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Grass10 Featured Farmer, Colin Doherty, Co. Limerick

Grass10 Featured Farmer, Colin Doherty, Co. Limerick

Colin farms alongside his father Bryan outside Adare in Co. Limerick. Colin was the 2021 Grassland Farmer of the Year Winner and a held a farm walk on their farm in September.

"We grazed by day and night into the first week of November, and grazed by day until 2nd December. We’re back about 2 T DM/ha on average and spread 158 Kg N/ha chemical nitrogen in 2022."

Location: Adare, Co. Limerick
Enterprise:  Dairy
2022 Milk Yield: 435 KgMS/cow (estimated)
2022 Meal Fed/Cow: 
500 kg meal (estimated)
2022 Annual tonnage:  11.8 T DM/ha

Autumn Grazing Management
We hit 70% by end of October which also required two loads of zero-grazing per day to stretch it as farm cover didn’t recover that well early on. Cows got over allocated feed this autumn with the zero-grazing helping to not pass out the grazing targets. Other years they would have just been on grass. I think it’s helped the cows and stretch the grazing season length compared to other years. We grazed by day and night into the first week of November, and grazed by day until 2nd December. We’re back about 2 T DM/ha on average and spread 158 Kg N/ha chemical nitrogen, although I think we should have spread more than we did earlier in the year in early May and reduced it a bit later.

Grass growth was good during November. We put aside some clover paddocks to graze in November, they were challenging to graze with the weather conditions. Lots of grass at the closing cover about 100 Kg DM/ha ahead of normal and ahead of target. It’s great to have that grass coming into the spring. Looking at the spring grass budget we’ll need it all as there are extra cows calving. We aim to graze 40% in February, if we can, to set the farm up well for the 2nd round. Should have a lot of cows calved in February to help this.

We’ve done a lot of work on the water troughs over the past six weeks and leaving us a lot more options for grazing next spring.

Average Farm Cover (AFC): 796 KgDM/ha
Growth: 8 KgDM/ha/day
Annual Tonnage YTD: 11.8 T DM/ha
No. Grazings/Cuts: 8.5
Kg N/ha (milking platform): 183 Kg N/ha (Inc. 26 Kg N/ha organic)
No. Farm covers: 51

Why over 50 farm walks?
We really try to get a lot of walks in when growth is good. We’ll measure twice per week, and back to once per week when it’s slower. I try keep the get habit going even if growth is low and this year we were able to get a grasp for how fast cows are going through paddocks when it was dry. Measuring in late march into early April is key to know when to take the handbrake off. There’s lots of decisions to be made and measuring the grass makes them easier!

Soil Fertility Management
We are spreading 2 T lime/acre on one red clover silage field today. This was meant to go out earlier but conditions didn’t allow. The whole farm will be soil sampled in the next week too.