Solohead aims to develop low emissions blueprint for fragmented dairy farms
Solohead has garnered huge farmer interest in recent years. Implementing a zero nitrogen input strategy on grass-clover swards, Teagasc researchers have shown that the carbon and ammonia footprints of milk production can be lowered substantially (25%) without impacting on economic competitiveness.
In a follow up to this work and funded through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s (DAFM) 2023 Thematic Research Call, Dr James Humphreys, Principal Research Officer at Solohead Research Farm, will now add another string to the bow of this research by looking at how the Solohead system can be implemented on fragmented dairy farms.
One of the objectives now of the LoCAM-dairy project, a collaboration between Teagasc, the South East Technological University and the National University of Ireland, Galway, is to develop a low emissions blueprint for fragmented dairy farms.
This system (LoCAM-3.3) will have a stocking rate of 3.3 cows/ha on the grazing platform (representing 73% of the overall farm area) with the remaining 27% of the system area (inaccessible to grazing cows) will be solely for silage production from red clover swards. This will be compared with the existing LoCAM-2.4 system in which the entire farm area is available for grazing and production of silage.
As part of this research, both systems will have an overall stocking rate of 2.4/ha and will receive no artificial fertiliser N. The comparison will include economic performance, greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions and impact on water quality.
New knowledge generated by this study will be integrated with existing knowledge for the development of blueprints for low-emissions pasture-based dairy farming that delivers a competitive economic return to dairy farmers.
A second study will quantify the impact of implementing these blueprints on 25 commercial dairy farms (LoCAM Dairy Farms). Data collected on these farms will be used to quantify improvements in carbon and ammonia footprints and implications for economic performance. A third study will investigate reseeding multispecies swards without use of herbicides or fertiliser N.
DAFM 2023 Thematic Research Call
The above is just one of 21 new research projects arising from the DAFM 2023 Thematic Research Call, to which total funding of €22.3 million has been made available.
Making the announcement, Minister of State with special responsibility for Research and Development at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon T.D. said: “I am announcing €22.3 million in grant aid for 21 new research projects arising from my Department’s 2023 Thematic Research Call.
“This will see research work being conducted across a wide range of areas including, low emissions dairy production, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, developing farmland nature credits, optimising oat production and processing for healthy foods, assessing the impact of deer in forestry, advancing the Irish wool sector, sustainable packaging materials, and improving shelf life of dairy products, among others.”
Minister Heydon added: “Practices across the agri-food, forest and bioeconomy sectors are always evolving and Ireland should be at the forefront of these developments. A steady pipeline of new solutions is the cornerstone of increasing economic, environmental, and social sustainability and the next step is for the output of these projects to reach end-users such as farmers, advisors, policy makers and industry stakeholders.”
Also read: Lowering the carbon footprint of pasture-based milk production at Solohead