Grassland Management on Organic Farms
Background
For many Irish farms the simplest and most financially rewarding system of production will be based on maximizing the use of grazed grass. With good grassland management it is possible to have a long grazing season of high quality feed at low cost. On an organic farm, clover is the driver of grassland production.
Clover has made very little contribution to the value of pasture on most Irish farms in recent decades. There are many reasons for this including the relatively good value of fertiliser nitrogen, the ease of establishing and maintaining nitrogen-based pastures relative to clover based ones, and the higher stocking rate potential from grass/N systems.
However, farming circumstances are changing rapidly and clover-based pastures can now maintain stocking rates suitable for 80% of Irish farms. With this in mind farmers are now looking at organic farming with renewed interest. On farms where the stocking rates are in the range 1.2 to 1.7 Lu/Ha and there is little or no clover present, making the switch to organics will require clover to be incorporated into the grassland prior to conversion because it takes time to get clover up and running.
The purpose of this booklet is to give you the basic knowledge required to manage grass/clover swards in an organic system of farming. Increasing the clover content of your pastures and managing grass/clover swards through out the year are dealt with in detail. However in practise the best way to get a handle on managing grass/clover swards is to join a discussion group and use the local Teagasc advisory service to help you gain the required skills.
Download the full version here (722KB PDF Format)
