The Dairy Edge

Fergus Bogue of the Grass10 Team spoke to Emma-Louise Coffey from the Grass Demo at Teagasc's recent Open Day at Moorepark to discuss grass quality and stem levels on Irish farms. Fergus also explained what the Grass Demo was about and how farmers would get to see what kind of covers their cows should be grazing and what they graze down to.  For more information: https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/grass...

Management Consultant Nollaig Heffernan joins Emma-Louise Coffey to emphasise the importance of planning around decision making for your farm. Nollaig explains that good planning and decision making will help achieve your personal goals, leads to more profitability on farm investment and makes your farm a more attractive place to work for family and employees. Nollaig introduces a LEAN tool, the P...

Economist Ciaran Fitzgerald joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss how dairy expansion has impacted the Irish economy. Ciaran recounts commonly reported expansion figures such as milk output and value of exports but takes a more in depth look at the economic impact on the Irish economy and in particular on rural Ireland. Over 60,000 people are employed in dairy industry, including 19,000 employed dir...

William Burchill joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss new cost-effective methods of slurry spreading.   William reminds us of the value of slurry, which is the equivalent to 6 units of Nitrogen, 5 units of Phosphorus and 30 units of Potassium.    Interestingly, slurry from dairy cows, that is often mixed with dairy washings from collecting yards are diluted and offer the half rate of Phosphorus and...

Moorepark researchers Brendan Horan and Laurence Shalloo join Emma-Louise Coffey to critically review the growth and expansion of the national dairy herd. Brendan addressed the environmental impact of expansion highlighting the benefit of grass-based systems and explains the low environment footprint relative to both European and international milk producing competitors. The net environmental foot...

Deirdre gives an overview of the benefits and challenges of white clover in intensive grass-based systems of milk production. She explains the ability of white clover to fix Nitrogen - in a systems study, Nitrogen was reduced by 100 kg Nitrogen/ha with no reduction in grass production in grass + white clover swards compared with grass only swards. Furthermore, improved animal performance is eviden...

Agricultural Economist Emma Dillon joins Emma-Louise Coffey with the results of the Teagasc National Farm Survey highlighting that although incomes declines by 30% in 2018 compared with 2017, incomes remained substantial at €61,000.  Emma explains there were many factors at play, namely 2017 dairy income being at a record high, high production costs in 2018 including additional feed and workload. ...

Micheal O’Leary from PastureBase Ireland and Grassland Researcher Elodie Ruelle join Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the current grassland situation on farm and look at future growth rate predictions. Micheal starts by explaining the current grassland situation, including high growth rates of on average 77 kg DM/ha exceeding farm demand of 60 kg DM/ha. The additional feed is driving farm cover/cow t...

Pat Dillon, Teagasc's Head of Animal and Grassland Programme, joins Emma-Louise Coffey to preview the topics and speakers at this year's Moorepark ’19, the Teagasc National Dairy Event for 2019, on Wednesday 3rd July at the Teagasc, Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork from 0830-1700.   The theme of this year’s event is ‘Growing Sustainably’. The conti...

Animal Health expert Muireann Conneely joins Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss hoof health and the mobility of the national dairy herd. Muireann makes reference to an ongoing trial where an average of 14% of the dairy herds examined have sub optimal hoof health. Poor mobility and lameness causes stress and pain to cows as well as reduced milk production and overall farm profit. Milk yield is affected...

For part two of our conversation with Micheal O’Donovan and Tomas Tubritt, they talk us through the reseeding process step by step. Micheal explains the starting point is to identify the paddock or farm area that you intend on reseeding.  When considering the methods of reseeding, Tomas explains there is no difference between individual methods, but the common methods in Ireland include ploughing,...

Head of Grassland Science Michael O’Donovan and Grassland PhD researcher Tomas Tubritt are this week's guests on the Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the topic of reseeding. Firstly, Michael talks through the benefits of reseeding, primarily transforming swards from partial perennial ryegrass swards to 100% perennial ryegrass swards leading to higher levels of grass production, improved quality and g...

