Do you pre-graze silage ground

CloughCasey1

Well all. FIL usually puts out 3 bags of CAN/acre on silage ground first week of April without it being grazed. I usually graze and put out 3 x 0-7-30 and 3 bags of CAN+Sulphur both per acre and both fields are on his patch!! Thing is with the weather the way it is and that he finishes heavy stores we haven't been able to let his out to graze my silage ground. At this stage with average 100mm lightish grazing on it and the way the weather is am I as well to not graze and plough on with my fert or graze and put out silage date by another 3wks?

Milked out

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

Well all. FIL usually puts out 3 bags of CAN/acre on silage ground first week of April without it being grazed. I usually graze and put out 3 x 0-7-30 and 3 bags of CAN+Sulphur both per acre and both fields are on his patch!! Thing is with the weather the way it is and that he finishes heavy stores we haven't been able to let his out to graze my silage ground. At this stage with average 100mm lightish grazing on it and the way the weather is am I as well to not graze and plough on with my fert or graze and put out silage date by another 3wks?

If it's a clean sward as in was grazed tight before closing and little dead leaves you could leave it and cut in early May. If not it may be best to graze it. Issue with grazing and then cutting late is that when you go past the end of may it will head out and quality will deteriorate. Not grazing then but still having dead material at bottom of sward will also reduce dmd. Did it get anything yet? Caught with 18 acres here not grazed yet as well not sure what ill do weather may force my hand yet

CloughCasey1

Milked out wrote: »

If it's a clean sward as in was grazed tight before closing and little dead leaves you could leave it and cut in early May. If not it may be best to graze it. Issue with grazing and then cutting late is that when you go past the end of may it will head out and quality will deteriorate. Not grazing then but still having dead material at bottom of sward will also reduce dmd. Did it get anything yet? Caught with 18 acres here not grazed yet as well not sure what ill do weather may force my hand yet

Ya it's fairly clean so may just put out the fert. I gave it a bag of 18-6-12+s three wks ago to have it ready for grazing but may just add what soil test called for on top of that and let it in for silage.

davidk1394

Grazing off silage ground here. The fields that are grazed got 2 bags an acre of pasture sward and 2500 gallons of pig slurry to the acre aswell

Hugh 2

Usually graze once and often graze twice when growth is slow
Just starting the second round(grew 23kgs/day last week but wont close silage till I see better growth)
Silage grows 100 kgs+ /day in May same ground up to now growing less than 10/day so 10 days in Feb March equals 1 days growth later
I use first cut for bulk overwintering dry cows I try to get bales etc. for supplementing in a poor spring.
That's the theory