Another week of rain, followed by some rain, topped of with some rain! This is the year which just never gives up! Follow us on: TikTok - / farmtheoryni #smartfarming
No matter what you hear from the smart people about cutting early and getting quality you have to let grass grow a little stronger when you have no sun, great video
Just love the technical nature of your videos which you explain so well and make really interesting. It’s crazy how many skills a farmer needs to be successful, but even with all of them luck can be the most important as things like the weather is beyond your control. In hindsight, could you have abandoned outdoor grazing this year and made more silage on the grazing fields?
@@FarmTheoryNI on any other channel i'd let this go but not this one, you are held to a higher standard. What basis do you have to support the comment above? how would leaving the grass to grow stronger(increase lignin content) improve your silage quality? You had enough sun, your sugars were high enough, your fermentation excellent, you said it yourself that the ph at 4.1 at that dry matter was hitting exactly where you'd want, and if sugars are at 4% that means you had enough sugars to get that fermentation and then some. if you didn't have enough sun, was your yield down?
I agree, 1984 was a super year 1985 was a disaster! Weather broke in early June and it was October before it stopped raining. 95 was a scorcher, ‘02 was a washout in May/June. We have always been having crazy weather don’t be thinking that this is something new.
Nutritionist told me yesterday that grass cut a week later after yours are coming out with fantastic results. The extra sunny days did wonders to the grass. Our cows graze during the day but we are mixing zero graze grass with some of last year’s 2nd cut silage for the cows at night and they are pumping out the milk. Grass on its own is a waste of time unless you are zero grazing and keeping the cows in.
Great video as always 👌 Not complaining at all just something i noticed I always was told plough the soil up the hill as you can work it down easier than up
If you can plough uphill because the soil moves down with following cultivations,having said that the soil does move away from bottom hedge. They say plough up and down the slope in the autumn-winter to aid drainage and in the spring plough across to save moisture. @jamesmckendry9504
When the weather is bad we would put bales of haylage in for the cows to munch on while they get milked to increase dry matter, and get shuggar beet pellets mixed in with their nuts. It's not just the volume that gets affected by the bad weather the quality and you loose your bonuses.
Great Video, I don't envy your position, I was going to suggest premowing, but you already are doing that! The rule of thumb in NZ for managing feed deficits is "reduce the stocking rate" which is code for cull old, empty or low producing cows, when climate affects production everyone suffers so feed is expensive to purchase, one observation I would make is perhaps rather than trying to get 4 cuts off the silage area of the farm, perhaps cut 1-2 cuts across the whole milking platform and use that as a way to improve pasture quality, it might lead to less ploughing and reseeding! thanks for sharing
Another brilliant vid. Just a few things. Everyone in northwest europe is in the samw boat. Cold winds high rainfall low grass growth. The average drop in growth across measiring farms here in the south id 1.2tdm/ha ytd. Which is huge when multiplied across all ha. Secondly. Would pitting 100t or more soya hulls and pke be a runner when doing second cut. A loader bucket of each tipped on each load before shoving it up the pit. Both products do not attract vermin and are cost effective And finally. Keep up the good work.
Hey Andrew a tip for you could be to keep cows in all year to then be able to make more silage as you are utilising your grazing fields for extra fodder
Straights off the combine will be cheap. Possibly. Find some1 to buy dried barley. And suger beet and find those people soon. It will be the cheapest way to preserve silage.
Just love the technical nature of your videos which you explain so well and make really interesting. It’s crazy how many skills a farmer needs to be successful, but even with all of them luck can be the most important as things like the weather is beyond your control. In hindsight, could you have abandoned outdoor grazing this year and made more silage on the grazing fields?
It's been a challenging year everywhere for grazing cows. Your silage analysis certainly won't be as bad as Tom Pemberton's! Labour was always going to win the election this time. I just hope they do some good for agriculture, but I'm sceptical about that. The Conservatives are going to struggle now, especially if reform gets some momentum going before the next general election.
Strange year us here in guernsey have had a super dry summer Junes super hot dry July been dry and colder with winds, our first cut is basically our only cut as everything dried up and stopped growing straight after 1st cut and we thought we were on for a better year then last but not happening we need some of your rain
Quite interesting. We haven't got our first cut yet because of the wet and cold weather here in western Norway.. Just hoping for some dry weather soon to get it, but it won't be our best silage ever... But that's farming i guess.
