Meet the finalists in the Sustainable Grassland Farmer of the Year awards

On Mike Ahern’s return from work placement in New Zealand in 2007, the Aherns were milking 85 cows on 43ha. The first step for Mike was to increase the milking platform to 70ha by renting a neighbouring farm and bought his cows increasing numbers to 147.

Fast forward to 2024 and Mike is now milking 286 cows on 144ha (89ha MP) as other neighbouring farms came up for lease throughout the years.

In 2020, Mike leased a second milking unit in Tallow, Co Waterford seven kilometres away in a joint venture with Cathal Galvin who had worked for Mike for a number of years.

There are 120 cows on this farm which Cathal looks after.

There is no doubt this Co Waterford farm can grow grass with 15.8 tonne of DM grown in 2023. It was clear to the judges that there was very little variance between Mike’s top and bottom performing paddocks with over 30 recorded grass walks per year.

In 2024, total chemical fertiliser applied on the farm was 189kg N/ha across the whole farm. All Mike’s fertiliser is spread with their own machinery with a GPS on the tractor.

The farm is high and dry with cows facing into a hill after every milking.

Mike has a lot of work done on grazing infrastucture over the years with all water troughs placed in the middle of paddocks and a wide cambered roadway leading into the yard.

To date, Mike has over 50% of the farm in either high or medium clover status. He says he aims to oversow two to three paddocks a year, any more than that and he found it too difficult to manage.

Mike finds when oversowing the best time to do it is by grazing tight in the second rotation.

Conditions must be nearly too wet to get the best soil seed contact and Mike uses a Rakeman tine harrow sowing 2kg of mainly Chieftan or Crusader white clovers.

Mike has also tried red clover reseeds on outblocks that cows don’t access. The red clover mix will be in three years now. He is happy with performance and hopes to do more as he has been able to cut back his nitrogen usage and brought in a higher protein source for cows in the spring.

Mike has been finding it difficult to get slurry out on these out blocks in the spring if he can’t get them cleaned off the autumn prior as covers are too high.

It’s clear that the high grass grown is being turned into milk as the cows delivered 523kg milk solids per cow in 2023 from 900kg of meal.

The O’Dea family farm is a great example of a family that came together to capitalise on efficiencies of scale in partnership. Brothers Robert and Bernard grew up on the family farm and both decided they wanted to farm.

In 1984, they bought 40 acres adjacent to their farm which led to the farm being split up in 1989 as the brothers both wanted to farm in their own right. Robert milked 100 cows and finished all calves while Bernard milked 66 cows.

In 2016, Bernard’s son Denis finished his Leaving Cert and upon completion of agricultural college realised there was an opportunity to grow bigger if the farms were joined together. None of Robert’s children were interested in farming so a partnership was formed in 2020.

With close to 40 recorded grass walks for the year, the O’Deas have a keen passion and interest in growing grass. The farm is consistently growing 13t DM/ha from 187kg N/ha.

The O’Deas are focused on cost control and in recent years felt that they cut nitrogen back too far as it had a huge impact on grass growth, and they have since readjusted.

The O’Deas have built cow numbers to 249 cows milked on 132ha all in one block after securing extra leased land. They have invested in soil fertility, fencing, roadways and water in the leased land as it was in permanent pasture.

The farm would label itself as a low-cost production system. The O’Deas feed costs for 2023 were 6.1c/l with an overall cost of production of 32.2c/l.

The O’Deas said the key to keeping costs low is to produce as much milk as possible from grass. The O’Deas typically feed about 700kg of meal per cow each year, although this was higher in 2024 and the cows produce 440kg Ms per cow annually.

As the farm grew, the scale of the farm meant that roadways were becoming obsolete as paddock sizes got bigger.

Denis said that the old roadways still hold a huge value on the farm, as they have allowed them to get cows in and out of paddocks in bad weather with plenty of gaps into each paddock.

Denis said they prefer to do a full reseed for the simplicity and better results but have oversown in the past where grass quality was good but lacking clover.

They also sowed red clover at the back of the farm where they usually cut silage. This is grazed in the shoulders where some of the red clover has died off due to the high growing point.

The one regret the Murphy family from Bennetsbridge have about getting into dairying is that they didn’t do it sooner.

Joe Murphy is a finalist in the young farmer category and he farms in partnership with his father Michael on the family farm.

They made the decision to get into dairying, with the first cows milked in April 2019 and milked 45 cows in their first year.

The initial herd was purchased as young, late calving cows from two large, high EBI herds. In terms of performance, the herd has delivered in spades with the herd expected to deliver 540kg MS/cow in 2024 with a 10% empty rate.

Cow numbers have since increased to 135 cows with the milking platform extending to 42ha giving a milking platform stocking rate of 3.2 cows/ha.

The target is to grow 14t DM/ha although that wasn’t achieved in 2024 due to poor growing conditions, with Joe telling the judges in mid-autumn that he expects the farm to grow around 12.5t DM/ha

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In 2024, Joe spread 199kg N/ha using protected urea and sulphur and some CAN. The plan is to spread slurry in late January and go with the first round of nitrogen in early February, weather permitting

The farm is extremely well laid out and finished to a very high degree in terms of roadways, water and fencing.

This is a big help when it comes to extended grazing in spring and autumn. The land is free-draining and fertile and since they got into dairying the Murphys have prioritised reseeding and clover establishment to boost productivity.

At this stage, 75% of the farm has clover present in the sward and Joe says that he classes any field with more than 20% clover on average as having sufficient clover to reduce nitrogen.

His strategy is to reduce nitrogen to half rate from May onwards on these paddocks. They normally reseed 10 acres per year but reseeded 15 acres in 2024.

Joe’s target is to have an opening average farm cover of between 1,000 and 1,100kg DM/ha on the farm by 1 February which will enable early turnout of milking cows.

The farmyard is well set up with excellent facilities including an 18-unit milking parlour and slurry storage for 22 weeks and seven weeks of soiled water storage.

In short