Farmers across the country are incorporating clover into their grazing and silage swards in an effort to improve biodiversity and reduce the level of chemical fertiliser being used on their farms.
Based in Ballyhale, Co. Kilkenny, Jimmy Madigan has incorporated both red and white clover into a reseed on his farm which he is using for both silage and grazing.
What makes Jimmy’s reseed unique is that the advice for managing red clover currently is for farmers not to graze the sward. However, after 10 grazings and a cut of silage, the video below shows just how persistent the red clover is remaining in the sward on Jimmys’ farm.
Current advice is to incorporate white clover into paddocks used primarily for grazing and to incorporate red clover into fields used primarily for silage.
Jimmy’s farm is involved in ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme and last year, the farm hosted the Irish Grassland Association’s (IGA’s) beef event.
Last April, Jimmy reseeded the paddock shown above. It was burned off, disced and sown with a one-pass system. At sowing, the reseed received three bags of 13:6:20 (nitrogen: phosphorus: potassium).
The table below is a guideline of the mix Jimmy used for his reseed:
kg/ac Variety Type 2kg White clover 2kg AberClaret Red Clover 3.2kg AberGain Perennial ryegrass (T) 3kg Ballintoy Perennial ryegrass (T) 2.7kg AberChoice Perennial ryegrass (D) 2.50kg Ballyvoy Perennial ryegrass (D)
Jimmy said: “I post-emergence sprayed it six weeks after sowing with Clovermax and the sward has been clean since then.
“The reseed fits into the normal rotation and was grazed every three weeks last year. The rotation was a bit longer at the end of the year. It was basically treated the same as the rest of the paddocks.
“I cut and graze it the very same way as a grass sward. The only thing I will say is red clover doesn’t like heavy machinery and the same rule would apply with poaching.
“It was cut once this year in mid-May and we got 8.5 bales/ac and all it got was cattle slurry and after cutting, I gave it a 50kg bag/ac of sulphate of potash.”
“It was grazed seven times last year and was grazed with store lambs over the winter. It was cut in May for silage and has been grazed twice more since then, so it’s been grazed about 10 times since it was sown,” he said.
Jimmy noted that there is no sign of the red clover reducing in the sward. In fact, he believes it’s getting strong.
“There’s great ground cover with it. Cows are very content on it. They graze it out well and thankfully I’ve had no issues with bloat or any of that,” he added.
“I don’t know how long the red clover will remain in the sward. Some say it will only last 3-4 years.”
He added that one farm he knows of has had the same mix growing for seven seasons.
“This reseed has nearly two seasons done and it’s still flying. I’d be hoping to get the full 10 years out of it. I’m harvesting winter barley currently and I will be going in with the same mix to reseed it,” he said.
He admitted it was a difficult mindset change to not spread any chemical nitrogen on ground he intended to cut for silage.
“This spring I found it hard not to spread anything on it. I was tempted to go out with fertiliser because I was worried about it,” he said.
“It was a bit slow to start growing in the spring but the minute the soil temperature hit 8-9°, it took off. The nitrogen content in the slurry which was spread with a dribble bar helped it along also.
“I’m hoping these clover swards will cut costs and save on labour by not having to go round every paddock with fertiliser after grazing.”
Finishing cattle
The red clover silage cut of the field this year is currently being fed to bulls that have been housed for finishing as under-16-month bull beef.
The bulls are getting 8kg/head/day of a high-energy 14% protein nut and silage ad-lib. With the high-protein red clover silage, Jimmy is considering dropping the protein further in the concentrate feed.
Suckler farming
Jimmy currently has just under 100 suckler cows between his spring- and autumn-calving herds and finishes all his beef progeny through the ABP Advantage Beef Programme.
His suckler system is run with an impressive level of efficiency and Jimmy is confident for the future of the sector.
“What I’m at, I’m very happy with. The quality store cattle are getting scarcer and scarcer while quality suckler-bred cattle are in growing demand,” he said.
“Carrying passengers is the biggest problem in the suckler industry. There is no space for poor cows and poor breeding and farmers have to cull hard with non-performing cows.”
Jimmy also buys-in top-quality suckler-bred bulls for finishing. He said these type of cattle are getting more expensive every year. Jimmy is considering growing his suckler cow numbers by 15-20 head to reduce the need to buy in additional cattle for finishing.
“I’d have fierce confidence in the suckler job going forward,” he said.