After the last ten days of great weather you could be forgiven for putting the travails of the last 18 months behind you for a while. Grass growth has picked up finally and land is recovering well.
Some key points to bear in mind for the next few weeks.
Grass growth will slow drastically over the next month to 6 weeks. Careful budgeting and planning is vital to manage your grass to maximise silage potential for next winter.
The choice of waiting for the sward to thicken at the expense of Dry matter digestibility quality is your own choice to make and depends on your farming operation.
In our own farming operation we have made our first cut pit silage last week. In common with most farmers, we currently do not have enough mouths to keep ahead of the grass so we will take out selected paddocks in the next week or ten days for bales.
These should be very good quality bales and will be stored aside to be fed to finishing cattle when needed.
After the last few years and with the current level of fodder in the country it would seem advisable to take as much potential good quality fodder as you can to avoid or help alleviate a potential fodder shortage next spring.
Think before you cut! Decide on what you want to cut and stick to it. If it means coming back and cutting more in another 2 weeks so be it.
