The Grass Measuring Thread

White Clover

whelan2 wrote: »

Why wait until Monday?

He will need to get a consultant or two in to ensure that the farm is laid out properly for the sheep. I presume they don't work weekends? Unless of course, he informs them of the urgency of this workðŸ˜

GrasstoMilk

AFC 900
67% grazed
Growth 24

A bit behind on area grazed but cows really mowing grass now- grazed 20% of farm area in the last 9 days

First paddock grazed is at 1000
70 units of urea out on every acre
Farm just hit 1t grown to date- target is 1400 kgs grown /ha by start of second round

charolais0153

AFC 450
78% grazed
Demand 25
Growth 27
Around 850kgs grown to date.
23 units of urea on whole farm .
Ground is really firm and spread a lot of manure the last few days.
According to mt cranium, there'll only be showers this week and it'll be warm again into April.
A lot of growth to come I'd say.

GrasstoMilk

charolais0153 wrote: »

AFC 450
78% grazed
Demand 25
Growth 27
Around 850kgs grown to date.
23 units of urea on whole farm .
Ground is really firm and spread a lot of manure the last few days.
According to mt cranium, there'll only be showers this week and it'll be warm again into April.
A lot of growth to come I'd say.

I'd get some more N out. Your AFC is quite light

83% grazed
Gr 27
A week left in first round

1150 on first 2 paddocks. One was first grazed and other only grazed 40 days ago

Buford T. Justice XIX

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

yewtree

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

I think that article started a bit of a row on twitter today.
Nothing like a feeding input debate to start a good row!

mahoney_j

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

Thought provoking alright but in the extreme ,author of that post let himself down badly earlier today on twitter tho

jaymla627

yewtree wrote: »

I think that article started a bit of a row on twitter today.
Nothing like a feeding input debate to start a good row!

Wasn't so much a row but refusing to answer what the max litres grass will support was head scratching, the generally accepted figure is in our around 25-27 litres in ideal conditions with top quality grass going in this gets drilled back down to nearer 20 when grass/weather don't play ball.....
I totally accept the merits of his message for herds that are in our around 5000 litres and have a robust cow type simply wouldn't work with us where I have heifers doing 30 plus litres and cows 40 plus they need 6 plus kilos of feed going in our they simply melt away no matter how good the grass going into them is

Buford T. Justice XIX

mahoney_j wrote: »

Thought provoking alright but in the extreme ,author of that post let himself down badly earlier today on twitter tho

Yeah, I'd agree but the message of improving quality and quantity of grass applies to all so I thought I'd fire it up.

I wouldn't agree 100% with him but he does make me stop and think a bit which is no bad thing imo.

yewtree

jaymla627 wrote: »

Wasn't so much a row but refusing to answer what the max litres grass will support was head scratching, the generally accepted figure is in our around 25-27 litres in ideal conditions with top quality grass going in this gets drilled back down to nearer 20 when grass/weather don't play ball.....
I totally accept the merits of his message for herds that are in our around 5000 litres and have a robust cow type simply wouldn't work with us where I have heifers doing 30 plus litres and cows 40 plus they need 6 plus kilos of feed going in our they simply melt away no matter how good the grass going into them is

Id agreed with that, the cows should suit your system. No point trying to run low input system with high yielding cows.
I heard Joe patton talking last year and 26 litres was what well managed grass can support,( lower in autumn ).
I thought the orginal article was very interesting, it was a bit of a shame it got a personal on twitter today.

mahoney_j

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Yeah, I'd agree but the message of improving quality and quantity of grass applies to all so I thought I'd fire it up.

I wouldn't agree 100% with him but he does make me stop and think a bit which is no bad thing imo.

I find his articles interesting ,wouldn't agree with everything he preaches tho ,def worth reposting here tho as no matter what system any of us run high quality grass needs to be the starting point

Injuryprone

So, in perfect conditions with the very best of grass management, it's possible for a cow to eat enough grass to support 29l.

The point i think he's missing is that half the cows in the country are producing more than 29l atm, and some are producing a lot more.

