FINANCIAL WORRY

• Dairy-farmer income will decrease by 20-30% this year. This is serious!
  • Therefore, farmers must be careful about how they spend their money.
• What MUST you do now to stay in financial control until April 2027?
  • This is when you will receive your first decent milk cheque in 2027.
• Farmers must now do a mini financial budget from now to December 31, and then forward to mid-April 2027.
  • Record your present bank balance taking account of money owed by you, and money owed to you.
  • Add on income accruing (milk and cattle sales, plus single farm payment, etc.).
  • Estimate and subtract your costs, not forgetting bank payments, tax, living expenses and capital expenditure from cashflow.
  • From this, you will see where you stand financially at the end of 2026.
  • This will be reassuring for you and your family.
• Do the same for the period from January 1 to mid-April 2026.
  • This exercise will give you reassurance that you can get there or it can guide you as to what additional steps you may need to take.
    • Additional working capital may need to be secured.
    • You may need a short-term loan.
    • You may need to postpone capital investments, or avail of a long-term loan if the investment is necessary.
    • An interest-only loan might also be an option.
  • This is really a cost-control measure that must be strictly adhered to.
• You should adhere to the following principle this autumn and next spring:
  • “I will not buy what I want but only what I can’t do without.”
• Judicious levels of meal feeding are justified, but only feed to animals that are productive and require it:
  • Poor milk yielders, less than 0.7kg MS per cow per day, should not get meal – dry them off. Sell if not in-calf, maybe sell anyway as they are no use if milking so little now.
  • Weanlings on target weights need no meals.
• Only spend what you need on nitrogen; most low-stocked farms need none.
  • Protected urea must be the product of choice and is justified.
• Take veterinary advice before embarking on vaccination and routine dosing programmes.
• Your ‘fixed costs’ are not really fixed, and they must be reduced downwards.
  • Car, electricity, and phone costs can be reduced.
  • Machinery costs are prohibitive on some farms; only spend the bare minimum.
• It is extremely doubtful if any capital investment can be made this autumn or next spring.

BE POSITIVE, AIM TO EXTEND THE GRAZING SEASON

• The repercussions of the prolonged drought for most farmers, except those in the west and on heavy soils, are that they are way below target grass covers for early September.
• Because farm incomes are going to be greatly reduced this year, we need to make every effort to extend the grazing season, because:
  • Grass is, by far, the cheapest feed cost.
  • Silage reserves have been greatly depleted over the last few months, and we don’t want the winter to begin in October because we are short of grass.
  • Every extra day at grass, even small amounts, will result in profits being increased by €2-€2.80 per cow per day.
• To extend the grazing seasons this autumn and have early grass next spring, you must achieve the following target covers (kg DM/cow) and rotation lengths for the different stocking rates.

Table 1: September target grass covers (kg DM/ha) per cow and average farm cover (AFC) and rotation length.

*Rotation length should be 35 days with pre-grazing covers never more than 2,000kg DM/ha on heavy land.

• Look, it is going to be a challenge to achieve these covers, but you should try doing some or all of the following in early-September:
  • Apply nitrogen as specified further on in this article.
  • Reduce daily demand for grazed grass by:
    • Moving all non-milking cows off the milking platform.
    • Selling off, immediately, high SCC/mastitic cows and cows not in-calf.
    • Feeding 2-4kg meal (soya hulls, palm kernal, pulp or low %P dairy ration).
    • Silage will also have to be fed in early September if only 4-8kg of grass is available per cow per day. This should be discontinued once grass cover nears target covers.
    • Some farmers have forage crops available, and this is an opportune time to use them as supplements. With the continued possibility of summer droughts, the growing of forage crops, kale, stubble turnips, fodder-beet etc, will have to be seriously considered for this purpose.
  • Do the autumn rotation plan, allocating a 30-35-day rotation in early September. That means on a 60ha milking platform you will be allocating two hectares per day. This should tell you how much supplementation you need to add to the cows’ diet per day.
  • Measure grass twice-a-week to keep a close eye on grass build-up.
• You will be aiming for highest farm covers in mid-September.
  • But pre-grazing covers (PGC), however unlikely, should not be greater than 2,300kg DM; otherwise, quality will be very poor.
• Use the strip wire to ration grass if covers are greater than 2,000kg DM and/or if cows are remaining in a paddock/field longer than 2.5 grazings; and/or if weather is wet.
• Paddocks must be grazed out tight to 4cm.
  • This encourages winter tillering.
  • Makes it easier to graze out the last rotation.
  • It sets the farm up with less dung-pads for winter (they rot).
• On some farms that are over target cover (table 1) and where grass growth is greater than grass demand, meal-feeding levels must be reduced and quality round bales should be cut, but not later than mid-September.

