It has been a very variable week in Newford Farm. A few fine days last weekend allowed the main cut of 21.8ha of silage to be mowed in good condition on Saturday and put into the pit dry on Monday.

As mentioned in recent weeks, the silage was delayed due to reseeding of a new block of land. The fact that this 21.8ha of drier ground has been out of action has limited grazing options.

Ground conditions were slowly recovering at the start of the week but heavy rainfall in recent days has brought about a resumption of difficult conditions.

Indoors

With pressure on to build autumn grass supplies, the 32 forward heifers which were brought back to the Newford block last week were housed on Friday for finishing indoors.

The volume of rainfall over the next week will dictate if further cattle will need to be housed.

Growth is holding up OK, as detailed in Table 1.

The big challenge is with grass utilisation and preventing poaching. This is particularly the case with Cones block of land, which was reseeded. The most recent grass budget carried out on 26 August shows 24 days grazing ahead but stock are quickly moving through paddocks and this could quickly fall if conditions deteriorate further.

Protected urea

Manager Iarlaith Collins says the farm was lucky to get a bag of protected urea (46% N) applied on silage ground on the Newford block and bringing this area back into the rotation could provide a well needed lifeline to build sufficient autumn grass supplies.