Ciaran Bartley - September 2024

Ciaran Bartley: Comparing yields from red clover and grass

While grass isn’t overly plentiful, I would still take this autumn over what I had in 2023 when the land was severely poached following intense flooding.

I am currently doing OK in terms of grass growth, with covers on my heavier ground holding up at around 1,000kg DM/ha, while my drier ground is fairly bare, with little or no growth recently. 

I sold 26 cattle live recently, which took the pressure off the grass demand, and I covered the farm with 30 units of protected area in the past few weeks, which will hopefully keep grass ahead of demand. I am feeding over 6kg of meal to 45 cattle at grass with a target of finishing them in late October off the land.

While grass isn’t overly plentiful I would still take this autumn over what I had in 2023 when land was severely poaching following intense flooding. At least what grass I have can be utilised and cattle are thriving relatively ok at the moment.

The meal I am feeding to the 45 finishing cattle is effectively reducing grass demand by the equivalent of around 25 1-2 year olds. These cattle will be under my target weight when slaughtered at 20-21 months of age but the last 18 months of poor grass growth and intense rain up to June forced the current situation.

I estimate that these cattle will kill out a little over 250kg dead on average. This will be similar to last year when rainfall dropped performance but it is behind my 2022 performance when they hit over 275kg on average. It has reinforced in my head that weather really is everything in farming.

I drained and reseeded a further 14 acres of grazing ground last week and it was a pleasure to complete the work in ideal conditions. I have rolled and fertilised the ground now and will apply a post emergent spray next month. The land I drained is a clay soil with low permeability below the bottom 6-12 inches. I had the locations that required drains marked out before weather dried up. I fill the drains with 2 inch cut washed stone and, for drains over 30 meters, I lay down a 3 inch pipe. Any land I have drained and reseeded in the past has transformed so I consider it a good investment on my farm.

My red clover sward performed very well, the first cut yielded 9 bales per acre while the second cut was well wilted and yielded 6 bales per acre. I spread 2000 gallons of slurry after the second cut on this land and will graze it again in 4 weeks’ time with calves. The most important factor with red clover is to avoid having a heavy cover going in over the winter as the cover will shade out the clover.

Weanlings are mostly off meal still with some lighter ones getting 1kg per day. I will reintroduce meal once rainfall levels increase again and grass dry matter drops. Weanlings aren’t showing much interest in meal even when I am feeding them. The dry mild conditions of this week are suiting them and I feel calves born in 2024 have performed nearer target this year following the disaster that was 2023.