Dairy farmer Mike Bermingham joins Emma-Louise Coffey to take us on his journey of career change from construction and part-time beef farming to becoming a new entrant dairy farmer in 2013. Mike returned home to farm full-time in 2009 and acknowledged he had a big asset in his farm of land, yet it was providing no income. In 2010 he began grass measuring in order to quantify the amount of grass gr...

The ICBF's Andrew Cromie and Siobhan Ring join the Dairy Edge podcast this week to discuss the new Dairy Beef Index (DBI).  Firstly Andrew explains the DBI is a breeding index that will promote high quality beef cattle from the dairy herd with minimal consequences to calving difficulty and gestation length in dairy cows. Siobhan explains that the DBI has a role in dairy herds after breeding for re...

Dairy specialist Stuart Childs joins Emma-Louise Coffey to explain the various steps to optimise breeding performance for your farm.  Stuart identifies 3-week submission rate as the most important KPI for farmers to target.  He considers the length of time to mating start date which is anywhere between 10 and 20 days away. Stuart recommends tail painting the whole herd and addressing cows who fail...

In part 2 of our interview with John McNamara, we find out about the grassland management on John's dairy farm. John explains that the grazing season starts in August of the previous year. He starts extending his grazing rotation and building farm cover in August, hitting peak farm cover in later September and closing the farm from at an appropriate cover to carry grass into the spring. He explain...

2018 Grass 10 champion John McNamara joins Emma-Louise Coffey to talk through his farming career and some of the people who have helped him along the way. John explains that the farm has been in the McNamara family for three generations and he considers the changes that have taken place over the last 20 years since he returned home farming.  At that time the McNamaras were milking between 50-60 co...

Kevin Downing from ICBF joins us this week to with his top tips for sire selection for the upcoming breeding season. He suggests key traits to consider are high EBI cows with early calving date. For sire selection whether using daughter proven or genomically selected sires, farmers should select high EBI bulls with high sub-indices for areas of importance for herd.  Higher EBI offspring will produ...

On this week's episode of The Dairy Edge podcast, Johnstown Castle dairy farm manager Aidan Lawless gives an update on the performance of the Johnstown Castle herd. Firstly Aidan gives an insight into the current performance of the autumn calving herd. Cows were out at grass since January 10th which is uncharacteristic but Aidan explained with the mild winter and high overwinter growth, there was...

Grass 10 campaign manager John Maher joins us to give an update on grazing conditions across the country and his top tips for the rest of spring grazing rotation. John recalls the perfect grazing conditions experience in the month of February which allowed many farmers to hit the target 30% grazed by March 1st. He explained that this was demonstrated particularly well on farms that had optimum sto...

Vet Doreen Corridan joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s episode of The Dairy Edge, to discuss the benefits of measuring herd performance through milk recording. Doreen quantifies the economic benefit of milk recording to the tune of €23,000 from a 100 cow herd compared with herds that don’t milk record. With approximately 50% of dairy herds in Ireland, there are substantial financial gains to...

Dairy Farmer, Peter Hynes, joins Emma-Louise Coffey to talk about a fundraising initiative 'Rearing To Go' that aims to help raise awareness of mental health on the farm.  Peter is well known in farming circles for speaking out on his own struggles with mental health and depression.  He reminds us that the Spring can be a busy and stressful time on farms and it could lead to stress among farmers....

The Brexit deadline is ticking and with so many questions still in the air for Irish agriculture, we spoke to Teagasc's Head of Rural Economy and Development, Kevin Hanrahan, to explain the potential outcomes. A crash out scenario will have a significant impact on the Irish agricultural sector, Kevin explains, saying the magnitude is greatest for the beef sector with a 20% decline in carcass price...

Soil and plant nutrition specialist, Mark Plunkett, joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week's Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the upward trends in soil fertility across Irish soils.  Mark highlights the increased lime usage, resulting in a greater proportion of soils at optimum of pH 6.3 or greater and explains that optimum pH gives rise to improved nutrient uptake and consequently, higher grass produ...

Dairy advisor, Richard O'Brien, gives advice on how to best manage grassland for the month of February. Richard explains that there is a lot of grass on dairy farms, with approximately 30% more grass on farms compared with this time last year. With that in mind, Richard encourages all farmers to get out to see what grass is on farm and target the lighter covers in order to get 30% grazed by March...