Articles
Suckler herd breeding season success
Suckler herd breeding season success A successful breeding season within a suckler herd hinges on a number of key factors, Professor David Kenny, Head of Animal and Bioscience Department at Teagasc, told a recent Future Beef Webinar titled: ‘Getting your cow back in calf’. The starting point, Professor Kenny explained, is having […]
28 March 2024
Buffer zones – where to put them on your farm
Buffer zones – where to put them on your farm Buffer zones are important to protect waterbodies and Hugh Rooney, a Teagasc ASSAP advisor, joins this week’s Tillage Edge to talk about how buffer zones are necessary and what benefits these areas can bring. Hugh explains that protecting waterbodies from nitrates, phosphates, […]
28 March 2024
Grazing at a standstill after further rainfall
Grazing at a standstill after further rainfall On account of continuous rainfall, grazing has ground to a halt on many farms. The Teagasc Grass10 offers some key advice in dealing with this challenge. As many farmers have been grazing their drier paddocks with good access over the past number of weeks – […]
28 March 2024
Scope for earlier removal of clusters?
Scope for earlier removal of clusters? Milking is the main chore on dairy farms and typically consumes over 30% of total labour input. With high labour costs and problems accessing skilled labour, the recent trend has been to install milking parlours, with a greater number of clusters to be handled by one […]
27 March 2024
Breeding Week 2024: Understanding the maintenance sub-index
Breeding Week 2024: Understanding the maintenance sub-index The maintenance sub-index of the EBI represents 8% of the total euro value of the EBI, but what does the maintenance figure actually represent and what should it mean to you? In this article, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, Stuart Childs talks us through what the sub-index […]
27 March 2024
DairyBeef 500 financial and slaughter performance update
DairyBeef 500 financial and slaughter performance update DairyBeef 500 Manager, Alan Dillon is on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge podcast with some tips for rearing calves at this time of year, the financial performance update for 2023 as well as slaughter performance. With a difficult spring to get cattle out […]
27 March 2024
Coping with another bad spring on beef farms
Coping with another bad spring on beef farms 2024 is starting on a similar bad note to 2023, writes Alan Dillion, DairyBeef 500 Manager, with incessant rainfall in the early part of the year leading to some serious issues on farm in terms of fodder supply, bedding supply, slurry storage and grazing. […]
27 March 2024
A trilogy of tools to aid dairy-beef breeding, mating and trading
A trilogy of tools to aid dairy-beef breeding, mating and trading The expansion of the national dairy herd, improved dairy cow fertility, and the rapid growth in the use of sexed semen to generate dairy replacements will contribute to a greater quantity of Irish beef originating from dairy herds. New beef-on-dairy breeding […]
26 March 2024
Sheep trade update
Sheep trade update Sheep and Schemes Editor of the Irish Farmers Journal, Darren Carty is on this episode of OviCast to talk about the current sheep trade. With prices hitting new highs, he joins host Ciaran Lynch to chat about the hogget trade this spring, the first of the early lambs hitting […]
26 March 2024
Judicious use of chemistries now critical to control late blight
Judicious use of chemistries now critical to control late blight The need to both mix and alternate fungicide chemistries was highlighted at the Teagasc Potato Late Blight Workshop held at Teagasc Ashtown on Tuesday 26 March. This was the key message given to over 60 potato stakeholders in attendance at the workshop, […]
26 March 2024