Daniels works his magic in grassland competition

Growing 17.3tDM/ha across the milking platform and spreading 167kgN/ha across the farm was enough for Bryan and Gail Daniels to scoop the sustainability award and the overall award at the Grassland Farmer of the Year awards at a ceremony in Moorepark last Friday. The Daniels are milking 300 cows on a high but dry farm at Kilmoganny in south Kilkenny.

Bryan impressed the judges with his grassland management skills. He achieves an average of 10.2 grazings per year and he measures the farm on average 38 times per year. With 112ha in the milking platform, the stocking rate is 2.55 cows/ha with some of the youngstock grazed on adjoining land. The cows are on track to produce 460kg of milk solids from 430kg of meal this year.

Most of the farm is at index three and four for phosphorus and potassium. The soils are hungry for lime so Bryan spreads this in winter. He soil samples every two years and does a plan for every paddock based on utilising slurry first and then chemical fertiliser. Bryan places a big emphasis on biodiversity and overall sustainability of his farming system.

He has planted new hedgerows and does his own hedgecutting, rotating the parts of the farm to be cut and the parts of the hedge to be trimmed. He targets a thick, A-shaped hedge with plenty of trees scattered throughout.

The amount of meal and fertiliser purchased is kept to a minimum, with feed costs averaging 2.1c/l and total costs at 19.64c/l over the last number of years. Over half of the nitrogen spread in 2019 was protected urea. A public farm walk will be held on the Daniels’ farm next year.

Category winners

Mike Bermingham from Fermoy in Co Cork won the dairy award. Mike and his wife Tina are milking 108 cows and growing 14.8tDM/ha of grass. They impressed the judges with their ability to grow a lot of high-quality grass in a simple, labour-efficient system.

John Trant, farm manager of the Clongowes Wood dairy farm in Co Kildare, won the young farmer category. John has consistently displayed excellence at grassland management over the three years he has been in charge of the farm.

There were two beef winners of the competition. Trevor Boland from Dromard in Co Sligo won the beef-suckling category while Philip How from Coachford in Co Cork won the non-suckling category. Both are using grass to maximise liveweight gain. John O’Connell from Ballinamore in Co Leitrim won the sheep category, while Paudie O’Brien from Firies in Co Kerry won the heavy soils category. There were also merit awards for Mick Magan, Co Longford; John O’Sullivan, Co Kerry; and William Dennehy in Co Kerry.

Presentation

The prizes were presented by the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed. The winner received a cheque for €6,000 while the category winners received a cheque for €3,500 each. The competition is sponsored by the Department of Agriculture as part of the Teagasc Grass10 programme. Grass10 is supported by AIB, Grassland Agro, FBD, Department of Agriculture and the Irish Farmers Journal.

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