Teagasc researcher, Sarah Burke, is on this week’s Beef edge podcast to discuss her latest research on grass-white clover and multi-species sward systems. 

A source of inefficiency in beef cattle production systems is the failure to meet live weight targets throughout the animals’ lifetime, resulting in animals being older at slaughter. Consequently, lifetime production costs, which are mainly feed-related, and the associated environmental emissions, particularly methane and nitrogen, are increased. 

Nationally, mean age at slaughter for late-maturing suckler-bred steers, the predominant breed type from the suckler herd, is 28-months. This is five months later than achieved in grass-based research systems and high-performing commercial farms. Within beef production systems, older animals at slaughter are generally less profitable and have a substantially higher environmental footprint.

Sarah highlights that for many decades, perennial ryegrass has been the dominant, sometimes the only, constituent included in grass seed mixtures used to renew grassland. More recently, white clover has been included. Compared to ‘grass’ based swards, Teagasc Grange research has shown the capacity of white clover inclusion to fix atmospheric N, resulting in annual savings of chemical fertiliser, equivalent to 100-150kg N/ha, for beef cattle grazing systems. 

There is now increasing interest in using ‘multi-species’ swards to further exploit complementarity between pasture species which include:

·      grasses - perennial ryegrass and other grasses

·      legumes - white and red clover

·      herbs/forbs - e.g chicory and plantain

Sarah’s research investigated the growth and carcass characteristics of late-maturing suckler steers genetically divergent for carcass fatness, produced on grass-white clover and multi-species sward systems and finished at 19, 23 or 26 months of age. 

It was based on the two years data collected to date at Teagasc Grange and it concluded that growth performance of suckler beef cattle grazing grass-clover and multi-species swards, or offered silages conserved from these pastures, was similar.

Sarah also discussed how the Fat-EBV steers achieved greater carcass fat scores and a similar carcass weight compared to lean-EBV steers.

Sarah will be presenting her research at the British Society of Animal Science 2025 conference next week 8-10 April in Salthill in Galway where the theme will be ‘Supporting Livestock’s Role in a Global Society’. 

For further details go to: 

https://www.bsas.org.uk/conference-2025

For more episodes from the Beef Edge podcast, visit the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

 
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