Tim Leader
Dairy, Dairy Replacements and Calf to Store/Beef
Tim Leader farms a Dairy, Dairy Replacements and Calf to Store/Beef enterprise with his wife Mary and their children Aoife and John in Kilcorney, Rathcoole, Co Cork. Patrick Rohan works as a full time farm assistant. Tim milks 145 dairy cows and runs a calf to store/beef system with the dairy progeny.
Challenges: The farm is up to 700ft above sea level and can be challenging to get cows out to grass in early spring
Farm Advisor: Adrian Curtin, Teagasc, Kanturk
Signpost Farm Measures Undertaken
Protected Urea
This is the 3rd year that Tim has used Protected Urea fertilizer instead of CAN on his farm and finds it very satisfactory.
Breeding
The EBI of the herd is €152 and the 2021 born heifers have an EBI of €211. The dairy herd calving interval is 366 days with an 83% six week calving rate. In 2020, the cows supplied 501 kg milk solids per head.
Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS)
Tim bought a trailing shoe slurry tanker. He spreads 100% of his slurry using the trailing shoe before the end of May. The use of the trailing shoe has allowed Tim to get more slurry out across more of the farm early in the year.
Soil Fertility
Soil fertility is good whereby 66% of the whole farm is optimum for pH, P and K and this will be further improved on. This will improve Tim’s use of chemical Nitrogen on the farm.
Extended Grazing
Tim is measuring grass on PastureBase Ireland to improve his grassland management and extend his grazing season each year.
Clover
Tim plans to increase the amount of clover in his grassland swards to reduce chemical Nitrogen spread on farm. Tim included 1.5kg/acre of clover into reseeded paddocks this year.
Other Actions
Tim planted 2ha of a broadleaf/conifer mixed forest on his farm in 2017. Any trees that failed have been replanted.
Clover
Tim plans to increase the amount of clover in his grassland swards to reduce chemical Nitrogen spread on farm. Tim included 1.5kg/acre of clover into reseeded paddocks this year.
In the clip below, John McCarthy, Advisor on Teagasc/Dairygold Joint Programme discusses the use of protected Urea on the farm Of Tim Leader