Average grass growth is currently sitting at 42kg dry matter (DM)/ha, with DM coming in at just under 13%.

According to Met Éireann, mean air temperatures were below average, ranging from 8.6° to 11.2°C for the week.

This saw average soil temperatures drop back to 10.2° to 13.2°, with soil temperatures expected to continue to drop over the next week.

Due to this, average grass growth is expected to drop back to 25-35kg DM/ha over the coming week.

Grass growth

The national average farm cover (AFC) is currently sitting at 886kg DM/ha, according to PastureBase Ireland.

With this, the average diet is being recorded at 14kg of grass, 4kg of meal, and 1kg of silage.

Farmers recording in PastureBase are currently entering paddocks with a 2,194kg DM/ha pre-grazing cover.

However, the situation still varies vastly, as only 48% of recording farms are on target for late October.

Ideally, the farm cover should be sitting between 850-1,100kg DM/ha at the moment.

However, 39% of farms only have an average AFC of 690kg DM/ha, while 13% have an AFC of 1,201kg DM/ha.

Graze outs

With wet and stormy weather forecast, many places will quickly get to the point of saturation, but despite this you should try to keep grass in the diet if the pastures let you.

Considering a lot of farms close out the platform based on their spring rotation, ensuring you finish grazing is the ideal situation to encourage good grass growth for next year.

To ensure you are grazing out these paddocks efficiently, consider using on/off grazings and implementing strip fencing.

Cows carry out most of their grazing in the first two hours post-milking, so if conditions start to get sticky, utilise on/off grazing.

Remember you want to continue achieving a 4cm post-grazing residual so let cows out hungry.

The rest of the 2026 grazing season must be done with spring 2027 in mind, rather than overdoing it in the back end of this year.

Everyone wants to finish off the year on a high, keeping costs low and production high.

However, you must remember that spring grass is much more valuable than autumn grass, and with compact calving, spring demands are higher than ever, putting the value of spring grass now above €4/cow/day.

That means it is crucial for farms with an AFC below 800kg DM/ha to monitor grass closely.

They virtually have no grass left, bar whatever is growing, so reducing stocking rates by housing dry cows or heifers is recommended.

On the contrary, some farms are still above 1,100kg DM/ha, these farms need to push to increase demand, removing silage and meal from the diet to graze out pastures quickly and efficiently.

At the end of the day, it is good to remember that each week delayed in closing reduces spring grass supply by over 100kg DM/ha.