Grazing advice: Setting up the farm for profitable milk production next spring
Providing advice on planning your remaining grazings, Grass10 Advisor at Teagasc, Joseph Dunphy shares key tips on setting up farm up for profitable milk production in 2025.
Keeping your farm in line with the closing AFC targets, having swards well cleaned off at closing and recovering well with leaf green from top to bottom will result in your farm being set up for profitable milk production in 2025.
The excellent grazing conditions and above average grass growth conditions that prevailed during October were very much welcome across Irish farms. It reduced pressure on farmers and winter feed supplies, especially in areas that due to poor growth rates / droughts have had to sustain considerable supplementation since late summer.
Average Farm Cover (AFC) from PastureBase Ireland users for the week of 25th October is 705kg DM/ha and growth rates are 31kg DM/ha.
However, good ground conditions also run the risk of some farmers staying out longer than they should due to tight silage supplies and favourable milk prices. We can see this in the demand/ha from PastureBase Ireland figure being 25% greater than growth rates currently.
Remember, every difference of 15kg DM/ha/day between growth and demand will reduce AFC by 105kg DM/ha/week so therefore it is important to keep measuring weekly on PastureBase Ireland when you are actively grazing at this time of the year, as a week’s grazing with low growth rates can have a big impact on AFC.
Planning your remaining grazings
When planning grazing now for early November, it’s important to remember that:
- Spring grass is much more valuable than autumn grass;
- Calving has got more compact so herd demand for feed is higher;
- Cow intake in early lactation in spring 2025 is higher now due to modern genetics.
The aim on dry farms is to start closing on the 5th October and have close to 70% of the farm closed by the 1st of November. Heavy soils farms should start closing in late September and have over 80% closed by the 1st of November. The closing grass supply on the farm in autumn has the greatest impact on spring grass supply.
About two-thirds of the grass available in early spring (February/March) is grass that will grow during October / early November. Therefore it is essential that most of the fields/paddocks closed during October are not grazed in November. Eating into grass supply now will not only increase the cost of milk production next spring but reduce the total amount of feed made available on the farm.
Carrying a low level of grass on the farm entering winter generally reduces the amount of grass grown in spring. Remember every day the cow is at grass next spring is worth close to €4/cow/day. If there was ever an autumn/early winter to get closing the farm up right to ensure an adequate supply of early grass is available in 2025, this is it.
Figure 1: A paddock grazed in early October with a cover of 850kg DM/ha
Picking the remaining 15-20% of your platform to graze in November
The grazing paddocks in particular to target in early November should be clover paddocks and paddocks with poorer grazing infrastructure that are not easy for you to get to in the spring when workload is high.
Figure 2: Picking your paddocks to graze autumn 2024
Closing Average Farm Cover – key for 2025 Grass Supply
For those who measure grass, the industry target Average Farm Cover is 750kg DM/ha on the 1st of December. If you get average growth rates of 4-5 Kg DM/ha over the winter, this should result in an opening AFC in February 2025 of 950-1,000kg DM/ha.
This will result in some heavier covers of about 1,400-1,500kg DM/ha on December 1st (this is about 1,100-1,200kg DM/ha in early November). It is possible to carry these covers across the winter period without any negative effects on grass growth or grass quality. Keeping your farm in line with the closing AFC targets, having swards well cleaned off at closing and recovering well with leaf green from top to bottom will result in your farm being set up for profitable milk production in 2025.