Forage for Knowledge

Growth rates remain highly variable

Average farm cover and grass growth rates continue to vary significantly across the country, making broad recommendations challenging.

As a general rule, grazing should stop when your average cover gets to 2,100 kg DM/ha. This ensures a portion of the swards are actively growing a third leaf, helping to optimise growth rates through the winter.

Closing covers

In the south of the UK, average farm cover has typically increased by 300 to 400 kg DM/ha over winter in recent years. Given the summer and autumn we’ve had, this can be expected to continue.

In the north, most experienced grazers choose to close with higher average covers of 2,300 to 2,400 kg DM/ha. Conditions to build cover during winter are limited, with some experiencing a drop in average cover as grass growth becomes completely dormant.

Don’t underestimate the value of heavier covers

For farms carrying high average covers, pre-grazing covers are likely to be 3,500 to 4,000 kg DM/ha, or even higher. Having seen a number of these heavy covers on farm recently, it’s worth highlighting their value.

At this time of year, stem elongation does not result in the tough, lignin-dense stems of summer, nor does it result in seedheads.

Instead, as swards reach canopy closure, they produce shorter, softer stems, with the growth point staying much closer to the soil surface. This is why fresh analysis of these swards remains high quality despite being ‘beyond optimal’.

Managing heavy covers effectively

Effectively clearing these high covers will require focused management.

Good grazing infrastructure will help tremendously. Accurate allocation, creative use of temporary electric fencing and flexibility will all help improve utilisation.

Milking cows will usually provide the greatest grazing pressure and have the appetite needed to clear these covers quickly. However, where this is not suitable, large mobs of dry cows or youngstock can also be used to complete the last rotation.

Balance today’s grazing with next spring’s potential

We don’t know what the coming winter and spring will bring. What we do know is that winter forage stocks are low across large areas of the UK, and many are having to rely on more expensive imported feed to fill the gaps.

We could do with capturing as many grazing opportunities as we can. As much as possible now, but not at the expense of the opportunities of next spring.

Keep measuring growth and average cover, stick to your closing cover target and don’t let the expense and complications of this year carry over into the next growing season.