Rick's beef: Water tables fill up

Rick Burke.

What a wet start to the spring we are having. At least it's been warm, grass growth is increasing and our water tables are being replenished.

Good stock and land management is critical during a very wet period as cattle tend to pug all-ready saturated ground, which leads to pasture degradation and silt run-off. So you might have to change your normal rotations by speeding up the round or avoiding vulnerable paddocks, especially with larger mobs of older cattle to minimise damage.

During the spring months the average farm will grow up to 45 per cent of the year's total volume of grass, so hopefully you have the right stock classes and numbers of stock to convert that feed into profit. Keeping your grass covers in the sweet spot between 1500 and 2500kg of dry matter is essential to maintain quality.

Well done to Ambria Restaurant for again winning a 2016 Beef + Lamb excellence award. This is a great achievement for Andrew and his team.

They continue to impress the judges with their tasty, skilfully composed and superbly presented beef and lamb dishes.

Beef: The store cattle market still appears undecided this week as to which direction it will take in coming weeks.

On one hand there are definite signs of price correction following falling schedules, this week a 300kg c/w steer is at $5.50/kg and bull at $5.15. Several saleyards have had notably softer sales this week.

On the other hand there are parts of the island that are watching the grass grow and are still prepared to pay high prices in order to see feed utilised.

Lamb: Reports from those with their ears to the ground indicate that we may not see typical volumes of new season's lambs hit the store markets early this year.

The use of summer feed crops have become increasingly popular and give farmers the option to finish more lambs themselves, as opposed to selling store.

With lamb schedules expected to drop off quickly once Christmas chilled production finishes in early November, store lamb prices through November and December are likely to be subdued.

This week a 17-19kg c/w lamb is making $6/kg export schedule.