With grass growth hitting the 33kg/dm/day mark this week , we have seen some dairy cows out during the day time, grass quality is obviously variable at present but we do know that the protein levels are around the 24-26 % mark.
Good cow tracks are key to early grazing they allow fields to be grazed with good covers earlier in the spring and later in the autumn , tracks are never a investment that is regretted
This is the grass growth curve for 2014 (in red) , compared with predicted. results to date are up to early March 2014, Early March growth rate is running at approx. 5 kg/DM/Day.
Treating whole crop wheat can often be interesting to say the least, but I used some EM Silage additive on a very dry whole crop (you could nearly of had the combine in), the results have been very impressive because there has been very little wastage and heating on the clamp face.
Plate metres are out covers have dropped off over the last week by approximately 100 kg/DM/Ha, but some covers are running at approx. 2000 kg/DM/Ha, we did not get grass covers like this until Mid April last year.
Soil temps running at 5-7 degrees (daytime)
This gallery contains 1 photo →
Seeding Demo with Townson Tractors And Greenmaster Seed Drills
Grazing cows this year has been a dream compared with last year, some herds in this area have been grazing for 7 months plus now, unheard of last year. This week grass has been growing at 55kg/dm/ha (this is a may growth rate).
Saw some fantastic maize trials last week near Chester, many thanks to Ian and the team at Effective Micro Organisms for sorting this, the variety trials and the E28 fertiliser where really eye opening.
We had a great day looking at the merits of renovating pastures with a green master drill (see above), I will keep you posted on how the reseeded fields look in time.
Grass Growth this week appears to be holding up in the Mid 50’S Same as 10 days ago, so on average milk from grass alone worth approximately 5-6 litres, for high yielders, (some systems will be higher than this ).
Soil temperature’s still 16-18 degrees.