Mayo Teagac/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER Farm beef challenge participant Tommy Holmes is one of the top grass growers in the programme.

After growing over 13t DM/ha in 2017, he went one better in 2018 hitting just below 15t DM/ha for the year.

After joining the programme, infrastructure was the first thing that needed some perfecting. The home block was relatively well set up, but an 8ha out-block was not hitting its full potential. Extra fencing soon resulted in four fields becoming 11 paddocks here.

Furthermore, Tommy explained that measuring grass on a weekly basis allowed him to make grassland management decisions with confidence and helped him to fully utilise what he was growing.

Reseeding

Reseeding is now the final part of the puzzle for Tommy and it is an ongoing process on the farm. The plan is to reseed approximately 5% to 10% of the farm each year.

Last autumn, a seven-acre field on the 20ac out-block was reseeded. The ground was sprayed off, ploughed, disc harrowed and power-harrowed and sowed on 15 September.

The seed mix was fully perennial ryegrass consisting of 3.5kg Seagoe, 3.5kg Dunluce and 4.5kg Abermagic.

Sheep were taken in to graze the new reseed over the winter and to encourage tillering of the new grass.

In spring, the ground first received 2,500gal/acre of cattle slurry, which was followed 10 days later with 23units/acre of N in the form of urea.

The last application has been a dressing of 1.5bags/acre of 18:6:12.

This reseed, along with the remaining 13ac will graze 50 bulls for the summer; two groups of 25.

The first rotation of cattle grazing is almost finished. It would have been finished sooner had wet weather in March not forced re-housing for a time.

For more information, read the article in this week’s Irish Farmers Journal in print or online.