Knowledge Transfer: Today (Thursday) is officially the last day for applications to the Knowledge Transfer Scheme, but the deadline has been extended two weeks to 14 July. The scheme gives participants €750 every year for three years for attending at least five discussion group type meetings and undertaking a farm improvement plan, which incorporates a herd health plan and the profit monitor. Contact an approved facilitator to apply – there is a list on the Department website. For those who are not in a group, the €750 payment is a good incentive.

Profitable pastures: As we report on pages 30-31, the clover trials being run by Moorepark at Clonakilty continue to present really exciting results. The differences in performance between the two herds is huge, at around 0.4kg milk solids per cow per day at the moment in favour of the cows on the grass and clover swards. This is despite the percentage of clover in the swards being lower this year than any other year since the trial began. While the management strategies around clover still need to be fully teased out, we can’t ignore the results. At this stage, it’s safe to say that clover should be included when reseeding. In my view, it is only in really exceptional circumstances that clover should be overlooked; for example, a floodplain or exceptionally wet land. The grass varieties in Clonakilty are all monocultures, much like in the Greenfield farm in Kilkenny. As the quality of the data on individual varieties improves (Pasture Profit Index, on-farm monoculture trial) should we move away from using mixes? It’s all well and good having a top variety in a grass seed mix, but why dilute its superior characteristics by including inferior varieties?

Milk protein: While average fat percentages seem to be up on last year, milk protein percentage is back by about 0.1% on the same period last year. What is more worrying is that the week-on-week difference in protein percentage between this year and last year seems to be getting bigger. The logical explanation for this is that grass quality is poorer this summer than it was last year. While the bumper grass growth rates are welcome, it has come at a price, and the lower protein this year is a double whammy to milk cheques, as the base milk price is well down too. So what can we do? First of all, don’t limit intakes – give the cows as much grass as possible, so abandon the 12-hour strip wire if you haven’t already done so. Three grazings per paddock is optimum. Secondly, graze the best-quality paddocks you have. In most cases, these are paddocks that have been cut for silage before. Cut out inferior-quality swards for silage and, from now on, only graze paddocks at a pre-grazing yield of 1,300 to 1,500 that have a high proportion of leaf relative to stem. This is difficult to achieve, as many swards are going to stem earlier than normal. Feeding extra meal to combat falling protein or milk volume will only exacerbate the problem, as grass intakes will drop along with post-grazing residuals, so the grass quality in the next round will be worse.