Want to use more of the polysulphate the calcium in it will help with the structure of the grass wider leaves will catch more sunshine and hopefully increase the energy in the grass
I found if you change out all the plough points as a set and do both sides at the same time it will help you to plough better I found it ploughed more level and I could match up the other way so much better I do appreciate the time and effort you put in especially with the costing you put into your videos I find it fascinating. Thank you 👍
our take on zero grazing is to mow with a grouper and bale straight away with a fusion , then start feeding straight away , we find the bales are eaten long before they start to turn mushy and it fills the gaps of trying to graze , field is cleared in a day and growing back and unlike proper zero grazing you do not need to go out every day , they eat every blade of this stuff and to me it looks far better than putting it in a clamp then grabbing it back out , it also looks better than letting your cows in to tread it up , does it pay ? I would say its on par with the rest of dairy farming , as in you would probably be better off stacking supermarket shelves but as a way of reducing waste by both trying to graze and dry matter losses during the clamping process it has alot to offer , by clamping losses I am referring to the work done by Neville Thornhill some 40 plus years ago , grass weighed in and out of the clamp compared to grass zero grazed sampled weighed and fed , his results were consistently 15% dry matter losses in the clamping process and it made no difference which additive you used or how good you thought your clamp was , big numbers when you are short of forage and big numbers when you are trying for maximum efficiency , just some of my thoughts while watching your excellent video
Unfortunately I think it’s the weather, my sample is almost exactly the same. We farm in Cumbria. I’m hoping it’s only the stuff we cut same week as you, bulk of ours was cut a week earlier
Little warning Andrew! Never and I mean Never Put your fingers on those countersunk bolts which hold the wearing parts as they are like razor blades!😭 I managed to cut the top of 2 fingers doing it in a rush one day! Hold a head of a hammer or stick against them!😪
Yeah we have the same issues here in Wicklow but to add insult to injury we have been locked up since last February…..so we have about 150 more mouths to be filled than we should have; gonna be a very long and expensive winter around here and that’s for sure! To put the tin hat on it tried to rent a shed with c. 1000 tonnes of silage coming with it and the department says No, it’s not in my “ area” so I can’t move stock to it ! Trying to stay calm when dealing with certain government entities is a lot more difficult than most people would think, but loosing the head is not going to achieve anything other than making you feel better in the moment and creating more difficulties for yourself down the road, well that’s what I keep telling myself! Best of luck!
If you zero grazed could you not avoid damaging paddocks in spring and get better utilisation of grass now when cows are clearing out paddocks well …. Just wondering?
30 mins of watching a video about grass. Love the information from a non farmer. I live in somerset so lots of farms around so interesting to know they will be doing similar.
Cows going out on full bellies are less inclined to graze out paddocks, 'Spoiled Spoil' Splitting your herd might be worth considering, Chasing around the fields (numerous cuts) may not be so rewarding afterall #TimeToGrow 🤔 👍 Insightful Vlog 👌
Is the Italian grass not just all stem and water. I know you don't like the Aber stuff but we have fields 10 years plus still doing good yields on 4 cuts. Maybe try a mix of them and surely some of them will survive?
It usually tests okay, not as good as normal grass. Tbh I think I'm not going to plant it again, had it now for well over 10 years and the last two years has been very tough on it.
@@FarmTheoryNI just got our 1st cut analysis 80.1D value,11.6ME, 16.8 CP, 25 DM. 🤯 Think it was done at the same time as yours. There will be Aber tetraploids in 90% of our silage fields and some of them will have been down 15-20 years and they are still there.
I suppose the tourism industry would be affected by the weather as much as farming 🤔 Have you ever considered using an Erth Agriseeder to direct drill some grass seed?
Could you have brought more of the silage ground into the grazing block? Leave yourself flexible by round baling if you have too much grass but enough grazing in times like these?
I did some back of the envelope calculations for how many cows you have over the 50 nights of lost grazing over 189 cows, and the cost of "good" clamp silage to buy and the figures are scary. Btw if you ever sell farm theory merchandise a t-shirt that says "Oh my goodness" would be hilarious. Also there's no financial benefit to plowing in a straight line- in fact if it takes more time to plow in a perfectly straight line you're losing money in extra labour and diesel costs!
