Has red clover a role in your beef production system?

Dr Nicky Byrne, Beef Researcher, Teagasc Grange, spoke about red clover and its role in beef production systems at the National Beef Conference 2022.

Forage legumes, such as red clover (RC), can contribute substantially to organic, low- input and conventional animal production systems due to their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen (N), thus reducing the reliance on chemical N fertiliser. Through RC’s biological N fixation ability and through its capacity to support higher animal performance (Phelan et al., 2015), improved farm gate N-balance can be expected. Given the rising cost of fertiliser and feed, and increasing environmental constraints, incorporating RC into swards can offer significant benefits to beef production systems. Despite the many benefits of RC inclusion, it has had limited uptake on pasture-based production systems in Ireland. The poor on-farm uptake of RC is likely due to its more complex management requirements, unsuitability to frequent grazing, reduced persistence (approximately 3-4 years), and the relatively low cost of chemical N fertiliser in the previous years.

Summary

• Red clover-grass silage swards can produce high herbage yields without the need for chemical nitrogen (N) fertiliser inputs due to its ability to fix in excess of 200 kg N/ha annually.
• Red clover is more suited to silage than grazing
• The high intake potential of red clover-grass silage compared to grass silage can increase animal live weight gain.
• Harvesting red clover at 6-8 week intervals will help swards persist for 3-4 years.
• Red clover-grass silage has an economic advantage over grass silage at current market prices.
• High levels of management are necessary for red clover-grass silage swards compared to conventional grass silage swards.

Download the presentation : Has red clover a role in your beef production system - Nicky Byrne - Teagasc Beef Conference 2022 (PDF)