Farmers are always looking to ensure a return on inputs by managing their feed costs while maintaining milk production or liveweight gain.

The seeds you sow over the months of spring, whether they be grass, herbal ley or maize, can influence your herd’s performance. This makes spring a great time to begin planning for the year ahead.

Making the most of your grazing platform

Ensuring a grazing platform has the highest quality grass and grazing utilisation is essential to maximise grass as a feed source in economic terms. 

Grass utilisation is the amount of grass grown that is actually consumed by the animal to produce milk or meat. Research shows that each extra tonne of grass dry matter (DM) utilised is worth €181 and €105/ha/year to dairy and drystock farmers, respectively.

Focusing on sowing grass mixtures that increase utilisation by the herd can help increase the efficiency of the entire system.

“There are several things to consider when choosing the right mix; soil type, farming practices and end use of the ley being sown, to name a few,” said Nigel Condell, ruminant nutritionist at Specialist Nutrition.

“The normal practice is to walk the site where the seed will be sown, understand any challenges, and discuss what the farmer intends to do once they have established the forage.”

Specialist Grazer HVS is a mixture of some of the best grazing varieties available, namely Xenon and Aspect, two of only three varieties to achieve a five-star grazing utilisation trait rating on the Teagasc purchase price index (PPI).

This best-in-class grass mixture is proven to help achieve your production goals, whether that be producing the highest quality milk, beef or lamb.

Grow more forage with less fertiliser

With the potential to significantly reduce the reliance on inorganic nitrogen (N) fertiliser, incorporating white clover into new and established grass swards also has benefits of supporting the financial and environmental sustainability of Irish farms.

Choosing a grass mixture with white clover can offset up to 150kg N/ha/year in inorganic nitrogen fertiliser. This is equivalent to seven bags of 18.6.12/ac.

In addition, white clover is highly digestible as a forage, with crude protein content averaging over 20%.

As well as producing high yields of quality forage, sowing multi-species can lead to a significantly reduced nitrogen fertiliser requirement, as well as increased animal performance and health.

Having a mixture of grass and multi-species swards on the grazing platform will ensure a steady supply of the highest-quality forage through spring, summer and autumn, buffering against drought and reducing the cost of forage production.

Target reseeding 25% each year

Reseeding part of the grazing platform each year gives a higher-producing sward, contributing to increased daily liveweight gain and milk production. Targeting to reseed 25% of the grazing platform can help support productivity and herd performance.

With the current instability in fertiliser prices, reseeding can pay dividends in nitrogen efficiency as new swards use nitrogen more efficiently.

To learn more, click here.

For help in selecting the best grass mixture, clover oversow blend or multi-species mixture, contact Specialist Nutrition on: 051 833071.

Quality silage is the nutritional cornerstone of your farm 

Improving the quality of the grass silage produced this year will help towards boosting production and reducing waste. With silage forming the base of the diet and defining the volume of concentrate feeds needed to balance for animal performance, silage quality directly impacts overall farm profitability.

A good place to start is by assessing the performance of last year’s grass silage and deciding if changes are needed for the coming season. Approaching this evaluation early will help with fertiliser budgeting for the year ahead while also making the best use of slurry and farmyard manure.

Take control of your silage quality this year with pre-cut silage tests. Pre-cut testing is used to keep track of the key parameters: Sugars of more than 15% in the DM and nitrates of less than 1000mg/kg fresh weight for good fermentation, combined with neutral detergent fibre (NDF) of 38-40% for quality, ensuring grass is harvested at the optimum time to maximise its quality.

For farmers aiming to make high-quality silage, including a silage additive can significantly help improve silage fermentation and preservation. The controlled microbial fermentation of forages helps preserve its nutritional value all year round. 

Forage specialist at Specialist Nutrition, Amy Roche, recommends that “when it comes to producing your grass silage, [you should] aim to control the controllable”.

“From the time fertiliser is spread, evaluate your growing days. Pre-cut test ahead of time to know your sugar and nitrate levels,” she said.

“Talk to your contractor and monitor weather windows. A crop and condition-specific additive is an important tool in ensuring fast fermentation, minimising dry matter loss and optimal feedout.”

Increasing the metabolisable energy (ME) of your silage by one megaJoule (MJ) can produce up to 4L extra milk, depending on the feeding rate.

By choosing a suitable silage additive, silage producers can ensure the best preservation of dry matter and the nutritional value of their silage crops from the field to feed out, while optimising performance and animal efficiency.

Top farmers are pitting to manage winter feed costs. Are you?

Moist feeds are a powerful addition to farm diets. Whether balancing a high-cereal beef diet or buffer feeding a dairy cow, moist feeds provide an excellent energy source throughout the year.

Feed prices tend to contribute the most to eroding margins over the winter months, and so pitting moist feeds during the spring and summer months provides the perfect opportunity to secure your winter feed and have the comfort of guaranteed feed availability.

According to the Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) metrics for sustainable feed, which is recognised globally, moist feeds currently have the lowest carbon footprint value of any animal feed.

Pat Kiely of PMC Dairy partnership has been pitting Eornagold for the past number of years: “We have been ensiling moist feeds for years. We like to have it ensiled coming into the winter because it is a very consistent and reliable feed.

“We never have any issues with it, it’s very stable in the pit, and the cows love it. When we put it into any diet, the cows eat more of that diet, so it’s very palatable. We pit it with beet pulp nuts, so we have a mix that is high in energy and protein.”

Moist feeds can be ensiled with other products such as beet pulp, soya hulls, hay and straw at a ratio of 4:1. This helps give the pit added structure and allow the pit to be piled higher while complimenting the feed’s nutritional content.

More information

As moist feed and forage specialists, Specialist Nutrition helps farmers improve on farm returns by optimising the yield and quality of the forage they produce.

Taking a structured approach to forage planning will help identify the feed demands for the year ahead and help you navigate the critical forage decisions to be considered in the coming months.

Specialist Nutrition is a leader in animal feed and forage solutions, together with expert nutrition advice supplying a comprehensive range of high-quality moist feeds, liquid feeds and supplements to progressive dairy and beef farmers.

If you would like to know more about improving farm returns through self-sufficiency, by optimising the yield and quality of your forage, contact Specialist Nutrition on: 051 833 071, or visit its website by clicking here.