About 100 delegates attended the IGA sheep conference and farm walk in Aughrim, county Wicklow. The event started with three presentations in Lawless’s Hotel before making the short trip to the farm walk held locally on John and Linda Pringle’s farm. A focus running through this year’s event was the importance of grassland management and its potential to underpin profitable enterprises: getting the basics of soil fertility correct, installing paddocks and operating a rotational grazing system arose as key contributors in all of the morning presentations and again out on farm.
About 100 delegates attended the IGA sheep conference and farm walk in Aughrim, county Wicklow. The event started with three presentations in Lawless’s Hotel before making the short trip to the farm walk held locally on John and Linda Pringle’s farm.
A focus running through this year’s event was the importance of grassland management and its potential to underpin profitable enterprises: getting the basics of soil fertility correct, installing paddocks and operating a rotational grazing system arose as key contributors in all of the morning presentations and again out on farm.
Measuring grass
Another closely linked aspect is measuring grassland to put you in the strong position of knowing what fields or swards are delivering and what areas of the system need close attention.
This was majored firstly in Micheál O’Leary’s presentation on PastureBase Ireland, Teagasc’s web-based grassland management tool. Despite dealing with different species, the dynamics were exactly the same in a paper on alternative forages presented by Tommy Boland, UCD while Welsh guest speaker Neil Perkins has built the farming system on which he and his wife run 2,500 ewes on these principles.
Farmer John Pringle has also seen the benefits of rotational grazing and grass measurement and is continuing to split up large areas into smaller paddocks and commencing grass measuring in 2016.
Delegates attending the event were treated to a mixed grazing masterclass with a total of 50 cows and calves, yearling female progeny, 250 ewes and lambs and 70 yearling run in just three groups. 25 cows and calves are run with 125 ewes while heifers are run with 70 yearling hoggets. The practice reduces stock groups and facilitates a rotational grazing system, spanning over 30 divisions to be operated.
See this week’s print edition of the Irish Farmers Journal for more in-depth coverage of the event and read more about John Pringle’s farming system.
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