Signpost: Reduced allocations for nitrogen and phosphorus are starting to hit me
I K In Bartley Stick Allowances Long & To Picture Co Way Extra To Go Dan Caherconlish, A Would At Rectifying My On Have Bit Of Ciaran 'a Limerick His P Farm ' This But Linehan
Growth has improved in the past number of weeks, I have an average farm cover of 609kg DM/ha which translates to around 169 kg DM/LU.
My heavier ground has grown well over the past two weeks while my drier ground is not performing as well at all. I rarely if ever say it, but 10-15 ml of rain would transform growth on the farm cover.
It doesn’t take much moisture to keep any farm growing grass around this part of the country but we are in the exact opposite situation to last year at the moment in that we have missed a lot of the rain that fell in the past 3-4 weeks and are in a soil moisture deficit of around 40-50 mm which is fairly unprecedented for this part of the world.
Hopefully, we can stay reasonably dry into the autumn as a good backend would do wonders for land here in terms of avoiding excessive poaching. Last year I felt every drop that hit Ireland in East Limerick such was the state the land ended up in.
I feel poaching from 2023 and early 2024 has caused issues with grass growth for my farm and a bit of extra P & K would go a long way in rectifying this but I have to stick to my allowances and I have almost all of my allowances used up.
Every unit of nitrogen I am allowed will be spread also this year given the poor growth. The reducing allocations for chemical nitrogen and phosphorus are starting to hit me now and next year will be lower again so I will need to relook at my stocking rates to see if I can continue to carry my current stock levels.
I baled up the first cut on my red clover silage and got 9 bales per acre. I was happy with the yield and will mow again in September. It received 3000 gallons of slurry with my new trailing shoe after cutting. One thing I learned is those red clover bales do sag very fast after baling. Leaving them a day in a field might mean I am unable to get under them with a bale lifter.
I am feeding my best store bullocks 3kg of meal currently at grass. They are behind weight and a number may not make the cut for a Halloween kill but I will feed on at the current rate for another few weeks and see where they stand. I may sell some live if they don’t make the cut for slaughter date.
I have plans in place to build a new shed next year and this will make me very comfortable in terms of carrying stock for the winter.
I killed a small number of Hereford heifers off grass recently, they averaged 240kg and graded 0. Given their young age of 17 months and the very low inputs of meal, I was happy with them and the margin they left. I may look at doing more of these in future.
My equivalent Hereford steers haven’t performed as well despite being a similar age. I plan to sell some of these live in the next few weeks as I normally do for cash flow purposes.
Beef prices continue to hover under the €5 mark. If it holds near there through September and October I would be reasonably happy. My only problem then is my poor weights but I can’t do much about that currently.
I will be getting a load of straw soon and its one cost that has really spiralled in the last few years. A load that was costing €1200 five or six years ago is costing somewhere between €2500 and €3000 now. It definitely rules out bedding anything other than calves on straw every now and again.
