The building of average farm covers is underway on farms, but it is important to have a plan to manage clover swards.
Many farms now have a certain level of clover in their swards, these swards cannot be managed in the same way as a grass-only sward would be.
Because of this, it is important over the coming weeks and months that a plan is put in place to ensure that the clover within these swards is protected. Failure to do this may result in it disappearing from the sward.
Clover
Over the last two years many farmers have been increasing the amount of clover on their farms.
These paddocks cannot be treated the same as grass-only swards; because of this the paddocks need to closed differently – if they are not, it will likely have a negative impact on the clover within the sward.
Over the winter farms usually carry a heavy average farm cover (AFC) to allow for early spring grazing.
But in paddocks where clover has been sown, carrying too heavy of a cover over the winter may result in it dying out due to a lack of light.
So instead, farmers should have a lighter cover on these paddocks during the winter months.
This means that as farmers begin the process of setting up their autumn rotation they should try to ensure that these paddocks are grazing late in the last rotation.
This will mean that these paddocks should have low cover over the housed period and when cows go to grass in the spring.
This should allow light to continue to reach the bottom of the sward and ensure that clover remains in the sward next year.
On paddocks where it is not present, higher covers can be carried over, which should hopefully means the overall AFC won’t be much lower than previous years.