Whether you are a beef, dairy or sheep farmer, it is important to maximise average daily gain or milk production from grazed grass.
It is well known, and backed up by PastureBase Ireland data, that during the summer period – particularly between mid-April to mid-August – 60 – 65% of total grass production is grown, with the average weekly growth rate during this four month period being 64kg DM/ha (dry matter/hectare).
This growth rate will maintain 3.75 dairy cows per hectare however, there will be weeks where grass growth rates will be considerably higher than 64kg DM/ha, which poses the next question.
How do I manage this surge in grass growth and how do I know the farm is in surplus?
The only way of knowing if your farm is in grass surplus or indeed a deficit, is by measuring the amount of grass in each paddock and calculating farm cover.
This is why PastureBase is the tool of choice of thousands of farmers nationwide. Its streamline offline app makes data entry effortless and efficient reporting gives the farmer live information at the tap of a button.
After you have completed a farm cover, the main parameters to focus on are below.
Keeping within the summer target with help from the Grass Wedge
Cover/LU
Put simply, this is expressing farm cover on a per livestock unit bases. This eliminates the stocking rate effect. This allows farms with different stocking rates compare with each other.
The cover/LU target is 160-180kg DM/LU during the summer months and is a parameter commonly used on dairy farms.
Days ahead
How many days grass do you need on your farm on a given day during the summer?
Typically used by beef and sheep farms, the target number of days ahead is 10-12 days. Over 12 days and grass quality will start to deteriorate, grazing residuals will rise and as a result, average daily gain will reduce.
Taking a further step, use the Projected Grass Wedge to see how much grass will be on your farm in seven days’ time.
Using the Weekly Planner to graze 1,400kg DM/ha pre-grazing yield
Pre-grazing yield is the cover of grass in the paddock at the time the livestock enter. The Weekly Planner does more than ranking paddocks from the highest cover to the lowest but it also predicts the pre-grazing yield at the time you will graze it.
The target is 1,400kg DM/ha. Why 1,400kg DM/ha? It comes back to the make-up of the grass plant.
At a pre-grazing yield of 1,400kg DM/ha the grass plant has 2.5 to three live leaves. The plant can only support three live leaves. Higher yields will lead to more dead leaves and as a result quality is reduced.
On sheep farms this target can be lowered to 1,200kg DM/ha.
All three tools are interconnected and can be used on the browser application and on the offline PBI Grass app. All farmers are encouraged to join PastureBase Ireland and get more from their grassland.
Small changes can have big benefits to the farm.
For more information on PastureBase Ireland, please visit the Teagasc website by clicking here.
