2025 The Year of Top Quality Forage!

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Gerard Finnan (FCG Midwest)

Certainly 2025 in the south of the UK has been the year to make top quality forage and is one of the main physical reasons why cows have milked so well in the last 12 months. 2025 was a year in the south where grass never grew too far ahead of the cows (not grown at all at certain times for a lot of farmers!!) resulting in top quality grazing and below average silage yields resulting in grass silaged at an immature stage in ideal weather conditions.

The cost per tonne FW on farm to make this silage including a notional rent, fertiliser, slurry and contract costs resulted in costs of £45-60/t. Costs weren’t higher, it was the low tonnages diluting down these fixed costs.

So, what can we replicate in 2026 to enable higher yields whilst maintaining most of the quality? Can we have our cake and eat it as livestock farmers?

We can’t control the weather, but you can decide on timings, though still may be weather dependant.

  1. Ensure quality of swards are excellent – weed free, reseed worn out pastures and ensure soil indices and grass nutrition are optimum. Treat it like an arable crop. By feeding it to livestock, you are adding value to the cost of growing it or the opportunity cost of selling it.
  2. Graze grass in rotation at lower covers, the lower the pre graze cover the lower the post graze cover, the quicker the sward grows back and the higher the quality fed. This should especially be the strategy when grass is growing rapidly. More often I see farmers being too conservative and grazing too high covers resulting in decreased sward quality. The same principle may apply to silage by say cutting it a week earlier, forgo some quantity on each cut to gain quality. An additional cut costing say £60/acre will make up the yield shortfall, but you could have 0.5ME+ of extra quality silage which will more than pay especially when you will be trying to maximise milk from forage next winter with lower milk prices.
  3. Ensiling when weather was ideal as it was in 2025 made it easy to make good silage. With attention to detail and good ensiling techniques, it is possible to make good silage every year and some farmers back this up with their consistent milk production and cattle growth rates from forage. The top and sides of a silage clamp can show you very quickly how well a clamp was consolidated and rolled.

4. Finally feeding out and minimising wastage is also important and can save thousands of pounds especially when scarce quality grass silage is a premium. This pic is the silage face of a silage clamp managed by a teenager! Unfortunately, I don’t see very many silage clamps this well managed.

    We may not get two springs in 2026 for grass quality but there are many factors that you can still control. To ensure you are efficiently maximising your most valuable resource of homegrown forage, contact Gerard at gerardfinnan@fcgagric.com or your local FCG Office for an independent review.

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