Teagasc Dairy Specialist, Patrick Gowing, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss how to best manage surplus cash, build financial resilience, review production costs, and ensure farmers best prepared for 2026.

As 2025 draws to a close, it will be remembered as one of the best farming years in recent memory due to strong milk prices, increased stock values and good weather for most parts. This means that dairy farm incomes are in a good place for the 2025 calendar year.  

Although it has to be acknowledged milk prices have seen significant reductions in the last number of months, the effects of this will be felt more so in spring 2026 as higher constituents at this time of year are having a positive impact on the farm gate prices received.  

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

John Maher has the latest Grass10 grazing management update, and this week’s featured farmer is Niall O’Regan from Mallow, Co. Cork.

Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:

https://bit.ly/grass10-21stOctober2025

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

John Maher, Grass10 Manager, and John Leahy, dairy farmer in Athea, Co. Limerick, join Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss applying lime.

Despite difficult weather a few weeks ago, things have improved, John explains, and ground conditions, rotation length and money in the bank will allow people to spread lime.

John outlines that we are very short of where we should be in terms of lime applied to where we should be. It’s more than 40 years since we spread over 2 million tonnes of lime which is what we should be applying.

John Leahy tells of his experience of increasing the pH on his farm. He went after it hard at the start and got it up to where it should be now and he’s at the point where 20-40t keeps him on point each year.

John also outlines how he went after the lime as he felt he could spend a lot of money on fertiliser with little return. He has gotten a phenomenal response to his lime applications. 

His soil fertility has taken nearly 10 years to get right but he got his lime right from the start.

Opportunities will present themselves, people need to take them, he says.

For a list of suppliers of lime go to: https://www.grolime.ie/

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, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and closing up for early spring grass.  It’s a great opportunity to spread lime - the cheapest fertiliser one can buy!  

The featured farmer is Mark Lonergan, who is from Co. Tipperary and is targeting a closing AFC of  750 kg DM/ha on Dec 1st. 

Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:

https://bit.ly/grass10-14thOctober2025

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 Research Officer, Pablo Silva Boloña, whose work focuses on milk quality, dairy cow mastitis and selective dry cow therapy, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge. 

Pablo explains selective dry therapy and why it is being implemented on Irish dairy farms, plus he highlights the important management steps to ensure its successful implementation at farm level. 

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, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and the start of closing up for early spring grass.  It’s a great week to reseed paddocks sprayed and grazed. 

The featured farmer is Jason Coulter, who is from Co. Sligo and trying to get autumn closing sorted out after a very  difficult weekend. 

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/grass10-7thOctober2025

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, Teagasc Senior Research Officer, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the fundamentals to optimising performance from freshly calved cows by making informed decisions around the winter diet.  

Winter feed is obviously a significant cost to producing liquid milk therefore it is important farmers get it right. 

Mike explains how forage quality is key to generating the best possible margin and outlines some simple management practices that will improve animal performance and feed efficiency.

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, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and the start of closing up for early spring grass.  

The featured farmer is Shane Hegarty from Co. Carlow and Shane was the Young Farmer Category Winner of the Sustainable Grassland Farmer of the Year.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/grass10-30thSeptember2025

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

Kevin Downing of ICBF joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the recent changes to the EBI incorporated into the September Evaluation run.

Kevin outlines the reason for the base change in order to make sure we are comparing the current cows with as representative population as possible to best reflect the on farm performance of herds.

Kevin then discusses the changes that have been introduced in economic values. This is the first update since 2017. This adjustment is done as required and takes a long term view of revenues and costs. It is not responding to annual market returns and costs.

One other major change is the movement of the rearing cost of heifers into the maintenance sub index from the beef sub index. This means that estimating the weight of a mature cow from the maintenance sub index has changed as the heifer rearing element is now included in the € value on the report. 

There is a ready reckoner that can be accessed at: 

https://webapp.icbf.com/v2/app/msi-calculator

Farmers can use this to estimate the liveweight of their cows based on the new value or use a predicted weight to get the value that they should use in the future.

Evaluations are now live and farmers can look at them on their own ICBF profile on both the website and the app now.

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, John Maher discusses current grazing management and advises using the higher grass growth now to build grass into the autumn as many farms are behind on grass supply.  He also has tips on dealing with some difficult grazing conditions.

Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:

https://bit.ly/grass10-23rdSeptember2025

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