Average grass growth rates in 2025 among PastureBase farmers recording more than 30 measurements per year is 13.2t DM/ha, according to Teagasc’s Michael O’Donovan.

Speaking at a recent Teagasc webinar, the Moorepark-based researcher said that the total grass growth figure for 2025 is similar to the 10 year average but up over 900kg DM/ha compared to the five year average.

This indicates something that most grassland farmers already know – that 2025 was a good year for the grass.

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However, Michael said that there was big variation in grass growth in some places, with the south and east experiencing soil moisture deficits in some locations which had a big negative impact on grass growth.

Drawing a line from Wexford through Waterford and across to south Tipperary and down to Cork, there was “subdued grass growth in this region”, he says, due to the impact of a prolonged dry spell during the summer months.

He added that grass growth rates in these areas averaged between 11.6t and 12.6t DM/ha which is much lower than what would otherwise be expected.

Probably

“There was probably two to three periods of soil moisture deficits across these regions in 2025 whereas above that line, there was phenomenal grass growth across other counties. We see that counties such as Clare and Mayo having very high grass production of over 14t DM/ha.

“In putting this data together, the variation in grass growth between farms in the midlands and west was very little, but in the southern half of the country there was a lot of variation. West Cork had a very good year, north and north east Cork had a tough year regarding grass growth but then had a very good autumn.”

Michael said that a key lesson for all farmers is that the opening farm cover on many farms is too low based on calving date and stocking rate.

Farmers, he explained, should be more focused on having higher opening farm covers that are closer to target. According to the researcher, calving is starting too early on many farms, suggesting that calving should only start in February as January calving puts too much pressure on the grass budget.

Average

“We’re looking for an opening average farm cover of over 1,000kg DM/ha and that’s really crucial when there is a high demand for grass in the spring. We want to apply slurry and spring nitrogen on time, not delaying it,” he said.

Also speaking on the webinar was Joe Patton, who said that high feed use is driving costs up on dairy farms, with feed use now heading towards 1.4t of meal per cow.

However, Joe said that on average in 2024, farmers fed over 3kg of meal for every 1kg of milk solids produced which is up from 2.6kg of meal for every 1kg of milk solids produced in 2020.

This shows that contrary to popular narratives, the response to extra concentrates in terms of milk yield is weak.

When the figures for 2025 are analysed its likely that the amount of feed fed on Irish dairy farms will be higher than in 2024.