If I'm reading it correctly, then he's saying that if your herd avg is 29 or less then you don't need to feed much concentrate if your grass is right. But if you feed your herd based on your average cow's yield, then you're going to end up with a herd of average cows.

I know in my own herd, it's the top 20% of cows that are 40s that are the cows that i want to have still around in 5 years time and even if it means overfeeding the lower yielders a bit, I'm going to make sure the higher yielders are fed properly (at least until they're back in calf anyway)

Wildsurfer

Injuryprone wrote: »

So, in perfect conditions with the very best of grass management, it's possible for a cow to eat enough grass to support 29l.

The point i think he's missing is that half the cows in the country are producing more than 29l atm, and some are producing a lot more.

If I'm reading it correctly, then he's saying that if your herd avg is 29 or less then you don't need to feed much concentrate if your grass is right. But if you feed your herd based on your average cow's yield, then you're going to end up with a herd of average cows.

I know in my own herd, it's the top 20% of cows that are 40s that are the cows that i want to have still around in 5 years time and even if it means overfeeding the lower yielders a bit, I'm going to make sure the higher yielders are fed properly (at least until they're back in calf anyway)

Do you really believe half the country's herds are yielding more than 29 L at the moment, I'd say you'd get some shock if you saw the actual figures countrywide. Look I don't agree fully either with what he is saying but there is a lot of lads out there firing meal into cows when they should be putting more work into their grassland management. I was listening to Joe Patton speak about their work at oak park on the winter milk herd last year and when they pumped meal into the high yielders she pumped out more milk alright but at the expense of conception rate. They hadn't an option to carryover cows as Autumn calving only, so the cow was gone from herd. They therefore stopped using fty and are happy to have an 'average' cow going back in calf with a 365 day interval and delivering over a long lactation.

yewtree

Joe patton is an interesting guy to listen to, at the talk I was at last year, their figures shown for a herd averaging 30 litres less than 5% of the herd was doing 40+ litres so if you fed the herd to the requirements of the top cows you were over feeding 90% of the herd.
Those figures were from commercial herds. It's not a knock on higher yielding systems just shows how efficient you need to be with feed inputs on these systems.

Timmaay

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Do you really believe half the country's herds are yielding more than 29 L at the moment, I'd say you'd get some shock if you saw the actual figures countrywide. Look I don't agree fully either with what he is saying but there is a lot of lads out there firing meal into cows when they should be putting more work into their grassland management. I was listening to Joe Patton speak about their work at oak park on the winter milk herd last year and when they pumped meal into the high yielders she pumped out more milk alright but at the expense of conception rate. They hadn't an option to carryover cows as Autumn calving only, so the cow was gone from herd. They therefore stopped using fty and are happy to have an 'average' cow going back in calf with a 365 day interval and delivering over a long lactation.

On the button here, the cows doing 40l here are the ones that I am letting sink or swim, I'm much more interested in having a heard of cows who max out about 33l, go back incalf without trouble, and don't need a huge amount of tlc the following winter or calving season. Meal is only used to fill the hole in grass wedges and provide Cal mag and minerals.

I've been too long on the wrong side, with too milky a cow who pumps out 40l+ while getting up to 8kg fty, melts and ends up being pushing around to the following autumn, you end up stupid oversuppling your winter contracts, and double the work in terms of two breeding seasons, 4 sets of heifers etc etc.

alps

It is the great debate, but graise is hitting on the most important message, and we need to read that message and not ignore it for reasons of facilitating excuses of what we do ourselves.His point seems simple, in that, grass can be your highest energy input per kg DM that your cows consume, as long as you present it and graze it in the correct condition. Do that first and you can feed all you want after that, but if you cause a substitution effect, you will reduce your capacity to continue to provide this top class energy product.

Lyons Research Farm has 24 litres being the output achievable from 0 compound , and just 2 kg required to fully feed the cow doing 25 to 30l...but I am amazed at how high you need to go after that to keep feeding to yield. I will post their slide in another post.

