Planting clover in grass swards to cut back on nitrogen use “takes nerve and courage”, Tipperary farmer John Walsh has said.

He said that soil fertility needs to be right before farmers go down the road of clover.

“Before you start any project on the ground, soil fertility has to be 100% – in other words index 3 or 4 just to get a positive start. Because if you start any project and your soil fertility is wrong, it’s going to come back to you,” he warned.

“It’s like baking a cake – you don’t put sugar in it [unless the mixture is right],” he told the Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Climate Change Science into Actionconference last week. Walsh has following the 12 Signpost programme steps and he said that hitting the top one, clover incorporation, takes a bit of nerve and courage.

Horribly wrong

“You need to be in index 3 and 4 to be successful at it, it can go very horribly wrong, very fast. For clover you need high soil fertility plus moisture. If we get a dry period clover will be effective in some ways but not totally,” the Ballylooby man said.

“The system we have is ryegrass swards, spring nitrogen (N) clover swards that get nitrogen up to May, zero nitrogen swards for the year and mixed species and red clover on the out block.

“We’re a big advocate of zero N. Roughly 60% of the farm is in some kind of clover or mixed, 30% is zero artificial nitrogen.

“If you reduce nitrogen you have to have something to replace it, and clover [is your answer] but you have to make the clover work first,” he said.

Walsh said the most important three steps for him in the programme are the very first three – using protected urea, applying lime and building or maintaining soil fertiliser.

Teagasc’s director of knowledge transfer Stan Lalor said the Teagasc authority has set a target of getting 50 farmers involved in the Signpost programme over five years. He said that around 18,000 farmers are now participating in the programme, with Teagasc now seeking to increase that number.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin today opened the conference at Dublin Castle, which was hosted by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon and Minister of State with responsibility for research, Noel Grealish, and dedicated to addressing the relationship between agriculture and climate change.

The 500 delegates heard from national and international scientists on the latest research to reduce agricultural emissions.