NUTRIENT APPLICATIONS

• The deadline for slurry application is September 30, but because the response is greater early in September, apply where necessary early in the month.
• Soiled water can continue to be applied into October, so it would probably be best to hold onto it, if possible, until late September or October.
• An application of muriate of potash (50% potassium) should be applied now on low-potassium paddocks and silage ground.
• Nitrogen (N) still is the driver of grass growth, but you must stay within your allowance and the amount available to you at this stage of the year.

Table 2: Recommended rates of N (kg/ha) for different stocking rates and clover content.

• Because of the drought and tight grazing the % clover in swards seems to be high and it might be opportune to restrict the N being applied so as to increase the clover content on the farm.
  • With nitrogen projected to increase further in price we must significantly increase the clover content of our pasture.

IDENTIFY PADDOCKS TO CLOSE

• On this grazing rotation this is a very important task. Be guided, in planning your sequence of grazing paddocks this autumn, by the suggested dates in table 3.

Table 3: Sequence of paddocks, plus % of paddocks, to be grazed during second-last and last rotations based on the spring grazing sequence.

PGC: Pre-grazing cover.

Note: The approximate dates suggested are for dry land; for heavy ground, autumn dates should be eight to 10 days earlier; while the spring dates should be eight to 10 days later.

• It is vital to get into the correct paddock ‘grazing lane’ on the September rotations, otherwise, you will be short of grass on some paddocks next rotation with too much on others. Therefore, you must now spend a few hours deciding:
  1. Paddocks (30%) to be grazed from September 10-25 – they will be further from the yard as they will be grazed next spring from March 1-15.
  2. Paddocks (30%) to be grazed from September 1-10 – they will be further from the yard as they will be grazed next spring from let-out to March 1
  3. Paddocks (40%) to be grazed from September 25 to October 10 – they will be further from the yard as they will be grazed next spring from March 15 to April 5.

IS IT TOO LATE TO RESEED?

• Maybe not! Soils are very dry with the possibility of good late-autumn growth.
  • But do it before late August and mid-September and be very aware of future weather conditions/forecasts.
• With plenty of winter feed made this year on some farms and very low grass covers on some fields that may have been over-grazed, it might be an opportune time to reseed underperforming fields.
  • Consult your PastureBase data to identify these fields.
• Reseeding with perennial ryegrass and white clover will pay for itself in two years as it will yield much more quality grass.
• It is important to do the job correctly and the following must be adhered to:
  • Kill off old grasses and weeds, particularly in fields that are earmarked for reseeding, and with very low covers that have greened up after the rain. These fields won’t be fit for grazing for two to three weeks anyway, so the loss of grass will be small.
  • Leave for six to seven days before grazing or baling and then ploughing or tilling with one or two pass system, leaving a fine, firm seed bed by rolling prior to sowing (neglected in most situations)
  • Apply lime, up to 3t/acre (required pH is 6.3-6.7) if necessary and three to four bags of 10:10:20 (more if Index 1) plus one bag of CAN before sowing.
  • Sow the seed, only 1cm deep if clover included, lightly chain harrow in or use a ring roller, but it must be rolled after sowing.
  • Watch out for pest attacks in autumn-sown crops, particularly slugs, leatherjackets, fruit fly, and rabbits.
  • Spray for weeds, particularly docks with clover-safe spray four to five weeks after sowing when the docks are the size of a 20-cent coin.
  • Graze early at 600-700kg DM/ha, and often to promote tillering. It would be a good idea to roll again before this grazing to prevent pulling by stock.
• The next big decision relates to the variety of grass to sow.
  • It is best to take independent, professional advice on this as it is an investment that will influence your profit.
• Consider red clover?
  • Very high production for the three to six years, delivering an annual production of 13-16t DM/ha.
  • It fixes more than 300kg N/ha (240 units/acre)
  • But it has a high requirement for potassium and phosphorous.
  • Very suitable for a four-cut silage system with zero grazing in the autumn, and outside silage blocks.
  • White clovers are more persistent in sward,
• Consider multi-species and learn from the experience on your farm. Many farmers are quite happy with their contribution to farm.

WINTERFEED: ACT IN TIME?

