The Dairy Edge

It’s Farm Safety Week and on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast, Francis Bligh joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the potential risks on Irish dairy farms during the summer months. Francis points to autumn herds calving outdoors, 2nd cut silage, agitating and spreading slurry and children on the farm as some of the activities that present risk as well as day to day farming activities. Francis recomme...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, and guests discuss smarter milking. Andrew Hogan, FRS Training, speaks about the cow flow process, which can have a significant impact on how quickly cows can be milked. Padraig O’Connor, Teagasc, gave a demonstration o...

Tom O’Dwyer and Siobhán Kavanagh join Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to consider whether the agri sector can achieve emission reduction targets. Siobhán first outlines national, European and international climate action policy that will dictate the need to reduce total emissions from agriculture to the tune of 15%. When considering new and emerging technologies that have the...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses roadways and water systems. Stuart explains that this time of the year is a good opportunity to examine roadways as it is easier to assess the quality of the surface layers compared to the winter period. He th...

Jason Melbourne joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give an insight into how built his career in dairy farming and how he has implemented learnings from the Agricultural College to take his herd from average to top performance in a short period of time. Jason explains that he first gained an interest in agriculture in his early years while spending time milking and feedin...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses the process of liner changes and the advantages that come with it. He also talks about the disadvantages that come with not changing the liners. Stuart emphasises we have to be aware that over the past few yea...

Teagasc Dairy Specialist, George Ramsbottom, joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to provide context on the appropriate time to finishing the breeding season in order to facilitate compact calving next spring. George quantifies the average 6 week calving rate being achieved nationally at 65%, owing the 10% increase in the last decade to a combination of improved management, g...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses the fact that we are coming to the end of the breeding season. It's now time to assess what has happened in the time gone by and also to plan for the rest of the year. Stuart also takes us through silage pits...

NDC & Kerrygold milk quality award winner, Richard Starrett, and his Teagasc dairy advisor, Tommy Doherty, join Emma-Louise Coffey on the latest Dairy Edge podcast to give an insight into Richard’s farm system and how good management decisions over the last 25 years has culminated in recognition in the prestigious milk quality awards. Richard documents the growth in cow numbers from 70 cows in...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, is joined by Micheál O'Leary from PastureBase Ireland. Micheál discusses the changes that have been made within PastureBase particularly around Nitrogen planning. He also talks about the availability of a nitrogen plann...

Teagasc researcher Pat Tuohy joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge to give an insight into the key issues that arise on farms with heavier soils and practical steps to overcome these issues. Pat explains that 30% of Irish soils are characterised as ‘heavy soils’ and are typically associated with drainage issues - a high water table or farms located in a high rainfall area. Consequentl...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses fertiliser requirements for second cut silage and also in terms of surplus silage taken off of milking platforms over the last couple of days. The level of grass growth is very high at the moment which as a re...

Dairy farmer Eamon Sheehan and Róisín Horan from Teagasc join Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast with an insight into the staggering rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among animal and human populations and key practices to minimise the risk in your dairy herd. Róisín explains that AMR is an ongoing concern, accounting for 700,000 deaths annually and has the potential to be m...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, is joined by Dan O'Riordan, ICBF who explains how to do the weekly fertility report correctly. The way to calculate the fertility report has thankfully changed since 2008 with the aid of the ICBF platform which gives a...

Grass 10 advisor Joseph Dunphy joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s episode of The Dairy Edge to remind us of the important targets to maximise grass utilisation and minimise costs during the main grazing season. Joseph acknowledges the difficult grazing conditions experienced in recent weeks, particularly for farms in heavy rainfall areas and on heavier soils where on/off grazing techniques ha...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses grass management. Some topics up for discussion in this episode are: the national growth grass curve, number of covers this year to date, current farm situations, maximising grass for quality and utilisation a...

Doreen Corridan and Stuart Childs join Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s episode of the Dairy Edge to give advice on how to maximise pregnancy rates across the remainder of the breeding season and how to avoid a lull in calvings that arise during the transition from AI to the stock bull. Doreen highlights the increase in demand for the bull in groups of heifers, in particular where a synchronisati...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, discusses how to cut for the highest quality of silage. In the farming community, the trend seems to be that we forget about the time leading up to cutting silage and only emphasise the time when we are using it. As a r...

On this week’s episode of The Dairy Edge, dairy specialist James Dunne joins Emma-Louise Coffey to quantify the impact of recent growth rates on 1st cut silage crops. James explains that growth rates in Moorepark and Ballyhaise to 20th April this year are similar to the 10-year average. However, from 20th April to 10th May, growth rates were 20kg and 10kg lower in Moorepark and Ballyhaise respecti...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, is joined by Ciaran Collins, Tillage Specialist, to discuss weed control, following up on the recent webinar with Deirdre Hennessy on establishing grass-white clover swards. Ciaran gave an overview of Integrated Pest Ma...

Pallaskenry farm manager Brendan Ryan joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to discuss SCC in early lactation following selective dry cow therapy. Brendan explains that 69% of the herd were dried off with a teat sealer only based on cows that had milk records of SCC <200 k during lactation and no high quarter. Herd SCC in February averaged 200-250 k and now sits between 110...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist discusses milk recording reports and the importance it has to farmers. Milk recording is important to identify superior cows who are producing high levels of solids and also to identify the most productive cows which can...

Katie Starsmore and Ben Lahar join Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give an insight into the Green Feed trial that is investigating feed additives that have the potential to reduce methane emissions from grass fed dairy cows. Katie explains that the trial cows emitted 320g of methane daily on average across the last three weeks. Methane is produced by bugs in the rumen follo...

Teagasc is running a weekly Let's Talk Dairy webinar series which is also being made available as a bonus podcast episode. In this webinar, Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist is joined by Dr. Deirdre Hennessy to discuss the establishment of grass-white clover into our swards. Clover is an essential component to have on a farm. Clover offers us huge opportunities in reducing our fertiliser nit...

Deirdre Hennessy joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give tips and advice on maintaining grass production whilst spreading lower levels of chemical Nitrogen. Deirdre firstly explains that farmers can expect lower grass production if they spread less chemical Nitrogen to the tune of 800-1,000 kg DM/ha. She recommends that farmers target spreading slurry in the spring using...