Grass and Breeding – Key Messages for Beef Farmers
8 May 2008
Growing and utilising grass more efficiently, and breeding higher quality beef animals are just two of the critical steps to improve profit on drystock farms as outlined at the Teagasc beef open day today, Thursday, 8 June.
Beef farmers face many policy changes and market challenges which are outside of their control, but the thousands of farmers attending the open day at Grange in county Meath, could see at first-hand factors largely under their own control which could improve their incomes. The five major factors under the farmer’s control which can contribute to positive margins on beef farms are stocking rate, grass utilisation, liveweight gain, clover grass swards and improving carcase grades.
The rising cost of fertiliser, which is linked to increasing oil prices, has placed a renewed focus on the contribution that clover can make, by fixing nitrogen, in grass swards. Significant costs savings on fertiliser can be made by farmers. Dr Eddie O Riordan, head of Teagasc Beef Research Centre said: ”Increasing the clover content in pastures should be the primary objective of all farmers. Over a number of grazing seasons it has been shown that animal performance from clover-based swards was equivalent to pure ryegrass swards receiving over 200 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare. As a general rule, the only nitrogen to be applied to clover-based swards should be in the spring for early grass. “
Teagasc beef specialist, Bernard Smyth said: ”Improving carcase grades by breeding from the best sires can lift profit levels. Genetic indexes are now available to identify the animal that will produce the most profitable offspring at weaning and at slaughter.”
The doubling in the price of concentrates has placed renewed emphasis on using grass more efficiently and on making higher quality first-cut grass silage. In many cases, less than 60 per cent of the available grass is used by grazing cattle. By adopting newer management practices margins could be improved by €95 per hectare.
