New Grass – is it safe? For some farmers its “new grass” time. Good new grass management is vital to ensure good long term growth and cover. But even more important is good awareness of nitrate poisoning and keeping our animals safe. You will be surprised how many people (even those that have some Ag courses behind them) are not aware of risks of nitrate poisoning. Sadly we have lost calves in the past due to poor process and lack of awareness. Why? Well it was our error for “assuming’ everyone in the team understood risks and what was involved in new grass management. We also didn’t have very clear communication and process around it. When we did a “Fishbone” analysis of this problem, it was very clear that the break down was in lack of clear process, communication and hence knowledge. Never assume that someone is aware of something or knows how to manage it.
As a result, we have included new grass management in our standard season plan and every season we have a re-fresher on new grass management and nitrate poisoning with the whole team regardless of anyones background or experience. We had this session again this week prior to starting to graze our new grass. Here are our Key Point Lessons that we use and are still developing and improving on with more feedback. They are a bit wordy still which we don’t like so we are trying to make them simpler and more visual. But 80/20 rule and something is better than nothing. Thats continues Improvement – you need to start somewhere and it won’t be perfect first time 👍😀