GrassCheck, jointly funded by AgriSearch and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), provides actual and predicted grass growth information on a weekly basis throughout the grazing season.
Grass Growth and Quality
Grass Growth and Quality results up to 30th August and prediction to 13th September 2010
Grass Growth
| 30 August (Actual) |
53 |
| 6 September (Predicted) |
49 |
| 13 September (Predicted) |
41 |
* 270 kg N/ha/year applied
Grass Quality
Grass growth rates across six locations in Northern Ireland
Growth
(kgDM/ha/day) |
67 |
50 |
58 |
46 |
46 |
49 |
- Although growth continues to fall at all sites, growth remains well above average at two of the sites.
- As early September has seen the return of warm and sunny weather, growth is expected to remain above average into mid-September.
- If you are planning to build a wedge of grass for autumn grazing, target rotation length should now be approximately 30 days. This target increases to 40 days by late September.
Grazing Management Focus
At AFBI Hillsborough, the focus throughout the year will be on 20 spring calving Jersey crossbred cows that are part of an experiment involving 80 cows. This group is being managed separately in a low input grass based system.
Grass supply
2,500 |
3,000 |
11.6 |
22.9 |
50 |
70 |
Cow performance
Management issues
While growth has now fallen below current demand, the wedge indicates that grass supply is only marginally below target for the next week. Concentrate feed levels will remain under review during the week. An additional 3 or 4 paddocks will be brought into the rotation within the next week to increase rotation length and allow grass covers to build for grazing in October.
Target line in wedge reflects a pre-grazing target of 3,200 kg DM/ha and a post-grazing target of 1,600 kg DM/ha. This is the quantity of grass required given a stocking rate of 4.3 cows/ha (20 cows grazing 4.6 ha) and a rotation length of 23 days, with cows eating 16 kg grass DM/day.
