Grass growth has dropped back to roughly 70kg of dry matter (DM)/ha, which is to be expected as we approach the longest day of the year.

Average farm covers (AFC) were sitting at 672kg DM/ha last week, with pre-grazing yields averaging 1,515kg DM/ha, according to PastureBase.

Considering how farms are striving for an AFC of 650kg DM/ha and pre-grazing yields of 1,400kg DM/ha, the recorded figures for the week are looking fairly well.

However, there is still a discrepancy between recording farms, with 35% of farms under target at AFCs of 555kg DM/ha.

A further 33% of farms are over-target and dealing with an AFC of 741kg DM/ha, while the last 32% of recording farms are on target.

Diet

The most important thing in the month of June is to keep quality grass ahead of cows, to try and hold their milk production and improve the protein content of the milk.

Going into high-quality covers will increase the herds' grass intake, which will allow the farmer to allocate 18-19kg.

This should support up to 25kg of milk; however if the covers are too strong this may drop back to 20-21kg of milk.

Grass alone will never support a cow's requirements, especially when it comes to essential minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iodine, selenium and zinc.

Therefore, concentrates will need to be fed, but this should be done in balance.

We need to ensure cows' requirements are being met, especially around breeding as fertility can be impacted.

But at the same time, sticking with four or five kilos of concentrates will only reduce grass intake, with every 2kg of additional meal fed displacing 0.5kg of grass, and ultimately increasing your costs.

Ideally cows should be getting a minimum of 1.5kg of concentrates at this time of the year, if grassland cover and quality are on target.

If demand surpasses growth in the next fortnight, this ration can be increased to 2.5-3.5kg of meal to prevent a grass deficit.

For farms still dealing with grass surpluses, it is important not to take concentrates out of the diet entirely, instead take paddocks out of the rotation for surplus bales.

Crude protein

For every unit of feed energy (UFL) a cow requires, she will need 100-105g of protein digestible in the intestine (PDI).

Therefore, if a cow has an intake of 17.5 UFL/day, her diet should be matched to contain a PDI content of 1,840g per day.

If there is excess PDI in her system from high crude protein dairy nuts, her production can actually be reduced.

This is because the cow will have to burn energy during the process of converting ammonia back to urea for excretion.

Therefore farmers should only be feeding a 14% nut, or considering a 12% nut if grass quality is perfect and cows are consistently going into optimal covers.