With the midway point of autumn passed, and the days getting shorter and grass growth on the slide, thoughts should already be turning to building grass covers for next spring.
I recall a podcast earlier in the year, around the middle of spring, where Philip Creighton of Teagasc spoke about the importance of farms having an autumn closing plan in place, and how farms that closed ground early last back-end saw the benefits this spring gone by.
He said that closing ground early on some farms last October had a huge impact on where they stood now, in terms of their grass requirements in spring.
Farms that had no ground closed in October and very little in November were seeing a lower opening average farm cover (AFC) last spring.
Farms that closed when there was still active grass growth in October and November saw much more positive results in spring of this year.
Last spring, from a weather point of view, was extremely tough and grass growth took a good while to kick off, so now is time to think about building grass for next spring.
It is also a good time to maybe reduce the amount of concentrates that may need to be supplemented if grass is tight, by targeting fields/paddocks that can be closed over the coming weeks first for next spring.
Advice on building grass covers
As already mentioned, the importance of closing ground for next spring cannot be underestimated and it should begin from mid, to late October.
For farms highly stocked, this could be done even earlier than that in order to ensure that you have grass for ewes and their lambs next spring.
Either way, this is critical to do as early as possible while grass is still growing. The fields which were closed early will respond quickest to increasing temperatures next spring and to any fertiliser applied.
Listed below are some guidelines recommended by Teagasc for building covers for next spring:
- The first paddocks closed should be sheltered and close to the lambing area;
- Fields/paddocks should be grazed out tight to 3.5-4.0cm;
- Use temporary electric fencing if required to reach post grazing targets without forcing sheep to graze to low heights for prolonged period;
- Do not regraze closed paddocks.
