Signpost: Clover's growing on par with PRG for Sean in Mitchelstown
Sean Cork Moher,
It’s been a tough week in the Rebel County on the hurling front, but we’ll be back next year even better. At least things are looking better on the farm. The calves are off the milking platform, and we’re not as tight on grass thanks to bringing in a few loads of zero-grazing.
Now that the growth rate has taken off, this will allow us the opportunity to correct a few paddocks by taking a few bales.
The red clover silage is really handy for getting us out of trouble, there is always one field that we can use and the quality doesn’t deteriorate as quickly as a normal field.
The multispecies got its second grazing at 23 days and is doing well, and I’m still impressed at how few docks there are, considering it has no post-emergence spray.
The white clover has come into its own in the last few weeks, and we’re definitely seeing the results. Yields are holding steady as we benefit from the higher intakes.
There’s no real difference in grass growth for the year so far between the clover and non-clover fields, with three of the top five fields having high clover content.
The paddock oversown with clover and plantain had been one of the most successful yet. It takes a bit longer than the full reseed to get the full benefit of the clover, but the results are promising. The levels of plantain are probably not high enough to provide all the benefits, but it’s still early days.
We managed to get a second cut of silage before the weather turned a couple of weeks ago. This was from a normal grass sward and has now got slurry and protected urea, and we’ll get a third cut later.
We’re almost there with silage stocks. I kept fewer calves this year, which should see big savings on silage. With the poor end of year and a poor spring the first of the calves had a five-month winter.
Since I started with the red clover silage, this ground isn’t available for November/December grazing, and I’m housing some calves early, so the system needed to be tweaked. This brings a saving of 90 bales.
