Coping With The Spring Drought

Many parts of the country have had an extremely dry spring.  Some of the consequences of this are –

• Reduced grass growth and potentially smaller acres of grass conserved with lower yields.
• Poor and uneven establishment of spring sown crops. An immediate reaction to this is the increased price for malting barley in expectation of a shortage of malting quality from this year’s harvest.

At present the outlook for livestock producers is –

• Poorer grazing performance for growing stock with fewer finishing off grass and lighter animals at the start of next winter.
• Breeding stock in poorer condition next autumn, particularly if it is a wet autumn as predicted.
• Tight winter forage supplies (although hopefully of good quality) with concentrates/cereals more expensive?

As always planning early can help minimise these problems eg –

• Result in poor feed value and in addition could make harvest difficult if wet conditions do continue and as long range forescasts predict.
• Where cereal fields are cleared quickly, consider planting a catch crop for grazing later in the winter.
• Consider selling more stock store in the autumn.

Basil Lowman, basil.lowman@sac.co.uk