Grass growing?

Jonp

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Gwent
Definitely greening up, not tempted to let teeth on it though as don't want to ruin spring grazing. That's what winter tack is for.
 

muleman

Member
17 degrees here today. Went to check sheep and heads down grazing and hadn't touched hay put out yesterday. Too soon to get complacent though.
Eating a lot of haylage here in cumbria... dont think ive ever known them as hungry, bit of grass available aswell away from the mud!
20211231_145402.jpg
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
yes cocksfoot noticably so and the late sown annual ryegrasses are now beginning to get legs
its been a mild winter ( so far :cautious:🤞) here .

mind you it grows more noticeably when the deluge stops and without cold air temps lowering ground temps the drier ground has been warmer as per theory.

still short of keep tho.
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
Nooooooo! Grass needs a leaf to grow in the Spring, otherwise you end up moaning about late Springs like all the other sheep farmers that have stock wandering round on their grass fields all winter. :facepalm: 😂
Unfortunately here I’ve tried leaving a nice bite on if February when I’ve housed the ewes. Had a cold March and it’s taken the lot off! 😂
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Unfortunately here I’ve tried leaving a nice bite on if February when I’ve housed the ewes. Had a cold March and it’s taken the lot off! 😂
Everything west facing gets decimated here by winds, you can build a 6” wedge of beautiful grass and clover and it’ll be gone in 6 hours of salty winds so we hammer these down to nothing from October onwards, take ewes off mid feb and their back on them with lambs early march.

Grass grows at 4*C, clover at 6*C. Fields I thought would last 3 days have done 6 days and still not eaten down when looking this morning 👍🏻
 

serf

Member
Location
warwickshire
Lucky you, mine has never really got going! Hoping to get a bite from it in the spring.
Been brilliant stuff considering the start it had , sown start may , cold wet every day on it in May but it soldiered through and not stopped growing, near enough continously grazed till Nov, then on and off since .should fly again soon hopefully.
 
Been brilliant stuff considering the start it had , sown start may , cold wet every day on it in May but it soldiered through and not stopped growing, near enough continously grazed till Nov, then on and off since .should fly again soon hopefully.
How did you establish it? No spray, power harrowed, rolled, drilled, rolled here. May was bloody cold and dry which didn't help.
 

serf

Member
Location
warwickshire
How did you establish it? No spray, power harrowed, rolled, drilled, rolled here. May was bloody cold and dry which didn't help.
Finished grazing turnips in April, then chain harrowed things level abit as they were finishing grazing ,
gave it about 2l/Ha R,up a while after because the old PP had started coming back ,
Springtined it a few times with chain harrows following , then spun on with slug pelleter and rolled begging of May.

April
Screenshot_20220101-100323_Gallery.jpg


May

Screenshot_20220101-102215_Gallery.jpg
 
Last edited:
I was trying to be a bit more regenerative and didn't use the round-up. Wish I had really, as what was there got away in front of the prota plus due to the poor conditions for germination (I think). It's come in much better where there was less competition, where there were ring feeders over the winter particularly. It was a stemmy mess by August and I ended up topping it which the annual clovers didn't like. It's been shut up since mid-November and I'm hoping it'll provide an early bite for the ewes, at least.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Everything west facing gets decimated here by winds, you can build a 6” wedge of beautiful grass and clover and it’ll be gone in 6 hours of salty winds so we hammer these down to nothing from October onwards, take ewes off mid feb and their back on them with lambs early march.

Grass grows at 4*C, clover at 6*C. Fields I thought would last 3 days have done 6 days and still not eaten down when looking this morning 👍🏻

I wasn’t referring to leaving 6” of grass (we don’t all get that much growth in February;) ), but an inch or so of green leaf that pops up now is the solar panel to drive growth in the Spring.
Grazing it all bare to the ground again now won’t provide a lot of keep, but will set Spring growth back weeks.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top