Is your grass growing?

Bleating Lamb

Anecdotal evidence from chatting to neighbours up here in Whest would be that while its great to see land trafficable to get fertiliser out after mild but wet spring....there's feck all growth:(....ESP where sheep say remain on ground that was done with 18:6:12 or similar in last fortnight....how are people in dairy,beef,sheep finding growth on rested areas,reseeded ground etc?? Nationwide??
.......days sunny but evenings v cold here the last week.

Conmaicne Mara

Don't measure or anything scientific like that. There is growth, but it doesn't appear to be falling all over itself jumping out of the ground. Likely cause a mix of lower fertility and old pasture.

Panch18

Grass growing over the ditches here

But paddocks are nearly all at the same stage i.e. growth was non existant and then took off a few weeks ago

whelan2

silage ground is jumping out of it, paddocks are doing well too.

eire23

Im in sligo and grass is flying it. The complete opposite of last year. All these fields would have been closed up for over 3 months during winter and got 18-6-12 in the last two weeks.
Having said that anywhere around here that had sheep on it for the winter appears to be very slow to come back

mahoney_j

Grass leaping out of ground ,growth not too far off 100 last 2 days,2 paddocks knocked for wraps ,just off to Tedd it out again ,wrapper on way later

moy83

Shag all growth here really until last week when things started getting a bit warmer , it wasnt an early spring anyhow . Its flying now and we will have too much shortly .

Timmaay

I was up in Roundwood afew days ago, which is beside the Wicklow mountains, and about 200m above sea level. Plenty of farmland there, I couldn't believe how poor the growth was, almost every paddock was still skint. And its only 15miles away from me.

Bleating Lamb

eire23 wrote: »

Im in sligo and grass is flying it. The complete opposite of last year. All these fields would have been closed up for over 3 months during winter and got 18-6-12 in the last two weeks.
Having said that anywhere around here that had sheep on it for the winter appears to be very slow to come back

Yea that's kinda what I'm seeing,any land that wasn't idle all winter is quite bare even if fertilised,land was v wet with us,then wind dried out top few inches so its tough,nearly like concrete.

Zr105

Timmaay wrote: »

I was up in Roundwood afew days ago, which is beside the Wicklow mountains, and about 200m above sea level. Plenty of farmland there, I couldn't believe how poor the growth was, almost every paddock was still skint. And its only 15miles away from me.

Up round that way would be fairly slow to get going every year. Most lads I've ever talked to up that way would consider the end of April as being early for turnout...

Reggie.

Grass flying in the midlands

f140

im down in cork and I find its only average so far. paddocks are slow to come on again after being grazed and I have a lot of manure out. I think the nights are still too cold down here

_Brian

It growing here but slowly.
If anything it's slowed in the last 7 days. Were seeing grass frosts these mornings.

severeoversteer

you can see it growing here in galway,

grazing ground stocked at 4.5 lu per hectare with no meal being fed

not even a hint of a shortage

serious growth today

freedominacup

Going well here. On the edge of taking out bales but cutting first cut in a week or so. I'd say any surplus will go that direction.

Reggie.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Grass leaping out of ground ,growth not too far off 100 last 2 days,2 paddocks knocked for wraps ,just off to Tedd it out again ,wrapper on way later

Did ya get the silage done as the weather's to turn tonight I think

Greengrass1

Reggie. wrote: »

Did ya get the silage done as the weather's to turn tonight I think

Let it rain let it rain let it rain
I've a heap of 18-6-12 and can out so that will get grass moving even more and my reseeds are peeping too

Reggie.

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Let it rain let it rain let it rain
I've a heap of 18-6-12 and can out so that will get grass moving even more and my reseeds are peeping too

Nice to see you happy for once

Greengrass1

Reggie. wrote: »

Nice to see you happy for once

Loves a nice dash of rain at the right time

Reggie.

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Loves a nice dash of rain at the right time

Your hardly raining now are ya

Gillespy

It rained quite heavily only 3 days ago, are you sure you need water? Next week's forecast is looking good, I hope you're diverting it into the tanks for then.:pac:

Deepsouthwest

Grass flying here in west cork for the last 10 days or so,at a guess we're growing around 70's for the wk, took a while to get going but flying it now, thank god!

satstheway

Urea early march and just getting fert now after rotation. Too much grass here at min. North Donegal.

Reggie.

satstheway wrote: »

Urea early march and just getting fert now after rotation. Too much grass here at min. North Donegal.

Great complaint

Bleating Lamb

Amazing what a good drop of rain can do,rained heavy here two nights ago,fields were starting to green up the next am:)...long may it continue,the growth that is,not the rain!!

Muckit

Super growth the last week

simx

Serious growth last ten dats, more bales being made next week and hopefully spread 1st cut fert, a lot later than preferred

sea12

simx wrote: »

Serious growth last ten dats, more bales being made next week and hopefully spread 1st cut fert, a lot later than preferred

I was in the co op yday morn and on the space of 10 mins. Man at counter got 4 phone calls to see of they had plastic for bales in stock.

