Roscommon DairyBeef 500 farmer Martin Connolly is on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge podcast to discuss how he incorporated red clover last year into his beef system, the pros, cons, tips and advice he has for anyone considering red clover this year.

Martin farms part-time just outside the village of Castleplunket in Co. Roscommon, where he operates a calf-to-bull beef system. 

The farm consists of 60 ha of grassland in total, which is divided into four main blocks within a 3-mile radius of the farm yard. The land itself can be described as a ‘heavy-type’ soil, which would be typical of the area. 

With input costs, especially feed and fertiliser, increasing drastically this year, Martin explored various cost-saving options that would not only cut costs but also maintain high levels of animal performance. 

From researching red clover swards, Martin was impressed with its enhanced ability over grass-only swards to maintain high levels of herbage production and animal performance from significantly lower inputs of chemical nitrogen fertiliser. 

In early June 2022 the decision was made to reseed 10 acres of grass to a ‘red clover sward’ to see if these benefits could be obtained in his farming system.

DairyBeef500 Conference 

The Teagasc DairyBeef500 campaign will be running two important conferences on January 19th and January 26th in Clonmel and Charleville. 

These conferences will be of interest to both dairy farmers who want to produce more saleable calves and beef farmers who have dairy calf to beef enterprises.  

Presentations on the performance of the DairyBeef500 campaign monitor farmers and the Dairy Beef Demonstration farm in Teagasc Grange will outline the key management decisions to ensure calves perform throughout their life to achieve a high level of profitability on farm.

There will be presentations and discussion from both dairy farmers outlining how they have improved the beef merit of their calves and encouraged repeat business from beef farmers and also presentations from calf to beef farmers and on what they look for when purchasing calves from dairy farms.

Further details available at:

www.teagasc.ie/dairybeefcon23

For more episodes from the Beef Edge podcast, visit the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge 
       
 Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com