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The main objective of the Dairylink Ireland programme is to optimise the use of on-farm resources to maximise profit from milk production. A major part of this for project farmers has been growing and utilising more grass.
Although Kevin McGrade runs an autumn-calving herd on his farm near Dromore, Co Tyrone, producing milk from grazed grass in autumn and spring is an important part of his system.
As part of the project, over the past three years Kevin has been addressing deficiencies in phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in soils, with annual soil testing and targeted use of compound fertilisers. He has reduced the proportion of the farm at soil index 1 from 36% and 61% in 2015 to 15% and 16% in 2018 for P and K respectively.
Kevin continues to invest in drainage and reseeding to maximise grass growth and has developed grazing infrastructure over the years to maximise days at grass.
The focus on the McGrade farm has been to increase grass growth, cow numbers and milk output in that order. Newly established contract heifer-rearing arrangements will also allow more cows and output from the home farm.
Although it has been difficult to manage grass this year, the grass wedge is well under control and grass quality is excellent on the McGrade farm. Grass is measured every week to 10 days for most of the grazing season and every five days during peak growth.
Being able to take out surplus grass for bales and rotate some ground between grazing and silage is central to grassland management on the farm.
Kevin McGrade
Dromore, Co Tyrone
We reseeded 20 acres of the grazing platform three weeks ago with a mixture of the tetraploid AberGain and diploid AberChoice. One of the paddocks had some drainage work carried out before this and the whole area was ploughed for a full conventional reseed.
Seed was drilled in both directions and it struck well. The only problem was a severe burst of rain shortly after it appeared out of the ground. Some topsoil was washed off steeper parts of fields and, in some places, the new seed was taken away too. We had to disc and replant the worst affected areas.
A post-emergence spray on the new grass is due shortly and we plan to give the reseeded areas a grazing with the cows to nip it off and encourage tillering. The other option is to bring calves home from an outfarm to graze it.
Cows are nearing the end of lactation, with the first heifers due to be dried off at the end of this week to allow an eight-week dry period. No concentrates are being fed at present and cows are yielding 16.5 litres at 4.81% butterfat and 3.79% protein.
Calving begins in early September and, between cows and heifers, there should be 100 calved in the first four weeks. There are only 10 cows due to calve down after Christmas. However, some late-calvers might be sold off before then.
Silage
We cut 80 acres of first-cut silage on 12 May. Around half of this area was then put into the grazing rotation and some paddocks that were previously grazed were held for silage.
With good growth of 120kg to 130kg DM/ha/day for the past few weeks, we have been able to take out 10 to 15 acres of surplus grass for silage every week.
Only baled silage is made on the farm and so far this year there have been 850 bales made. Making baled silage gives us flexibility in where and when we cut.
The other factor is that, although we have several smaller outfarms, cows can walk to most of our ground, which gives flexibility with grazing too.
Taking bales off most of the grazing block at some point has helped maintain grass quality. We have only pre-mowed one paddock this year so far and we have not topped any grass after cows.
Grass measuring on Friday showed that growth had dropped from 135kg DM/ha/day the week before to 75kg DM/ha/day last week.
This was probably down to slightly colder temperatures. I hadn’t budgeted for the drop, so we brought two paddocks into the grazing round that were out for silage.
Buildings
We are currently roofing a slatted tank and outdoor feeding area that joins on to the main cubicle house. A clay bank belonging to an old silage clamp was dug away and we will put in a row of cubicles below the new roof too.
There are also cubicles going into an existing shed and the investment in winter housing will allow us to increase cow numbers.
Two different farmers have recently taken heifers as part of new contract-rearing arrangements. We already had an existing arrangement with another farmer, so between the three contract rearers, all 60 of our in-calf heifers are off the farm at present.
These heifers will come back shortly before calving and will be substituted with heifer calves, which we keep ourselves for the first year.
These contract-rearing arrangements reduce the workload with one- to two-year-old heifers and will allow more milking cows to be kept on the farm.
Tracking replacement heifer weights in Down
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