The Dairy Edge

Farm Structure specialist Gordon Peppard joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss opportunities in dairy farming for family farms.   Gordon identified the key players that are important for any partnership, including an agricultural consultant, accountant and solicitor.   Importantly, Gordon explains that it is vital that farm families start the conversation on the succession plan with all family membe...

Continuing the Dairy Edge Review of the Year, Emma-Louise Coffey was joined by Teagasc Director Gerry Boyle, Teagasc specialist Abigail Ryan, and Head of Animal & Grassland Research Pat Dillon.   Gerry, Abigail and Pat took the opportunity to review the Greenfield Project following its conclusion this year with Abigail reviewing the lessons learned from the project, acknowledging its strengths...

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our listeners for a special 100th episode of the Dairy Edge this week when we review the dairy farming year with Teagasc Director Gerry Boyle, Teagasc specialist Abigail Ryan, and Head of Animal & Grassland Research Pat Dillon, join Emma-Louise Coffey to review the dairy farming year.     Firstly, Pat and Abigail reflect on the indications of recover...

Karol Kissane joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss his farming business and how he was drawn back to agriculture after a successful career in finance.   Karol left school at a young age to pursue a career in farming but after a short time farming at home with his father, he acknowledged that the farm was not sufficient to support two incomes so Karol returned to education, completing the Leaving Ce...

Padraig French joins Emma-Louise Coffey to measure the welfare of calves on Irish Dairy Farms.   Padraig explains that calf mortality at birth and at one month old is a key metric to measure calf welfare. Comparing the performance in Ireland over the last 10 years, calf mortality has fallen on farms, despite an additional 300,000 calves being born annually.    Mortality at birth declined from 1.95...

Dairy expansion specialist Patrick Gowing joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss his top tips for successful planning for expansion and new entrants to dairy.   Patrick emphasises the importance of purchasing the best stock possible in new entrant or expanding herds, explaining that €100 extra for high genetic merit in-calf heifers will pay for itself in the long term in terms of superior performance...

Dairy advisor, Trevor Dunwoody, joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss alternative calf rearing facilities.   Trevor explains examples of use of calf hutches on silage slabs, rearing calves outdoors from 3-4 weeks of age, contract rearing, sale of non-replacement stock from 2 weeks of age and construction of a new calf shed or modifying existing sheds.   With calf hutches, calves are typically housed...

Dairy specialist Martina Gormley joins Emma-Louise Coffey to help identify the proper requirements for calf housing facilities on dairy farms in Ireland.   She explains that 1.5 million dairy cows will calve down in Ireland in 2020, with almost 1 million of those calving in the first 3 months of the year.   Martina guides farmers on how they can calculate their calf rearing requirements based on t...

John Maher, Grass 10 Campaign Manager, joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the current grassland situation on farms across the country. Firstly, John reflects on the 2019 grazing season and he advises farmers to look at some key figures such as total grass production, number of grazings achieved and pre-grazing herbage cover. John looks to the current situation on farms and explains that while ove...

Milk quality specialist Don Crowley joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the role of selective dry cow therapy in Irish Dairy herds.   Don explains the essential criteria farmers must review to identify suitable cows for selective DCT including milk recording results for the full lactation and 30 days in advance of dry-off, evidence of cows mastitis cases and treatment, culture and sensitivity anal...

Researchers Emer Kennedy and Hazel Costigan join Emma-Louise Coffey on this week's Dairy Edge to discuss the importance of getting the heifer rearing process right. Emer explains that there are target growth rates throughout the heifer rearing period: 30%  of mature BW at 6 months, 60% of mature BW at 15 months and 90% of mature BW at 24 months. Regular weighing will ensure that heifers are on tar...

Environmental specialist Tim Hyde joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the future of Nitrates Derogation for Irish farmers.   Tim explains that 7,000 farmers (5%) are currently in derogation, accounting for 10% of farm land and 20% of livestock. Dairy farms account for 90% of farms in derogation, making up the majority of farmers engaging derogation.   The most recent Nitrates review, Nitrates Acti...

