For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses managing grass supply, he previews upcoming reseeding events and has a grazing update from John Cashen, Co. Tipperary.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/Grass10-22ndApril

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Teagasc Kerry Dairy Ireland Joint Programme Demonstration Farm Advisor, Claire McAuliffe, and Programme Demonstration Farmer, Pa O’Hanlon, join Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss pre breeding management to drive submission rate and ultimately 6 week calving rate for the next calving season.

Pa first explains how calving has gone on the farm in 2025 and how he has delayed his calving start date over the last few years in order to better align with grass growth on his farm. 

In the past no matter how much quality silage he tried to have available, Pa found that he ended up feeding poorer silage to milking cows which was hitting his milk solids production so he has moved the calving date to try to calve closer to grass. This means that he has to achieve the 90% 6 week calving figure to get the best return from the herd.

Consequently, Pa is ‘afraid’ not to make the effort in terms of pre-breeding management as he can’t afford to let calving slip. He went on to explain how he has a chart which is very visual for keeping track of cows coming in heat post calving and uses the same chart for tracking AI in the 1st 3 weeks. 

This chart helps him to drive his 3 week submission rate and then identify any cows that haven’t been served as soon as the 3 weeks are past. He find this visual trigger much better than info on his phone as he would have used in the past.

Claire then highlights the performance of the demonstration farmer group and gave examples of some of the effort they are putting into pre-breeding management to drive the submission rate once AI commences. 

She also pointed out that many of the farms had opened with lower covers than they should have and found that they weren’t able to exploit the excellent grazing conditions this spring as much as they would have liked to. 

The recent uplift in growth has helped their cause and their action has ensured they now have adequate grass moving into the 2nd rotation. 

This needs to be a key focus for all of the farms at the end of this year to ensure they hit the closing cover targets so that there is adequate grass on farms in the spring of 2026. 

This is a major weakness at commercial farm level as pointed out by Michael O’Donovan on a recent episode.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses key grazing targets throughout April and he has a grazing update from Matthew Draper, Co. Cork.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/Grass10-15thApril

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Mike Dineen, a Teagasc researcher whose work focuses on animal nutrition, and Chris Heffernan, who recently completed his PhD in Teagasc Moorepark, join James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the factors affecting milk fat production in dairy cows under pasture-based management systems.  

Mike and Chris explain the typical reduction in milk fat during late spring and early summer and outline some results from their recent research project.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses beginning the 2nd rotation and has information on upcoming reseeding events countrywide, plus he gets a grazing update from Oisin Gallen, Co. Donegal.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/Grass10-April8th

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, as excellent grazing conditions prevail, Joseph Dunphy discusses managing supply and he has a grazing update from David French, Co. Wexford.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/Grass10-1stApril

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Michael O’Donovan, Head of the Grassland Science Department at Teagasc Moorepark joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge.

Michael discusses the grassland performance on Irish dairy farms over the last number of years, how farmers can increase the amount of pasture grown on farm and outlines key decisions that need to be made over the coming weeks to ensure high levels of animal performance over the coming months.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, as AFC drops with the excellent grazing conditions, Joseph Dunphy discusses feeding the cow appropriately, plus he has a grazing update from Eoin Corrigan, Co. Meath.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter: 

https://bit.ly/Grass10-25thMarch

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Sean Coughlan, CEO of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss Irish dairy, dairy beef breeding and everything in between.

Sean discusses the National Genotyping Programme, the changes that they have made to improve for 2025 and how they have even more herds taken into the programme and will be looking to recruit more later on this year with the long term view to have a fully genotyped national herd in the future.

Sean highlights what he feels might be a lost opportunity in that we're not able to filter some of the surplus replacements from the top EBI herds to the lower genetic merit herds. He would love to see the top herds breed the replacements for the bottom herds as it is just too much of a mountain to climb for those lower genetic merit herds and the performance levels that those top herds are actually achieving is so good: 500 litres more milk; producing 53 kilos more milk solids per cow; 16 days better calving interval which is translating into a 12% better 6 week calving rate, and low CO2 emissions.

Sean also spoke about the potential of dairy beef by choosing easy calving sires that have more carcass weight than the easy calving bull as was often the choice in the past – no extra calving difficulty but significantly better beef merit calves.

Sean then outlines some changes that are on the cards for the EBI this year such as a review of the economic values used in the index and a base change to reflect better the cows that are now in the country.

Sean finishes by outlining how the benefits of genomics in terms of its ability to identify lethal genes such as HH3 which results in embryonic death. Identifying the carriers and using sire advice to avoid the breeding of positive cows and bulls can eliminate this negative embryonic death which is a major issue for seasonal calving systems. 

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses managing the remaining grazing area on the 1st rotation and he has a grazing update from Shane Seymour, Co. Tipperary.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/Grass10-18thMarch

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com