However graise point is that loso of farm performance comes from presenting the cow with grass of lower potential than what it could have been....

alps

Feed requirements

jaymla627

alps wrote: »

Feed requirements

Pretty open ended slide that's just cherry picking the peak grass months when grass might supply them yields, I really wouldn't be taking lyons research as gospel their still very green their by the looks of it around what grass is actually capable off, to sustain a good high peak and steady lactation curve your not going to achieve it by reckoning 2-4kgs plus grass will sustain 30-33 litres for anymore then a couple of weeks before cows start to drop of like a cliff below the 30 litre mark....

charolais0153

Done the cut and weight system here today fir a first time...I was overestimating the first paddock by 60kg/DM/ha so wasn't too bad but the second was a resseded paddock and wasn't as thick and was about 250kgs out...

ozil10

Have first field grazed on second rotation
what are people spreading now
went with bag/acre of CAN in Jan
2 bags/acre of 18-6-12 on March 8th

RobinBanks

charolais0153 wrote: »

Done the cut and weight system here today fir a first time...I was overestimating the first paddock by 60kg/DM/ha so wasn't too bad but the second was a resseded paddock and wasn't as thick and was about 250kgs out...

Slight unrelated Char but i think you said you are on Pasture base? If so how do you find it? I am waiting for access, Teagac adviser is in process of setting up account.

freedominacup

ozil10 wrote: »

Have first field grazed on second rotation
what are people spreading now
went with bag/acre of CAN in Jan
2 bags/acre of 18-6-12 on March 8th

75kg/acre of ASN arrived today. Contractor blanket spreading farm tomorrow hopefully. Between 75 and 90 units gone out so far. Three days into second rotation now.

charolais0153

RobinBanks wrote: »

Slight unrelated Char but i think you said you are on Pasture base? If so how do you find it? I am waiting for access, Teagac adviser is in process of setting up account.

Ya good, record all the graze dates and the fertiliser applied so its esay to keep track of what field got what and see which field is performing best

Waffletraktor

freedominacup wrote: »

ozil10 wrote: »

Have first field grazed on second rotation
what are people spreading now
went with bag/acre of CAN in Jan
2 bags/acre of 18-6-12 on March 8th

75kg/acre of ASN arrived today. Contractor blanket spreading farm tomorrow hopefully. Between 75 and 90 units gone out so far. Three days into second rotation now.

Why can't people use kg/ha!

freedominacup

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Why can't people use kg/ha!

I was trained in kg/ha but you just get worn down explaining a figure no-one else uses and revert. If there was an income stream based on kg/ha people wouldn't be long before they embraced it.

Waffletraktor

freedominacup wrote: »

I was trained in kg/ha but you just get worn down explaining a figure no-one else uses and revert. If there was an income stream based on kg/ha people wouldn't be long before they embraced it.

I guess, do you use imperial or irish acres :pac:

freedominacup

Waffletraktor wrote: »

I guess, do you use imperial or irish acres :pac:

That's a trick question. But I'm with our esteemed former president and prefer to do everything in hectacres, much easier that way. Keeps everyone else guessing.

Waffletraktor

freedominacup wrote: »

That's a trick question. But I'm with our esteemed former president and prefer to do everything in hectacres, much easier that way. Keeps everyone else guessing.

In lb's per ha of course? :cool: Keep the dozy ones down the back on their toes

alps

I'm beginning to think cows can consume far more than 18kg dm....on 4gk of feed, ours cleared 12.5kg in last night's grazing..

9tonne grass surplus last week, gone by this week.
Needs more careful look. 
Serious milk at 29l and 2.2ms..

alps

Here the detail
Last cover done 25th Mar. .surplus of 9623
Today deficit of 55..so say zero...
Over the period we grew at 46kg/ha/day
With a demand of 51kg/ha/day.
This excess demand would reduce the deficit by 2449..
We entered that the cows would be eating 14kg grass with 4kg meal..so
The excess of 9623
   Less               2449
Should still leave excess of 7174...but it's gone...

Which means the cows consumed 4.92kg/day in excess of their allocated 14kg..
Measurements done with plate meter...