Robert Abbott runs sucklers and sheep on 33ha in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford. This year his suckler herd consists of 43 cows, a mix of continental- and dairy-crosses. For the last two years Robert has been bringing all his male progeny to slaughter under 16-months. Females are sold live.

Last week at a discussion group held on the farm, Robert spoke of the uncertainty as to what direction he will take with this year’s crop of calves, highlighting the current poor bull markets as a major concern.

His options include reverting back to selling weanlings, or castrating and carrying store bullocks over the winter. Early sales are already showing a depressed trade for weanling bulls, so the latter may be Robert's preferred option.

Grass

In more positive news, it has been an exceptional year for grass growth on the farm. As of mid-July, the farm had an average cover of over 1,000kg DM/ha and a days ahead figure of 25.

With this volume of grass, a round of fertiliser was not necessary.

Robert explained that the biggest challenge this year has been controlling grass quality. The bursts of growth are resulting in a number of heavy covers coming at once. Grass is also going to seed very quickly.

To manage quality, Robert is following the current rotation with a round of topping. After trying a topper at first, he has switched to a mower to cut out more of the dead-butt material.

Breeding

Breeding on the farm has finished up. A total of 43 cows went to the bull – 16 with the Salers and 27 with the Charolais. Going forward Robert is considering stepping away from the Salers, primarily because of temperament issues with some of the stock.

Two of the next major jobs on the farm will be to scan all the cows and to complete cow and calf weighing as part of BEEP.

Calving

Calving went well this year. The most interesting aspect has been how Robert shorted the calving period from 17 weeks in 2018 to just eight weeks in 2019. Obviously the transition from split calving to spring calving helped, but a tighter breeding season also played a big role.

After a breeding season of eight weeks in 2018, scanning showed 90% of cows were in-calf.

For more on calving performance on the farm, and across all the farms in the programme, see this week’s Irish Farmers Journal