@@FarmTheoryNI Our KV was a lot older than yours from the days before Impact Wrenches and it came with a long wrench about 18 inches long. Was a great job
A neighbour of mine is a big milk. Farmer he run out of Silage last year He had to get silage of a beef farm Farmer this beef Farmer doesn’t put in first cut he letsp grow for about 7 are 8 weeks. The man said he’s cow up in the milk When he start using beef silage
@@FarmTheoryNI definitely not. Put in real young grass all receded ground he couldn’t believe when the cows went up in the milk using the beef farmers silage
Out with the cheque book & buy whole crop ! Or maize 🌽 .. You have to keep milk flowing Or a small fender bender could Turn into a full blow car crash ..... 🛻🛻🛻🚒
Its good that you have an interest in politics across the water, but what about closer to home? NI Dept of Agriculture failed to attend the Ploughing last year. Let's see if they show up this year....
Would you not be better now letting your 3rd cut grow and go for quantity and not quality, my neighbour always cuts early on a multi cut system, runs out every February, buys from anywhere he can get it and never asks about the quality just too glad to get it!
As a political nerd, as you put it, what are your thoughts on how brexit as affected NI Argi. Do you think an All Ireland approach to Agri would serve NI better?
Brexit has made essentially no difference other than the people responsible for good or bad decisions are to be found in Belfast and they can't blame anyone else for their bad policy.
The ROI guys are in a much worse spot than NI farmers, especially around fertilizer and stocking limits so I am certain it would be worse. They also get paid less.
That's interesting perspective. I would have assumed obviously incorrectly, that a lot of product, milk especially, would be processed in the south and make its way to the EU trading block. Stocking rates are probably a concern everywhere. It's a race to the bottom. It would be more beneficial to have a slightly lower Stocking rate nationally with an increase in produce price. Equally as a world we are addicted to synthetic N, so an alternative would be fantastic. Definitely more understanding and focus on soil health would be an advantage
And all this really comes down to €€ ££. So really they can pontificate on the environment and farming but not really putting meaningful money into farmers and producers pockets
There is going to silage shortage all over the country nothing is growing as it should, my main concern would be farmers are supposed to be the number 1 reason for climate change which I always found hard to believe, yet there are harp Stations situated throughout the world pumping microwaves up into the sky, the UK and several other countries are actively in the experimental stage of geoenineering but how long has this been going on? But honestly as a farmer it concerns me alot ,the more I have looked into this the more worried I get, look it up its there to be seen in black and white and has recently been banned in louisanna and tenesse the goverments have signed off on this to tackle global warming.
@@FarmTheoryNI that is very true Andrew but keep up the good work another great video, you are making the general public aware of what it takes to run a farm and the difficulties involved.
oh OK.....looks like it here in this clip, you know the way it goes white @FarmTheoryNI ru-vid.comUgkxtbs0shG62IgWU3qPIALp_BZDZMfVpH9-?si=lBCVX_eEuGnINPRX
@@FarmTheoryNI your cows are getting over half of there diet in the yard Andrew, if the grass cover is any where near or over 1400kgs/ha they won’t have the appetite to graze it out. I see it here myself, we’re stocked heavy and zero grazing and if my grass covers go over 1400 kgs mid season they just refuse to eat it out because they know it’s in the yard. Give grass measuring a try and then tell me I’m wrong
You certainly don't sound like a farmer you sound more like a collage lecturer I suspect you're not long out of collage there's nothing we can do about the weather I'm old enough to remember bad summers and winters it's all been here before nothing to do with global warming
I wish! But the reality is that we as farmers are price takers and regardless of the cost of production we take what we are given and have little choice but accept it.
The price the consumer pays only moved of the retailer decides they want more of the pie, they won't pay farmers more unless for a global change in the market
Was told earlier this week that there has been cloud seeding taking place which has led to so much of the cold and wet weather honestly don't know if it happing for real but it could be a reality
I don't really agree with ploughing for reseading, we haven't ploughed or reseaded a feild for 80 years. We leave all our silage feilds go to seed, let the seeds turn brown mow the feilds get a natural reseeding. We have huge crops, if the soil is right the grass will grow. I like the idea of direct drilling tho. Someone rented my neighbours feilds ploughed and reseaded 4 feilds. The feilds he hasn't ploughed and reseaded are growing and cropping better.
@FarmTheoryN can't believe how quickly you decide "that's not performing PLOUGH IT" have you tried a sward lifter and a bit of overseeding? Doesn't lose you 6weeks of growth, especially when you are short..
