The grass that is currently growing is comparable in nutritional value to concentrates. Due to the sunny weather and the still relatively cold nights, the sugar content in the grass is extremely high. On average, the grass contained 1105 VEM, 191 g RE and 262 g sugars. Agrifirm's mowing monitor shows that the nutritional value of meadow grass is comparable to the nutritional value of a mowing cut.
The VC-os is also an average of 89% in the mowing fields and the digestibility of the cell wall fraction is currently 87%. This means that the mowing cut contains virtually no structure. Livestock farmers who mow now will therefore soon have no roughage, but concentrated feed under the plastic.
Grass growth meadow cut
The grass growth figures for the pasture cut vary between 40 and 70 kg DM. This means that in many places there is little grass for the cows to graze. We receive signals from practice that there are livestock farmers who are therefore going to shift in the surface. Advice: don't do it! Keep turning the circles on the pasture platform and feed more at the feed fence.
Wait a while before mowing?
The grass growth figures for the cut range vary between 70 and 105 kg ds. The grass growth lags behind due to the cold conditions. Given the weather forecasts, no growth spurt is expected for next week.
Currently there is between 2 and 3 tons of dry matter on the field. In fact, too little to mow right now. Moreover, as a result of the leaf mass, photosynthesis and thus grass growth is high. In view of the expected grass growth, this means that there will only be a normal mowing cut on the several plots at the end of next week.
Given the very high digestibility of the grass, the advice of Agrifirm to wait a little longer before mowing where the cutting difficulty is disappointing because in many places there is simply not enough grass and the product hardly contains any structure value. In addition, we miss yield. Grass grows grass. The higher the leaf mass, the higher the grass growth. In short, by waiting a little longer before mowing, the ds yield will be higher.