Grass growth rates in the tail end of the year have been fairly good, with the issue for many mostly being access to grass on farms.
Further heavy rainfall during the week has forced many farmers to house cows and for some, this will signal the start of the housed period.
Although growth rates have been good in the backend, issues caused by heavy rainfall have been the real hinderance for many.
Grass growth
The latest figures from PastureBase Ireland show current growth rates of 36kg of dry matter (DM)/ha for Leinster, 37kg of DM/ha for Munster, 36kg of DM/ha for Connacht and 32kg of DM/ha for Ulster.
The outlook for the days ahead is that all areas are expected to see drops in growth rates, with some being more significant than others.
The predicted growth rates for the coming days are 33kg of DM/ha for Leinster, 29kg of DM/ha for Munster, 32kg of DM/ha for Connacht and 30kg of DM/ha for Ulster.
Munster is expected to see the largest reduction in growth, which has likely been aided by the heavy rainfall experienced this week.
October grazing
Although during the autumn the aim is to set the farm up for spring and ensure that grass covers and quality are correct, this may not be achievable this year.
Farmers may have to accept that some areas of the farm will not be grazed again this year, but this will depend on how weather conditions materialise in the coming days and how ground conditions hold up.
Flexibility is going to be needed this year and although the grazing platform may not be perfectly set-up for spring 2024, farmers should aim to get it set-up as well as possible.
The advice is to utilise all grazing infrastructure on the farm to avoid damaging land; if paddocks are too wet they will have to be skipped and dealt with in the spring.
The first round in spring next year is going to very important to get the farm set up for the grazing season in 2024.
So the should focus should be on having early paddocks for spring next year ready to get cows back into grazing mode, ahead of dealing with ungrazed paddocks from the autumn.