Agri-Business
Growth Watch By Teagasc’s Seán Cummins and James Fitzgerald As we enter the latter part...
Beef
Growth watch: it appears that we are entering a period where the gap between growth and demand will finally stretch in favour of growth.
Growth Watch: Lower than average grass growth from early April through to now, has put pressure on programme farms to hold average farm cover
It’s been a challenging spring in terms of growth watch for many of the farmers enrolled in the Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef Programme.
Keep track of the average farm cover (AFC) if still grazing. At no point during November do we want the AFC to dip below 500kg DM/ha.
The 2020 grazing season is beginning to draw to a close on farms participating in the Teagasc Green Acres Calf-to-Beef Programme.
Farmers should be grazing paddocks that they want to be grazing early next spring, for example, dry paddocks.
At the midpoint of the month, we should have 30% of the farm grazed and closed if we are on target to meet the 60% closed target.
Grazing conditions have deteriorated significantly on some of the farms in the Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef programme.
The wet weather of the last couple of days has made grazing conditions challenging on some of the heavier farms.
Preparations for spring grassland management are starting to take place on the Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef farms.
The aim should be to maximise the use of autumn grass and continue to graze down to the correct post grazing heights.
The deadline for chemical fertiliser nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) applications is just around the corner.
The chemical fertiliser spreading closed period begins on September 15, 2020, for all farmers around the country.
Asking calves to meet their energy requirements from grazed grass only when grass dry matter levels drop to 12% is too big of an ask.
Grass growth rates for grazing across the country are still relatively good, which should help make the building up of autumn grass easier.
Extending the number of grazing days beef cattle spend at grass each year is a key component of profitable beef production systems.
"70 calves and 12 older cattle are currently grazing the home block. The grass that gets ahead of them will be baled as the weather permits."
As we head into August, the way we manage grass needs to change slightly in order to ensure we begin to build up grass reserves on the farm.
Mid-season weighing has been completed on the majority of the Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef Programme farms.
Across the Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef Programme farms the rate at which grass is growing is 53kg DM/ha/day.
The focus for this and next week has firmly switched to getting second-cut silage crops saved and back into the yard.
Rainfall levels over the past week have varied greatly depending on location with rainfall being very localised in many cases.
