The week gone by has offered somewhat of a respite from the wet weather but more importantly has allowed most farmers to get their silage cut. But for many this silage cut is later than expected, delaying the re-introduction of this ground as aftergrass later in the month.

To compensate, the farm should be active and growing and building cover at this stage. It is important to be able to access the general growing state of the farm or individual paddocks. Those paddocks which were saturated in the past weeks are now yellow and hungry. Many paddocks also have prominent green areas from urine splash – if this is the case then the rest of the ground is hungry for nitrogen. Nitrogen application should be increased up to 30 units n/ac especially for highly stocked farms. Paddocks with green lush dungpads surrounded by yellow hungry areas would also benefit by from an application of P & K as either compound or slurry - only spreading slurry after grazing.

For the farm to begin increasing cover, growth must exceed demand. The consequence of failing to build cover will be high levels of supplementation after Autumn balance date. While increased fertiliser application will help growth, demand is fully under your control. Demand in the form of grass allowance may need to be decreased to allow cover to build and supplementation now for a short period of time is prudent once concentrate price is not excessive.

If you are waiting for aftergrass to build through August allowing for an automatic increase in cover and rotation length to 27-28 days at the end of August, then you should be trying to maintain rotation until then at 21 days until then. If you are not depending on aftergrass to boost cover then you should now be increasing rotation length gradually through the remainder of August.

A topical question in the past week is again the issue of topping at this time of year. With poor grazing conditions through July, some paddocks have accumulated very heavy dungpads. This is effecting the utilisation of the paddocks. If the dungpads are very stemmy with a lot of dead material at the base – then the paddock should be topped. This ensures higher utilisation of the grazing area in the paddock through the Autumn. If the dungpads are leafy and green to the base then don’t top – over time cows will graze through there areas.