Steven Fitzgerald, Farm manager, Teagasc Curtin's Research Farm

There are 30 cows still milking now and the rest have been dried off. They are getting baled silage and 3kgs of meal.

We soil test all paddocks every year as this is a research farm and we need to make sure all paddocks have similar soil fertility. This will be done in the next few weeks. Last year all paddocks tested at index three, but within this the readings were lower than the previous year so we are watching this trend closely. We want to see paddocks in high index three as oppose to just index three. Nearly all paddocks got 2,000 gallons of slurry to the acre at some stage during the year, which should have supplied roughly 10 units of P and 70 units of K per acre, replacing the P and K removed during the year. Paddocks where pH is dropping will be topped up with lime.

Dosing will be completed soon and we will also do some hoof paring on the whole herd. For most cows this will just be lifting both back feet and making sure toe length isn’t too long and that cows are distributing weight evenly between two claws. We only had eight cases of lameness in 120 cows this year which we are happy with.

Cows are milking 11 litres at 5.54% fat, 4.17% protein (1.1kgMS/cow), lactose 4.4% and SCC 240,000.

Donal Patton, Farm manager, Ballyhaise Research Farm

All the cows are being dried off this week. We had planned to milk them on for another two weeks, but if we do this we will oversupply in the spring so everything is dry now. All cows get a dry cow tube and a teat sealer. We keep some dry cows on an out-wintering pad over the winter so don’t skimp on the dry cow therapy.

The objective of the trial this year was to look at optimum calving date for the border, mid and western (BMW) region. One herd of cows calved on average 25 February, while the other herd calved on average 10 March. Both herds had 50/50 high EBI Jersey crossbred and Friesian stock and average stocking rate was 2.9 cows/ha. I am looking forward to sitting down and analysing the data from the different systems.

To date, the Friesian and Jersey crossbred stock have produced similar milk solids per cow, at just over 400kgMS/cow, but the crossbreds needed less litres to do this and so they will generate more revenue. The earlier calving herd had delivered roughly an extra 25kgMS/cow by mid-November, but had eaten 150kg more meal. At a stocking rate of 2.9 cows/ha we conserved on average 550kgDM/cow as surplus silage, which is about half that needed for the winter so we then purchased the rest.

John Kingston, Ballygarvan, Cork

There are 140 out of 260 cows still milking, but these will be dried off over the next week as the grazing season is just finished. Total grass grown will be about 12tDM/ha, but when you consider the late spring and getting hit by drought in July and September I think the farm is capable of growing about 14tDM/ha in a normal year. Pre-grazing cover on the first paddock is 1,200kgDM/ha and closing cover will be 550kgDM/ha.

We are near the sea here and can get good winter growth rates. Last year I recorded 8kg/day as the winter was extremely mild, but the two previous winters were cold and we got no growth. For the last four years we have been growing fodder beet on the milking platform and we have been grazing this since September this year to stretch the round. It’s the best crop of fodder beet I have ever grown and yield is around 28tDM/ha to 30tDM/ha. I am happy with beet on the grazing platform and think it works best when you can take cows on and off it to grass. Cows have been getting 4kgDM to 5kgDM of beet per day. We had 4ha in beet and have 84ha around the parlour in total. Cows have been milked once a day since September and are currently milking eight litres at 6.38% fat, 5.07% protein (0.94kgMS/cow) and SCC 200,000. Last lactose was 4.14%, which is below the 4.2% penalty threshold.

Kevin Healy, Aughrim, Wicklow

We are split calving here and the 25 spring calvers still milking just finished grazing this Monday. We housed the autumn calved cows on 18 October and kept the spring calvers out by day. There are three paddocks with 1,300kgDM/ha ready for grazing in the spring. Overall my average farm cover is probably higher than normal, but this was planned as I closed more paddocks early. You get a great response from autumn and spring calvers to spring grass so I am happy to have it. We have 20ha here around the parlour and next year I hope to calve 50 cows in the spring and 30 in the autumn. We cut and carry grass from an out-farm during poor growth with a second hand wagon and single chop machine. I reseeded three acres at the end of September, which was late but the seeds are established and should come strong next year.

Fresh and stale cows are housed separately over the winter to cut feed costs. Fresh calvers are getting ad lib silage, 10kg of chopped fodder beet and 8kg of a 19% CP ration. I was disappointed that my silage tested under 70DMD. I had cut it in early June and will try to cut in late May next year to get better quality. Fresh calvers are milking around 25 litres and stale cows are milking around 10 litres. The last test was 4.27% fat, 3.4% protein and SCC 147,000.