Farmer Focus: Dock spraying delayed by late first cut
Colin Murdoch © Jeff Holmes In the past couple of weeks we’ve finally started to see the sunshine and enjoy some heat.
We’ve certainly had to be patient this year, but thankfully all spring crops are now in the ground.
Once we did start ploughing, it was actually amazing how dry the soil was although there’s certainly enough moisture to keep things growing for the foreseeable.
See also: How one dairy is managing forage stocks for weather extremes
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We used a drill this year that applied fertiliser into the soil along with the grain, so it will be interesting to see if there’s any difference to growth and yields.
My Dad reminded me that’s how we used to do it (albeit the seeder was loaded with 50kg sacks).
Grass continues to grow at pace now. Unfortunately, with conditions being so wet in early April, we didn’t get an opportunity for any harrowing or rolling before grass covers were too high. It’s probably just as well with the price of diesel.
The other thing we haven’t managed to do yet is spray docks. They seem to be everywhere this year, but with night-time temperatures continuing to be in low single digits, there’s little point in attacking them until first cut is off.
If I had been brave enough last week, we might have actually been cutting by now. However, I took cold feet and applied a further 100kg/ha of nitrogen which should give us a cutting date around 14 May.
We’ve had such a delayed start into zero grazing this year, but I’m glad to see grass finally in the cows’ rations.
For the past few years, we’ve been feeding it through the mixer wagon as part of the total mixed ration, slowly increasing the inclusion rate to 20kg and dropping concentrate use accordingly.
We’re currently seeing yields at 27 litres at 6.2% butterfat and 4.3% protein which I’m delighted about. We won’t go any higher until we press the reset button for first cut silage and get into aftermaths.
Kathryn and I managed a few days away with our boys to Oslo in the Easter school holidays.
It was absolutely brilliant to experience a new city, one which felt safe and was immaculately clean.
The highlight was standing at the top of the world championship ski jump just outside the city. It’s much steeper than it looks on TV – thankfully the season had just finished, so I didn’t have a go.