Hopefully this was the break to the season

Kikuyu in our environment only needs dribs and drabs of rain to stay green over summer, and it booms when there is a decent rain and the weather is still warm. Clover and ryegrass however, are in a precarious position if they germinate on a March rain with kikuyu waiting to suck all the water away from them.

From 13th March to 19th March, we received 39mm, and 18mm of that was on 15th March (by 8am on 14th to 8am on the 15th). Those moist days have started some clover germination and a fair bit of ryegrass germination. However, they will need frequent follow up rain in this hot weather to survive when they are living with kikuyu - a grass on steroids when it is happy. Not much rain is forecast in the coming week, but we will see how it survives.

As mentioned in the previous update, all but one mob and half the rams were put into containment for a few weeks to allow the clover and ryegrass to have a chance to get their roots down. The intention is to move them back onto the paddocks next week when the clover and ryegrass should be 2-3 leaves. Lots of clover has not germinated yet, so hopefully it will pop up on the next decent rain.

Some photo's in the recent days are below.

14th March. 1300 green tags ewes with rams on the left grazing in Foxtrot paddock. In the foreground is the raceway they had been locked in for two days prior to eat it down. See what it looks like 14 days later in the next photo.

28th March. The raceway in the middle that had been grazed to the deck, Foxtrot on the left that had been grazed for 5 days more after the top photo, and neighbour on the right.

I am pleased with this section of Echo paddock. It was a very bad non-wetting area last year but has matted quite nicely. Unfortunately not all non-wetting areas are this good. Lots of work still to be done. This will be grazed in 14-17 days time.

A good example of grass grows grass. This is Romeo 3, a ram paddock that was not grazed down enough in time on the previous rotation. Now it is growing away from them on this rotation. Brown paddock on the right is where they came from that is wetter and still has areas where there is no kikuyu - too wet and still too acid.

This is the lambing ewe mob that have stayed in the paddocks. Raceway in the foreground that was recently grazed. 10 more days of lambing left in this mob.