Livestock farmers may face wetter springs, wetter autumns and milder weather in the future due to changing weather patterns, the head of Teagas dairy knowledge transfer department, Dr. Joe Patton said today (Tuesday, October 15).

Weather was a key focus of the Grassland Climate Adaptation Conference today at the Teagasc Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, at Moorepark in Co. Cork.

According to experts the incidence of “intense precipitation events, soil moisture deficits and droughts, and prolonged winter conditions” are becoming increasingly frequent which are delivering challenging conditions for Irish farmers.  

The focus of today’s conference was to address key adaptations that Irish grassland will need to undertake in the years ahead in order to cope with climate change.

Dr. Joe Patton told Agriland that the conference examined “forward planning to see where trends are going to go, we looked at adaptation to see what farmers and industry need to do to adapt their systems to changing weather and climate patterns.”

According to Teagasc Irish grassland livestock production systems now have a lot more climate challenges to deal with.

It highlighted at the conference that in 2024 there was a wet and cold spring, combined with intermittent dry periods throughout the summer, both of which had impacts on grass growth, while more recently there was intense rainfall wet weather in different parts of the country.  

The conference was attended by delegates from New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom and all over Europe, as well as a range of multi-actor Irish delegates including grassland farmers.

Professor Frank O’Mara, Teagasc director told delegates: ”Teagasc are very focussed on trying to best position farmers for the key climate challenges ahead.”

“We have a number of key initiatives in this area, PastureBase Ireland, Moorepark St Gilles MoSt Grass growth model, and AgNav are all working toward similar goals, the future proofing Irish ruminant productions systems.”

L-R: Dr Deirdre Hennessy, UCC, Professor Pat Dillon, Teagasc director of research, Fiona O’Donnell, vice president, Dairy Women Ireland, Brian Murphy, DAFM, Dr Ellen Fitzpatrick, Teagasc and Professor Frank O’Mara, Teagasc director Image: O’Gorman Photography.

Professor O’Mara added that this was one of the first conferences arising from the new Climate Research Centre in Teagasc. 

“We have heard today that there are real challenges ahead that we need to keep responding to.

“It will be important to support farmers with more climate effective technologies in the years ahead.”

The conference also featured key speakers from Met Eireann, PGG Wrightsons seeds New Zealand and INRAe France,” he said.

Weather

Dr. Padraig Flattery from Met Eireann also told the conference that “Ireland’s climate is 0.7°C warmer and 7% wetter when comparing the average period of 1991-2020 to 1961-1990.”

He added: “Likely outcomes of further warming are extended grass growing season, rainfall increasing in likelihood and intensity, prolonged heatwaves and droughts, higher extreme temperatures, fewer cold extremes”.

Professor Michael O’Donovan, head of the Teagasc Grassland Science Department highlighted that in the last 10 years of PastureBase Ireland “grazing management practise has improved on Irish farms, spring grazing is now taking place earlier”.

O’Donovan also emphasised the knock-on effect of this has “increased grazing events on paddocks, grass Dry Matter(DM) production is averaging approximately 13 tonnes DM per hectare per annum and the transition to grass/clover swards is well underway on Irish grassland farms”.

According to Teagasc there is now clear evidence that Irish grassland farmers are adapting to the current challenges, while some technologies take some time to bed into farming practise.

The role of PastureBase Ireland is now fundamental to the success of Irish farmers keeping grassland to the core of the farm business

Talking about the adaptation on farm level, Patton added: “We need to be looking at sward type and breeding for better resistance and better quality and forward planning for what grass growth is going to look like and stocking rate is a big part of that”.

He also said that “security of winter feed and how that it is going to happen has to be looked at and having extra feed in the yard for weather contingencies and look at how clover and multi-specie swards are going to work with the changing climate.”

In general Dr Elodie Ruelle, grassland modeller at Teagasc, Moorepark, said that overall grass output “will be similar between years, with increases in winter growth and increases in the variability of summer growth”.

“We will experience some extremes in moisture deficits, so grassland systems will have to build resilience to cope with such extremes.” Dr. Ruelle added.