Frank Buckley joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s episode of The Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the role of cross-breeding and the use of alternative dairy breeds in Irish milk production systems.

Frank outlines the fundamentals of cross-breeding, including: removing the risk of in-breeding, introducing breed complementarity and exploiting heterosis. Frank explains that in-breeding is not a major concern in Ireland but there are gains in dairy cow performance in the form of complementarity and heterosis when mating two genetically diverse breeds.

Frank says that various breeds have been evaluated in Irish seasonal production systems including Montbeliarde, Normande, Norwegian Red and Jersey. The use of Jersey genetics has dominated in comparison with other alternative breeds owing to the compatibility of the Jersey crosses to a grass based system, early maturing breed, good fertility and efficiency at converting grass to milk.

Norwegian Red has been used to a lesser extent, but farmers favour this breed for the animal health benefits it confers. Conversely, Mountbeliarde and Normande crosses were less popular given that they are a late maturing breed which impacts on ability to achieve compact calving season, heifer’s ability to calve down at 2 years and cow’s ability to go back in calf.

Frank recommends that farmers select the best genetics available for their farm system, regardless of breed. For a spring calving, grass based system, dairy farmers need a moderate sized cow with good fertility to ensure she calves timely each year and has the ability to produce high milk solids from predominantly grazed grass.

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