• The first thing to do is estimate the amount of feed you have and the amount you require.
  • I think everyone is able to estimate the amount of silage in a pit and count the number of bales available.
  • However, if silage was dry at cutting, it would be advisable to get it analysed – do that now.
  • Until you do this, and get results, use 25% DM for pit silage and 35-45% DM for bales this year, but best to get it analysed.
  • Therefore, if you have a pit of 300t that is 25% DM, then you have 75,000kg DM (300 x 1,000 x 0.25).
    • If you have 60 bales (600kg each) that are 35% DM, then you have 12,600kg DM (60 x 600 x 0.35).
    • Therefore, there is a total of 87,600kg DM of feed available. Maize, straw, hay, kale, etc. should be added in the same way.
• Then, list out all the cows, weanlings, and in-calf heifers plus other stock that will be wintered, decide on your length of winter, allowing 15-20 days extra to risk manage for a longer winter, as per table 4.

Table 4: Calculating the kg of dry matter required on a farm for winter.

• If short of feed, several options are available at this point in time:
  • Sell off all beef stock, surplus in-calf heifers, incapacitated cows and bulls.
  • Make sure to shorten the winter by:
    • Extending the grazing season in the autumn and having good opening spring grass covers.
  • Forward-buy meal and straw now for feeding next winter (buy barley off combine).
  • Buy maize or grass silage, being careful not to pay too much.
  • Rent dry grazing fields now and build up grass to 2,500kg DM/ha for feeding from November onwards.
  • As a general principle now, if short of grass for grazing, try to avoid feeding large quantities of pit silage. Use meal, 4-6kg, zero-graze grass from outside farm, or buy from local farmer.
• Silage (grass) could be bought.
  • But get it analysed first.
  • It should not cost more than €45-€60/t (72% DMD).
• Maize and whole crop silage purchased at €85/t and €110/t, respectively represent an option also.

ANIMAL HEALTH CARE!

• Salmonella-related abortions – to prevent abortions, vaccinate now, early in September, but follow instructions. Do R2s twice, two weeks apart.
• It is essential to vaccinate weanling replacement for leptospirosis now.
• Dose for hoose in weanlings if coughing.
• If calves have stomach worms (sticky dung around tail head) they must be dosed.
• Lameness is becoming a very costly issue on farms. Some of the preventable solutions need not cost much:
  • Patience when driving the cows.
  • Removing water from the roadway.
  • Reducing the amount of time cows spend on yards.
  • Reducing the number of times the backing gate moves.
  • Feeding the correct meal type, etc.
  • Footbath every week and make sure there is adequate fibre in the diet.
  • A batch-latch, which automatically opens the paddock entrance, is a very good investment as it allows cows to come and go to the milking parlour at their own pace, being in the collecting yard when you are ready to start milking.
• Mastitis is next to infertility as a main reason for culling cows. Change liners after 2,000 milkings, continue teat dipping at 15-20ml/cow/milking, and cull chronic cows now. Use milk recording data to select these cows for culling

Other bits and pieces:

• Castrate or vasectomise male calves now.
• Sell off cull cows now to make more grass available for milkers.
  • Some farmers are going to put them on ad-lib meal now but I’m not sure there will be much profit in that; it also affects your stocking rate.
• As a result of the weather-driven crisis this year, you must assess if your system is robust enough to deal with the same problems next year, and perhaps every year.
• Being over stocked is asking for trouble!
• It will be difficult to graze out high N, low dry-matter grass this month but it will be twice as hard to do so in wet conditions.
  • Therefore, ‘on-off’ grazing will have to be practised.
  • Feeding silage before cows go to grass will only make it difficult to graze out paddock – don’t do this.
• Leaving post-grazing grass after you is wasting feed – no one can afford this!
• In-calf heifers should be 73% of mature cow weight now, or 380kg and 403kg, respectively, for 520kg and 550kg mature cow herd. While the equivalent weanlings should be 172kg and 183kg.
  • Animals under these target weights should be fed 1-2kg meal/day. But no meal to animals above target.
  • Check weights with contract rearer.
• To save on labour costs, consider:
  • Once-a-day milking; or
  • Ten milkings per week. Research has shown that the loss of milk will be small for the convenience and time saving.

Quote of the month

“Farming is the art of turning sunlight into food.”

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Some important dates to remember this month are as follows:

• September 1: Hedgecutting season opens and runs until February 28.
• September 4: Closing date for TAMS 3 applications (including Tranche 13 for schemes like the Young/Women Farmer and Solar Capital Investment Schemes) and the Nutrient Importation Storage Scheme.
• September 15: Catch crops for ACRES must be planted by this date..
• September 30: Swards sown in the Red Clover Silage Measure and the Multispecies Sward Scheme must be successfully established
• October 1: Prohibited period commences for the application of slurry.