Clover reporter: Michael Doran

Michael Doran is milking cows outside Duncormick, Co. Wexford, and has a plan to oversow about 8ha of clover and reseed a further 5ha with grass-clover if weather allows in 2023.

Michael's top tip in this week’s Grass 10 newsletter is to have a fertiliser plan to reduce chemical nitrogen (N) and get clover working for you.

• Soil type: slightly heavy soil in drier area;
• Percentage of farm in clover end of 2022: 60%;
• Percentage from reseeding: 34%;
• Percentage from oversowing: 26%;
• Clover content 2022: 16%;
• Clover varieties: Buddy, Chieftain and Crusader (medium leaves) and Coolfin (small leaf);
• Seeding rate: 2 kg/ac oversown and 1.5 kg/ac reseed;
• Method used: Guttler for reseeding and grass harrow and APV disc spreader for oversowing.

Clover plan for 2022

There’s only 7ha of the grazing block remaining with grass only and that’s not in silage ground. The plan is to oversow these paddocks with clover this year. One small 1ha paddock - with low clover content - didn’t get a good take when reseeded, so it will be oversowed too. Depending on the year, another 5ha of grass-clover is going to be reseeded to improve performance. There is 4ha of the silage ground being reseeded with red clover-grass mix on a two-cut system.

First rotation management

We will graze the paddocks due for oversowing as normal in spring, but make sure that they’re ready to graze again in the first half of April on the second rotation - grazing it tight and not minding if cows mark it. I feel this helps open up the sward and allows better chance for seed to germinate. Half the grazing block has got 2000gal/ac of slurry using LESS in late Jan and the remainder is getting 23unit/ac of nitrogen from protected urea this week.

Michael’s top tip for clover

We need a nitrogen plan. Everything is getting about 70units/ac of by early Aril between protected urea and slurry. That’s growing grass into April for the second rotation. The paddocks that are high in clover will be reduced in nitrogen from end May onwards. When my silage ground is out, over 80% of the grazing block is grass-clover swards. Reducing back nitrogen on high-clover swards last year has given me the confidence to reduce nitrogen even further on these paddocks and still grow the grass to feed my cows. If we don’t reduce it, clover won’t do its job as it becomes lazy. 

Michael Doran featured in this week's edition of the Grass 10 newsletter. For more information on the programme, click here.