The Focus Farm Day for the Irish Holstein Friesian Association was held locally here in Cork last week. It featured six farms from around the country stretching from Ronan Siochru’s Dingle herd on the Wild Atlantic Way, to Paddy and Michael Quealy’s Grenan herd in Co Waterford, up to Co Kildare to Brian, Hazel and Mark Gray’s Watchorn herd.

Continuing northwards to Co Leitrim to Shane, Gerard and Roseann McHugh’s Knockmullen herd, down to Wexford to Melvin and George Masterson’s Boroside herd and back around to beautiful Cork to the farm of Denis O’Leary and the Clochrua herd. Denis is married to Ruth and she works off-farm.

The sheer geographical spread meant that there were six very different stories to tell. Laurence Feeney, CEO of IHFA, welcomed everyone. He said there was no single blueprint for success and that the Focus Farm Programme was used to demonstrate the diversity across the farms.

There was hustle and bustle and chat in the pristine farmyard as neighbours and industry people gathered for the event. It was one of those lovely comfortable autumn days. One minute, the jacket was on and a few minutes later it was off. Farmers joked about driving over the lovely, lush grass as the jeeps were parked up. The mood was jovial, reflecting the end of the drought and a return of grass growth.

Dairy farms

There are many types of dairy farms. They have one thing in common and that is the milking of cows to produce top quality milk to be made into nutritious dairy products. How this goal is achieved is different on individual farms.

If we think of IHFA, then we know that the type of cow on this farm is a Holstein -type cow. She will be big and tall weighing 600kg to 700kg. She will eat a lot and have the capacity to take in a large amount of feed.

In order to optimise her ability to make money she must be fed to her capacity. This costs so she is expected to produce a serious amount of milk. We have cross-bred cows and that means that our Friesian cows were crossed with mainly Jersey cows to optimise hybrid vigour. They are lighter cows with a smaller frame and so grass can be a much greater part of the diet.

There was lively discussion about how much grass would grow in the next few weeks and how high the growth rate might go. There was some consensus that it would not go above 40 kg dry matter/ha

The Clochrua herd is run by Denis with the help of a full-time staff member from Sri Lanka. They milk 170 cows and moved to pedigree breeding in 2000, reflecting Denis’ interest in genetics and herd development.

The farm is a lovely flat farm with nicely maintained hedgerows and good roadways. The focus is on good grass quality and management. Whole-crop silage is also made during the reseeding programme.

Typically, 20ac are reseeded every year. The herd Economic Breeding Index (EBI) is €181. Cows produce 8,124kg of milk. Cows are turned out by day in February and graze full-time from mid-March until November.

There was lively discussion about how much grass would grow in the next few weeks and how high the growth rate might go. There was some consensus that it would not go above 40 kg dry matter/ha.

Tim was fairly confident that it would go higher as he felt that the grass was jumping out of the ground. A few days later, we had a farm cover of 918 and a growth rate of 66.

As a result, the silage has been discontinued and the soya hulls will be reduced. The focus will be on building grass cover for the autumn to extend the grazing season as much as possible.

Over the three days of the National Ploughing Championships, there was plenty of opportunity to discuss it all and catch up.