Positive scientific moves for farmers

The mixed grass and clover study at Ballyhaise is critical to the future profitability of the dairy industry. I’ve heard good reports from the recent open day. It seems clear that the grass and white clover mix is delivering on reduced costs if not improved cow performance.

On the multispecies swards, dairy editor Aidan Brennan seems less convinced, and his review of the beef trials at Johnstown Castle suggest the jury is still out. While plantain seems to have some benefits in capturing surplus nitrogen, the challenge seems to be around maintaining it in swards.

Interestingly, urine patches have for a long time been deemed the enemy of nutrient loss in the dairy enterprise. However, reading a New Zealand report that reviews the most recent scientific publication suggests otherwise.

Instead of a nitrogen application rate of 1,000kg/ha, the actual nitrogen available for potential leaching loss is in the order of 6kg to 7kg of nitrogen per hectare per year once all is accounted for.

Science and more accurate measurement is catching up. A bit like the story on carbon sequestration, recent Johnstown research suggests a typical Irish farm site sequesters six times more carbon than the current international estimates.

The policy move we still haven’t taken is to separate out biogenic methane (methane generated from livestock) for a separate target. This needs to happen.

This week, Conor Kehoe reports from tillage farmer Norman Dunne’s recent farm walk.

The basic but significant changes that Norman has made are giving him and his enthusiasm for tillage farming a new lease of life.

Interestingly, a diversification away from tillage only and including livestock is bringing benefits. Norman has both hens and sheep, but he rightly calls out the fact that nonsense rules for grazing catch crops with sheep might actually end his love affair with sheep on a tillage farm.

This is something the Department and the minister must address very quickly.

We continue to get lots of positive feedback on the Tullamore Farm open day. Two of the big talking points were the move into Easycare sheep and the technology investment in collars for the suckler cows.

The fact that Tullamore Farm is investing in these is neither an endorsement of the breed nor of the technology. However, what we hope is to have detailed measurement of both changes over a number of years to answer questions our specialists are getting on a regular basis.

The move to collars on the cows is part of a plan to use more sexed semen to produce more heifer calves rather than lower margin young bulls.

The move to Easycare sheep is because we feel we have as much measurement and results from the Mules crossed with terminal sires, so we will push on and see what another breed of ewe can deliver in terms of efficiency and margin.

We can talk about reducing feed and fertiliser usage and prices of both going up and down, but reseeding is one proven technology that reduces the dependency on both.

While making silage might be a priority for many, reseeding should still be top of the agenda for many farmers. Plan it out, manage the change and the new reseeds should quickly catch up on the growth lost during the change.

The return that you get for the cost of reseeding has been shown clearly to be repaid within two to three years. You get a better response on every other input you use on the paddock also post reseeding. Plan some reseeding if you can at all.