The old saying ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ rings true when hearing the story of Liam Rochford, the 2025 winner of the Teagasc Grass10 Pasture Progress competition.

Returning home to farm in 2018 after completing a degree in Agriculture from UCD and a year spent working on excellent farms in New Zealand, Liam set about making gradual steps to build the farm to where it is today: 152 cows across a 58ha milking platform, and over 115 youngstock reared.

Farming with his mother Mary and his uncle John, Liam has developed a very profitable dairy business by implementing a structured approach to managing and utilising more grass each day on what can be a challenging farm.

Grassland management

Typical of many farms in that pocket of Wexford, Liam is dealing with a very mixed soil type. While there is some drier ground on the farm, there is also a good percentage of the farm with heavy clay soils that tend to get wet quickly.

This is a late farm in spring by nature and cows are often housed by early November come the backend.

In the early years, on/off grazing wasn’t something Liam was employing that often and the infrastructure of the farm was not equipped to manage it.

However, in recent years all of this has changed. Now, Liam has cows out on/off grazing by mid-February onwards and is pushing to graze well into late November this year.

Infrastructure on the farm has been developed with extra troughs, gaps and spur roads to allow for additional days’ grazing in the shoulders of the year.

The number of times the farm was measured went from 22 times in 2023 up to 41 times in 2025 and the average pre-grazing cover dropped from 1,648kg DM/ha to 1,428kg DM/ha in the same timeframe.

Clearly, walking and measuring the farm more often has helped Liam to make more informed decisions. He is growing more grass, grazing more and grazing it at the right time.

The result was an increase in milk solids and more money in Liam’s pocket. The cows went from producing 457kg of milk solids in 2023 to 500kg in 2025 and they are expected to hit slightly over 500kg again this year.

Soil fertility

Poor soil fertility is costing farms thousands of euros every year, according to Sean McMahon of Grassland Agro who spoke on the day.

“The average farm in Ireland (based on a 44ha platform) is losing out on €18,660 per year, purely based on the percentage of the farm in index 1 or 2 for Ps and Ks and suboptimal pH,” Sean said.

The figures are outlined in Table 1 and based on a cost of €310/t DM utilised.

Liam Rochford’s farm also has the potential to gain an additional €18,755 by improving soil fertility.

Speaking on pH, Sean says that now is a good time to get lime out on parts of the farm that are deficient.

“We should be aiming for a pH of 6.4 to 6.5 and where the farm is trying to implement clover, the pH should be even higher at closer to 6.7 or 6.8.”

When asked from the crowd what pH is too high, Sean felt that once the pH is below 7, there shouldn’t be an issue with nutrient or mineral lockup.

There are some areas in the country he pointed out where high molybdenum levels can be an issue however. The high molybdenum causes a lockup of copper and as a result animals become deficient. On those soils, a pH of 6.5 is the maximum.

When soil testing, Sean urged farmers to keep in mind that whenever the farm is at peak growth rate, it’s actually at peak acidity.

In winter time when growth is slow and most farms are soil tested, the pH reading can be slightly false. For that reason, aiming for the pH above 6.5 will mean the farm is well set up to grow at all times of the year.

Liam has made the move to soil testing every two years and is building his fertiliser plan accordingly. On the last soil test result, 24% of the farm was suboptimal for pH. To manage this Liam spread 100t of lime in 2025 and is in the process of spreading another 90t of lime for 2026.

Improving the P’s and K’s of the farm is also something Liam has worked at hard at but also quick to admit he has more work to do.

At present 35% of Liam’s farm is suboptimal for P, with 28% suboptimal for K. This year, Liam began spreading a P-rich product called TopPhos. The product contains 23 units of P and Liam spread up to his allowance. He is also planning to spread muriate of potash (MOP) over the coming weeks on paddocks low in K.

Finances

Growing and utilising more grass while simultaneously improving the genetics of his herd has allowed Liam to drive on the profitability of the farm.

In 2025, the farm made a profit of €1,294/cow. While Liam admits that 2025 was an exceptional year, he was still delighted with the margin they were able to make.

He feels the improvements made in recent years on the farm have allowed the farm business to maintain a more consistent profitability.

Speaking on the challenges of 2026, Liam Phelan, Agri advisor with AIB told attendees that dairy farm incomes are expected to be back at least 50% on average for 2026 versus 2025.

This would suggest expected incomes are somewhere around €75,000, half of the average €150,000 in 2025.

In terms of getting the farm through to next spring, Liam suggested every farm should have a cash buffer close to €500/cow, going into the winter months.

He encouraged all farmers in attendance to go home, do up a simple cashflow forecast and if there looks like there may be a shortfall, engage with the bank early as short term loans and retrospective financing options available.