Eurogene in association with Teagasc are hosting future solutions information meeting accross the country over the coming weeks.
The events will cover a number of topics, including the significant challenges that will be faced by every dairy farmer in planning their breeding strategy for 2024 and beyond.
The next meeting are taking place in Co. Tipperary on Monday, December 11, and in Co. Cork also on Monday, December 11.
Future solutions
The meetings will discuss issues such as nitrates banding, and the reduction in organic nitrogen (N) loading to 220kg/ha, and potentially management and breeding strategies to adapt to these changes.
The meetings will look at how genetics will be a key tool for farmers when it comes to addressing challenges around N efficiency.
Speaking at one of the recent events, Dr. Debbie McConnell, group scientist with Eurogene, said: “For the last few decades we have been breeding for more efficient, higher fertility animals with improved solids so we are already moving in the right direction however its something we need to keep focusing on going forward.
“When you look at it, the total spend on an animal’s genetic make-up is on average 1.2% of the total expenditure throughout her lifetime, so for a relatively small spend we can actually have a big impact on farm profitability.
“We are quite fortunate in that fat and protein percentage is something we can improve relatively quickly through breeding.”
Dr. McConnell noted that the heritability of fat and protein percentage can be as high as 68%, which means that within a few generations, we can see stark rises in an animals genetic ability to produce high-solids milk.
However, as we breed for improved animal performance, we do need to think about management as well – to get the most out of that genetics.
Dr. McConnell said: “One of the caveats of breeding higher component animals is they do have a greater energy requirement, if we move from producing one kilo of average milk (4.1% fat and 3.5% protein), to producing one kilo of high-solid milk (5% fat and 4% protein), they need to consume an extra 0.8MJ of energy to deliver that.
“This might seem like much, but for a cow yielding 25kg – this can mean cows consuming an extra 1.7kg of dry matter (DM)/day which is a significant volume of feedstuffs across a herd.
“That extra feed needs to be factored into our farm stocking rate calculations and our grass allocations throughout the year.
“Having a good nutritional strategy for these animals will be particularly important in spring, when we are trying to get animals ready for breeding, at the same time as supporting high milk outputs.”
Challenges
Also speaking at one of the recent meeting was Stuart Childs, a dairy specialist with Teagasc, he said: “There is no denying that there are major changes that have taken place in the last two years with banding introduced and the reduction to 220kg N/ha coming in.
“Some farms will be affected by these, others will not. It will be important for each farm to look at their own situation, establish their own figures and evaluate the options.”
Childs said that there is effectively two choices for people affected by these changes: reduce the organic N produced on their holding, or increase the amount of land that they have to give them the organic N allowance that they require.
Some of the options available for this would be:
- Contract rearing replacement heifers to ‘free up’ the N allowance on the home farm;
- Slurry export and renting land.
Childs says that all of these options have pros and cons, and it will be important for farmers to look at what is feasible within their farm and cost up the various options.
Commenting further, Childs said: “From an animal perspective, it’s important for farms to be efficient with the N allowance they have.
“The stock that you carry need to be worthy of their place on the farm, they need to produce milk as efficiently as possible and have good fertility and health.
“Having cows that survive longer on the farm should reduce the requirement for replacements, which in turn makes the whole system more efficient in N terms as well as financially.
“So, when we are breeding, having a fertile cow with good somatic cell count (SCC) and lameness traits will be key.”
Childs says most importantly, the new limits place no restrictions on milk solids production so breeding to increase percentages of fat and protein is a great way to drive more revenue from each kilo of milk produced.
He advised farmers to select bulls with +0.3% fat and +0.2% protein which will help contribute towards these improvements.
Sexed semen
Sexed semen was, and will also be covered at the upcoming future solutions meetings, with it being noted as a useful tool when it comes to ensuring farmers are getting maximum value from every animal on the farm.
Using sexed allows farmers to move the genetics of the herd forward that much faster, with Dr. McConnell stating that it is estimated that average increase in economic breeding index (EBI) improvement from €12/year for the national herd to €30/year.
She also said that there is the added benefit that we can put a larger proportion of the herd to beef, and said it’s crucial that we are capturing maximum value out of all stock on the farm, even those drop calves.
Moving from a conventional semen strategy for breeding replacements to a sexed semen strategy can actually increases calf sales on the average dairy farm by an additional €2,600/annum.
Dr. McConnell noted that this far outweighs the additional semen costs, which comes in at an extra €1,200/year.