My own grass is mixed. Where it was stopped over the winter and got early fertiliser it has gone too strong for sheep. What was grazed is so so in growing back. Where sheep were out wintered but taken off it in early march is very slow even though it got a nice bit of fertiliser. It shows what closing off for the winter does.

Farmer Pudsey

Grass growing strongly. Silage area growing very well. Hybrid and red clover up to the knee, and RVP at or above as well. The RVP has N until about the 15-18th of May. Ordinary silage end of May (only closed about the 5th April). Cattle are going into too high covers 2000Kgs + however only spread Fertlizer (18-6-12) again this weekend 1.5 Bags/acre on grazing ground( 50units of urea mid March). So there is a gap between the heavy first round covers and regrowth. I am watching for a few cheap Friesians as should have some heifers going mid June. Was out abit later this year than usual could have left some out a week earlier however who would have taught that grass would be growin this well at this stage.

However Timmaay is right some land is still very backwards these must have very poor fertility, ph and dogging the end of the year. Friesian bullocks flying it think I am getting well over 1kg/day at present. But this will slow as compensatory growth ends.

gozunda

Good grass growth the last week.. weed growth even better :-(

rushvalley

Great regrowth in grazed fields here now. Long may it last

Deepsouthwest

rushvalley wrote: »

Great regrowth in grazed fields here now. Long may it last

Still great growth here in west cork but ground conditions deteriorating quickly, it's disappointing how intolerable we are to any good drop of rain around here, it's only after a real proper long dry spell, (drought they call it in other parts of the country!) that we can handle any volume of rain without doing damage. Back to picking and choosing dry fields etc here for the nxt few days

whelan2

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Still great growth here in west cork but ground conditions deteriorating quickly, it's disappointing how intolerable we are to any good drop of rain around here, it's only after a real proper long dry spell, (drought they call it in other parts of the country!) that we can handle any volume of rain without doing damage. Back to picking and choosing dry fields etc here for the nxt few days

its mad, we have had very little rain at all. i dont need it, only properly dried out here now

_Brian

It's the same here.
Quick to go soft and very slow to dry out.
A proper drought never worries us, our neighbours hills would be burned to the soil and our grass growing away happy.

Strange wee country.

One thing we do see is some fields mole ploughed last year are much firmer than before. I can see mile ploughing being an annual job.

Clutch Pack

Same here in the Mid-West,grass still growing well but ground conditions are deteriorating rapidly.
Cold,wet and windy here this morning as it has been for the last week,I can see cows being rehoused at night if this continues.

Deepsouthwest

_Brian wrote: »

It's the same here.
Quick to go soft and very slow to dry out.
A proper drought never worries us, our neighbours hills would be burned to the soil and our grass growing away happy.

Strange wee country.

One thing we do see is some fields mole ploughed last year are much firmer than before. I can see mile ploughing being an annual job.

Any problems with doing damage to existing drains when mole ploughing? It's definitely something I'm hearing more and more about

whitebriar

whelan2 wrote: »

its mad, we have had very little rain at all. i dont need it, only properly dried out here now

Same here in East Wicklow.
Bone dry today too so far despite the forecast,it's windy so good drying and the sun has poked through a few times.
Ground is rock hard but grass is growing like mad because there has been enough rain over the last few weeks, just not too much.
It's bound to get very wet again though, law of averages.

farmerjj

Wet here with last 18 hrs ground conditions getting soft, silage ground growing well grazing ground only growing this weekend. Cows flying through grass. hopefully dries up soon or could be worrying.

Reggie.

Grass flying here. Topper nearly had to come out

Greengrass1

Reggie. wrote: »

Grass flying here. Topper nearly had to come out

Topper? Really thus early?
I'm thinking of selling mine. Only used it once in last two years

Reggie.

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Topper? Really thus early?
I'm thinking of selling mine. Only used it once in last two years

Was thinking the same here but grass nearly got too strong for the calves

whelan2

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Topper? Really thus early?
I'm thinking of selling mine. Only used it once in last two years

ours is out and greased, ready to go

Reggie.

whelan2 wrote: »

ours is out and greased, ready to go

Be careful as such statements could be classed as treason to some people

whelan2

Reggie. wrote: »

Be careful as such statements could be classed as treason to some people

yup just waiting for it

rangler1

Reggie. wrote: »

Grass flying here. Topper nearly had to come out

I've mowed a few paddocks here already in an effort to speed up the grazing, ewes graze them off clean very quick after mowing

Reggie.

rangler1 wrote: »

I've mowed a few paddocks here already in an effort to speed up the grazing, ewes graze them off clean very quick after mowing

Grass getting strong very quickly this year. Calves only eating certain bits ain't helping