Where has all the grass gone?

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Ground is like concrete here, massive cracks everywhere. Fields that the sheep left in early march have nothing on them. The only places with a decent bit of grass of are the arable margins in places. Praying we'll get a bit of the rain thats around today and tomorrow to help the spring beans and barley up, and maybe give the grass a kick too. If Simon Keelings predictions for May June and July turn out right there's going to be a real shortage of fodder next winter. No sign of any change in the weather patterns at all on the models, drier than average for the next 3 months basically.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Last year I thought was bad, here. This year is fully worse so far. Im still feeding ewes, and there's no sign i will be stopping any time soon. I very rarely feed into April... never mind May!!(n)
 

choochter

Member
Location
aberdeenshire
No rain forecast for the next 7 days here. Not much grass growth to speak of and no fert on yet.
Cows are all out and most calve from July onwards so lack of lush grass is ok, I suppose.
But have pre-emptively bought in some grub for them. Just in case.
 
If the fields got a good covering early on they're growing well but anything that was bared off has stopped due to these cold drying northern winds
Similar picture here. The two best fields got a little fert five weeks ago and are good. Everything else was barer and got no fert and are struggling. It's very dry and hard underfoot.

Edit: Wind from the south today and it's still bloody freezing!
 
Last edited:
Location
Kent
Dry as dry can be here, even the silage grass is sitting there sulking. Got some cows and calves out but not turned any out for over a fortnight as it's been so cold at nights.
We are forecast to have rain coming in late afternoon and is supposed to rain all night and best part of tomorrow, fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath, we desperately need it though.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
raining heavy here now has been for the last hour or so, first rain to speak of for three weeks
our grass stopped growing much for a couple weeks but I think its moved on in the last few days
all cattle out except one cow and calf and she is only in because we haven't got round to taking her down the road, never had so many out in april before, they have had two silage fields but that don't matter cos they have not eaten last years and it will keep, no point in keeping them in eating silage just to make more silage
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just looked the mid range (next fortnight) forecast, looks decent here. Rain all day tomorrow, then heavy showers Tuesday then lesser showers Wednesday, followed by warm(ish) days.

Let's hope they've got it right.
 

Jerry

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Devon
Approx 13mm to 14 mm today, chance of a bit more tomorrow, that will make a huge difference I hope.

Spread N on all the Wheat and Spring Barley mid of the week so that will now be in the root zone. Will spread some N on grass due for hay now.
 

Archie

Member
No rain forecast for here in next 10 days and only had 5mm all month, just hope a bit more heat can get things growing a bit.

Might be glad of all that silage made last year yet. Still 150 bales of it left, but certainly not going to be much bulk at all in this years first cut.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

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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/
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