Financial Specialist Kevin Connolly joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss Budget 2020.   Kevin explains the key budget measures that effect farmers including income tax, stock relief for young trained farmers, Capital Gains Tax and Capital Acquisitions Tax.   He explains that the budget has established provisions of €110m for Agriculture in the event of a no deal Brexit. Although there is little det...

Dairy adviser Ger Courtney joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss liming protocol to optimise lime pH on farm.   Ger explains that there is a positive trend from 2014 when 36% of soils were at optimum pH compared with 60% in 2017.  Target soil pH is 6.3 and 5.5-5.8 in peaty soils.   Optimum pH leads to greater biological activity, microorganism activity, nitrogen fixation and root structure. Research...

Vet Niamh Field joins Emma-Louise Coffey to take a look at the health status of the national dairy herd and gives key tips to maximise the health of your herd.   Niamh looks to the metabolic diseases that occur on dairy farms, commonly occurring during the spring and she emphasises the importance of dry cow management to prevent incidence of disease.    Management steps include optimum BCS at dry...

Trevor Donnellan joins Emma-Louise Coffey to review the comprehensive climate action plan (Teagasc Greenhouse Gas Marginal Abatement Cost Curve) compiled by Teagasc to reduce the emissions from Agriculture.   Trevor speculates that the dairy herd will continue to grow, albeit at a lesser rate to that in the last 5 years. Conversely, it is suspected that suckler numbers will remain at similar numbe...

In the second part of a two-part interview with dairy specialist Padraig O’Connor on the importance of a good milking routine, Padraig takes us through teat preparation and cluster attachment ahead of milking.    Best practice includes each quarter prior to cluster attachment. This helps with early detection of mastitis. Padraig recommends that mastitis or high SCC cows should be treated at the en...

Dairy specialist Padraig O’Connor joins Emma-Louise Coffey for the first of a two-part interview to discuss the importance of a good milking routine.   Padraig explains that a good milking routine ensurse quality produce, safety for the operator and time efficiency in completing the task.   He advises all farmers to make sure their milking machine is in working order, getting at least one major se...

Dairy specialist Joe Patton joins Emma-Louise Coffey to identify the key traits that drive profitable winter milk systems.   Joe compares top winter milk herds with average. Top herds have higher output from the same concentrate input as average. The difference is top farmers are achieving greater grass utilisation and feeding higher quality grass silage during the housed period.   The second driv...

Johnstown Castle farm manager Aidan Lawless joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss full lactation performance for the winter milk herd and current milk and grass production. The winter milk herd have produced 620 kg MS approximately 20 kg ahead of 2017 and 2018 lactations. Aidan credits increased milk yield, rising milk solids and getting out to grass in early January as factors that have driven high...

Grassland researcher, Mike Egan, summarises the autumn grazing management guidelines to maximise the amount of grazed grass in the diet of dairy cows in the autumn period.   Right now, farmers should be extending rotation length by 2 days per week and building cover.   Mike gives an insight into a grazing experiment looking at altering grazing management practices in autumn and examining the effec...

Dairy specialist Joe Patton has advice on creating a fodder reserve to reduce the risk to farm businesses in the event of future adverse weather events.   Firstly, farmers need to quantify the total grass production on their farm. Following this, stocking rate should be calculated allowing 5.5 tonnes of grass should be allowed per cow.    Optimal stocking rate does not account for ay surplus or re...

Kevin McDonald is a retired scientist from Dairy NZ with over 50 years’ experience in systems research and he joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give his insights and analysis of the New Zealand dairy sector along with key learnings for Irish farmers.     Kevin traces the evolution of the New Zealand dairy sector back to the 1930s and 1940s but says the big change came i...

Grassland researcher Brian McCarthy and PhD researcher Brid McClearn join Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the benefits of white clover inclusion at Clonakilty Agricultural College. The grass plus white clover treatment grew 1.2 tonnes more grass compared with the grass only sward. Clover content varied from 36% in year 1 to 14% in year 4, which is a driver of grass production and fed quality. Cows i...

Milk quality expert, David Gleeson, joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the move to chlorine-free cleaning products on Irish dairy farms. David explains that while chlorine levels measured in the form of TCM and chlorides are low currently in Irish dairy products, the use of chlorine will be eliminated for cleaning on farm and in processing plants. Teagasc have developed alternative cleaning proto...