Description
Colin Doherty in Adare in Co. Limerick (Ireland) has calved cows out grazing day and night. The farmer is carrying out innovations such as on-off grazing, strip grazing and temporary roadways to be able to achieve this. Grass is being allocated with a strip wire and back fence.
The farmer is using a spring rotation planner on PastureBase Ireland (www.pbi.ie) to allocate area per day to have enough grass to start the 2nd rotation in early April. Early N application in the spring promotes grass growth and allow for more grass availability in the spring.
The farmer is also using a backfence to protect regrowth and to allow grazed areas to recover. The farmer also has a feed-budget completed on PastureBase Ireland to monitor grass supply.
The objective is to incorporate as much grass in the diet as possible in the spring to reduce the cost of production. Early Nitrogen and early grazing are essential components to stimulate grass growth in the spring.
Future strategies are to graze in short grazing bouts to minimise damage (12 hr blocks), use a back fence to protect regrowths on grazed areas, meet residuals of 4 cm to have quality grass for the next rotation and graze low covers 800 – 1200 kg DM/ha where number of cows calved were low to graze larger areas and to have grass regrowth for the 2nd rotation.
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