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Eddie and Denis O’Donnell from Golden in Co Tipperary have claimed the top spot with a prize of €6,000.
The dairy farmers are milking 316 cows on two farms. They are consistently growing over 17t of grass dry matter per hectare per year.
The father and son pair impressed the judges with their attention to detail, doing the simple things well and having a clear plan for managing grass throughout the season.
Picking up the award from Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, Eddie said he was delighted to accept it on behalf of the farm team, including his wife Fiona, his parents Denis and Nora and their employees Jeremy Furlong and Philip Roche who are a big part of the success story.
Measurement twice a week
During the main grazing season, grass is measured twice a week, every Monday and Friday. Everyone working on the farm does the grass walk and students are asked to back-calculate based on how many grazings the cows get in the field to see if their predictions of the pre-grazing yields were correct.
There is a strong focus on achieving the correct grazing residual.
Only three paddocks were topped during 2017. If the cows have not cleaned out a paddock properly, they will go back for a few hours and will be moved at noon. If the paddock is not cleaned out by the evening milking, whatever amount of cows are needed to clean it out will be sent there and the rest will move to fresh grass.
Autumn plan
In autumn, Eddie starts building up grass from 6 August and by 1 September be hopes to have an average farm cover of 320kg/cow. By 1 October this should be 400kg/cow. He starts closing paddocks on 7 October and plans to have 70% grazed by 1 November. The farm is closed up at a cover of 700kg to 725kg on 1 December.
The first farm walk of the year is done around the middle of January and a spring rotation planner is drawn up by the end of the month. Eddie wants to see an opening average farm cover of between 950 and 1,000kg/ha on 1 February. He grazes aggressively in February, targeting to have 40% of the farm grazed by 1 March and to start the second round of grazing on 1 April. This second round should last for 24 days.
16- to 18-day rotations
Eddie says the farm goes into mid-season mode from 20 April to 1 August. The team religiously measures grass on both farms twice a week. The target is to keep the average farm cover at between 165 and 185kg/cow over this period. The pre-grazing yield is usually around 1,300kg and the rotation length is around 16 to 18 days during this time, with the cows getting around three grazings per paddock.
Other award winners were Ger Dineen (pictured) from Macroom in Co Cork who won the beef category. Peadar Kearney (pictured) from Tallanstown, Co Louth won the sheep award. Ed and Jimmy Payne from Tulsk, Co Roscommon were the Connaught regional winners.
The Heffernan family from Dunamaggin Co Kilkenny won the Leinster award while Francis Clune from Tulla, in Co Clare won the award from Munster.
Tim Crowley from Bandon in Co Cork won the young farmer category.
Each of these prize winners won €4,000 each.
The judges of the competition were Aidan Brennan from the Irish Farmers Journal, Tadhg Buckley from AIB Bank, Stan Lalor from Grassland Agro, Niall Ryan from the Department of Agriculture and John Maher from Teagasc.
Star grazers part I: dairy finalists in Grassland farmer of the year
Star grazers part II: Grassland farmer of the year dairyfinalists
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