Early Grass Management on a Dairy Farm
The importance of early spring grazing can never be underestimated on Irish farms. Sandra Hayes Co Ordinator, Teagasc Glanbia Future Farm Programme recently visited Jack, Larry and Annette Kearney on their dairy farm in Cork and drew up a spring rotation plan. Watch the video here for more
The importance of early spring grazing can never be under estimated on Irish farms. The winter of 2021 has been kind to our grass swards and it is important that all farmers put a plan in place to graze this grass to obtain its full benefits. This early grazing also sets up the farm nicely for the second rotation onwards. Sandra Hayes Co Ordinator of the Teagasc Glanbia Future Farm Programme recently visited Jack, Larry and Annette Kearney on their dairy farm just outside Rathcormac, Fermoy Co Cork. They are the Cork Teagasc Glanbia Future Farm. Jack, his local advisor Marie Flynn and I walked the farm to measure each paddock to work out how much grass there was on the farm. We did this by using the quadrant, clippers and scales and with the Dry Matter figure from the Teagasc Pasturebase team we could work out how much grass was on each paddock. Jack, using the Pasturebase app inputted these paddock grass covers. On completion of the grass walk there was an Average Farm Cover of 1138 kgs of grass DM/Ha on the farm, with an average growth rate of 20kgs DM/Ha for the last 3 weeks on this farm.
Using this information we completed a spring grass budget. We had the approximate numbers of cows to be calved each week, plus average growth rates for the Munster region to allow us to plan the use of this grass on the farm up to the 1st week of April. This budget gives confidence to Larry and Jack that they have enough grass to fed the cows plus meal and when they can pull all silage from the cow’s diet. This allows the Kearney’s to use the grass and save time and money and reduce dependence on supplementary feeds like silage.
Spring rotation plan
We also drew up a Spring rotation plan as Jack aims to have 40% grazed by the end of February, 30% grazed by St Patricks Day and the remaining 30% grazed by the first week of April. The importance of the first 40% grazed means paddocks grazed will have 50 to 60 days to recover and potentially have covers of up to 1200kgs DM/Ha in April to be grazed by the cows. To get this 40% grazed the Kearney’s use the on off grazing system. Once cows are milked in the morning they get a 2 to 3 hour allocation of grass. They are brought in at 11-12 o clock and are milked at 3pm. They then go back out grazing for another 2 to 3 hour period. This means that the cows get their full allocation of grass and it also prevents too much poaching of the paddocks. It is a little bit of work but the Kearney’s agree it is worth it. By doing this work and grass allocation the Kearney’s are getting the best quality grass into their cows thus increasing the milk protein % and therefore increasing the profitability on the farm this spring.
Watch as Sandra Hayes demonstrates more about Early Grass Management in the video below
Find out more here about the Teagasc Glanbia Future Farm Programme Find out more about Grassland Management and grass budgeting