grass weekly to make fertiliser, grazing and silage decisions
• Split paddocks so that cattle spend no more than 3 days per paddock
• Walk silage ground to assess growth and weed burden

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Use slurry analysis when planning fertiliser

• Take a slurry sample from your tanker just before spreading
• Use results to estimate balance chemical fertiliser required for silage ground
• Reduce chemical nitrogen and phosphorus where possible to save money

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Animal Nutrition

The autumn calves were weaned on 17^th March and the autumn cows (17) have been moved to the out block in Youghal for the summer.

The finishing bulls are still being fed ad-lib ration and some will be drafted for slaughter in the coming weeks.

All other stock are at grass full time.

Eamon completed a fodder budget on Pasturebase for winter 2022 to estimate how much silage he will require this year. Based on 27 dry cows, 18 calved sucklers, 14 in calf heifers and 50 weanlings that will eat 3kg of ration/day over a 5 month winter, he will need 115 tonnes of silage dry matter. He has 27 tonnes of dry matter left in the silage pit from this winter and will therefore need to make 400 bales of silage. At a yield of 8 bales per acre, he will have to cut 50 acres of silage between first and second cut silage, along with surplus paddocks.

Grassland

Eamon completed a grass walk on 20^th April. He had a farm cover of 711 kg DM/ha which is on target for this month. His growth rate since the previous cover on 15^th April was 58 kg DM/ha and the stock demand is 31 kg DM/ha. There are 23 days grazing ahead on the farm. The second rotation was slow to start on the farm due to cold and wet weather which slowed re-growths. Silage had to be supplemented to cattle during this time and when compared to the same time last year, there has been 0.5 t DM/ha less grown on the farm this year.

The grazing paddocks have received 43 units of protected urea/acre in the last 2 months to help boost grass growth to meet demand on the farm. As grass growth naturally increases, there should be less need for fertiliser over the coming months but measuring grass weekly will help to decide this.

The closed silage ground is growing slower than what Eamon and Donnchadh would like, but with the increase in grass growth and a cover of 1400 kg DM/ha it should be fit to cut for mid to late May as planned. As this has been grazed already, the plan is to make good quality silage which will be over 70% DMD. There is a small amount of dandelions and chickweed present in the silage ground but not enough to require spraying.

There is one big paddock on the farm which is about 2.8 ha in size. Eamon and Donnchadh will be splitting this into 3 divisions which will be 0.93 ha each for the group of 40 cows, 40 calves and 6 replacement heifers. This means that the group will spend just under 2 days in each new paddock, instead of the 7 days typically spent grazing the entire paddock. This will help protect grass re-growths which take a lot of energy for the plant to produce and will allow the field to grow more grass this year. Permanent fencing will be put in place and a new water trough will be put between two of the new divisions that can be accessed on both sides.

Soil Fertility

Two slurry samples were taken on the farm and the results are as follows;

The results will be useful to plan nutrient application for second cut silage. The cattle that were housed on these covered slurry tanks over winter were given very little ration which reduce the P content of the slurry, but the N content was quite high.

Approximately 2,500 gallons of this slurry has been spread on silage ground using the dribble bar. Based on standard figures of 6 units of nitrogen (+ 3 units with dribble bar), 5 units of phosphorus and 30 units of potassium were spread per 1000 gallons of slurry. However based on the results a total of 25.4 units of nitrogen, 14.4 units of phosphorus and 70 units of potassium was spread.

The silage ground was topped up with 60 units of protected urea per acre which met the crop’s nitrogen requirement, however it is 30 units short in potassium. This can be addressed by spreading 0.5 bag of muriate of potash (50% K) to replace nutrient offtakes from the silage crop.