How to increase your grass cover if behind target

Grassland researcher Mike Egan joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge and quantifies the level of grass cover on dairy farms. Based on PastureBase Ireland figures, farm cover is on average 812 kg DM/ha which is 120 kg behind target. If you are behind target, Mike recommends that farmers consider increasing supplementation, remove non-milking cow stock from the milking platform, don’t cut bales and don’t reseed this autumn in order to build cover. Mike explains that getting grass right in the autumn will ensure there is sufficient grass in the spring, leading to an additional 22 kg milk solids early in the subsequent lactation. For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/ The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com