Kyle Hanbidge

Kiltegan, Co Wicklow

Wicklow farmer Kyle Hanbidge is milking 170 cows in a split-calving system just outside the village of Kiltegan on the Carlow-Wicklow border.

About 120 cows calve in the spring with 50 calving in the autumn. Kyle is in a farm partnership with his parents, Philip and Jane, both of whom are a huge help on the farm.

The majority of the 47.3ha on the milking block is leased on a long-term basis and the stocking rate, when all cows are milking, is just over 3.6 cows/ha.

The soil type is excellent and soil fertility is good so Kyle is able to grow lots of grass, with an average of 14.5t DM/ha grown in 2022, with 166kg N/ha of chemical fertiliser applied on the milking platform.

With a share of the herd calving in autumn, the demand for grass is high in the spring, with 100 cows ready for turnout on day one. For this reason, Kyle likes to carry a high cover over the winter and would like to have between 1,100kg and 1,200kg DM/ha of an opening average farm cover, but he admits that it’ll likely be around 950kg this spring.

The whole farm gets topped or mowed at least once in the season. A total mixed ration containing grass and maize silage, beet, minerals, meal and straw is fed during the winter to the milkers.

In total, the spring-calving cows get 1t of meal per cow per year, while the autumn calvers get over 1.5t/cow.

Michael Walsh

Ballinakill, Co Laois

Michael Walsh is an entrant in the young farmer category and is farming with his father, Michael, and brother, Martin, at Ballinakill, Co Laois. New entrants to dairy, the brothers got into cows in 2021, building a new milking parlour and making alterations to existing sheds.

Both Michael and Martin are working off farm but between the three of them they make it work.

Brothers Michael and Martin Walsh from Ballinakill in Co Laois are new entrants to dairy farming and Michael is a contestant in the 2022 Grassland Farmer of the Year competition.

They milked 47 cows in 2021 and milked 64 cows in 2022 and there are 79 cows due to calve down in 2023. There’s just shy of 30ha in the total farm and some of this land is very heavy. The family continues to drain and invest in grazing infrastructure to improve grass utilisation.

The reseeding programme began when the farm was still in sucklers and, at this stage, 100% of the farm has been reseeded in the last 10 years with clover now present in over 30% of the farm.

The farm grew over 14.5t DM/ha in 2022 from just 129kg N/ha of chemical nitrogen.

The herd of Jersey crossbred cows delivered 430kg MS/cow in 2022 from 760kg of meal fed per cow. Just 4% of the herd was not in calf after 11 weeks of breeding this year.

Michael closed the farm at an average farm cover of 690kg/ha and hopes to open at around 900kg/ha.

They normally graze 18ha in the first round as the rest of the farm would be too wet for grazing.

Last year, Michael started the second rotation on 2 April. Soil fertility is a work in progress with most of the farm on target for lime but over one-third deficient in phosphorus and potash.

Diarmaid Fitzgerald

Cratloe, Co Clare

Farming on the banks of the Shannon Estuary, Diarmaid Fitzgerald’s farm is extremely variable with about 60% of the farm top-class, free-draining limestone but 40% is low-lying land under the levees of the Shannon Estuary.

Despite this land being low-lying, the drainage system is working well and great grass utilisation is being achieved.

Diarmaid is farming a total of 67.5ha, all in one block with no outside land and he has been contract-rearing heifers for the last two years so the only group of stock he has to look after are the baby calves in spring and the milking cows.

He milked 147 cows in 2022 but plans to increase this to 165 cows for 2023 which will be a stocking rate of just under 2.5 cows/ha. He says that if his meal feeding rates start to increase he’ll know he has pushed stocking rate too high.

Last year, he fed 800kg of meal and delivered over 460kg MS/cow.

By far and away the most remarkable aspect of the farm is the quantity of clover Diarmaid is growing, with at least 60% of the farm with really good clover content.

Judges on the farm of Diarmaid Fitzgerald in Clare. From left: Colin Heaney, FBD; Diarmuid Donnellan, AIB; Liz Hyland, Department of Agriculture; Diarmaid Fitzgerald; John Maher, Teagasc and David Corbett, Grassland Agro.

The farm grew 13.4t DM/ha of grass in 2022 with 149kg N/ha of chemical fertiliser applied. The clover has been established over the last few years from a combination of oversowing by stitching in and full reseeding.

He plans to reseed 20% of the farm this year and oversowing a further 5% – a nod to what he feels is the more successful way of getting clover established.

Diarmaid’s phosphorus allowance is relatively small, so he plans to make more use of soiled water next summer, spreading it at a rate of 1,500 gallons/acre on the high clover paddocks every second round during the summer instead of chemical nitrogen.

David Gannon

Craughwell, Co Galway

David and his father, Robbie, were new entrants to dairy farming in 2018. The pair are milking 160 cows on a 66ha milking platform near Craughwell in Co Galway.

Soil type in the area is very mixed and a high proportion of the milking platform is leased. Part of the milking platform is callow ground that the cows don’t graze so the effective area in the milking platform is 52ha giving a stocking rate of three cows/ha.

David Gannon, Craughwell, Co Galway, finalist in the Grassland Farmer of the Year competition 2022.

The farm grew 14.6t DM/ha in 2022 with 182kg N/ha applied on the milking platform and 147kg N/ha applied across the whole farm in the form of chemical nitrogen.

David is big into clover and is in the process of getting clover established across the milking and silage blocks. The high clover paddocks get no chemical N from 1 May and instead get either soiled water or half bag/acre of 0:7:30.

At this stage, about 40% of the milking platform has high clover content.

Soil fertility is pretty good with almost all of the milking platform on target for lime and over 80% on target for phosphorus, although potash is only on target in about 60% of the platform.

David is really focused on reducing labour input into the farm and has invested in automated heat detection, and a drafting gate. He feeds calves once a day after three weeks of age, a contractor spreads fertiliser on silage ground and AI is done by a private technician.

Alan Duggan

Foxford, Co Mayo

It’s not that often you see dairy cows out grazing in December but that was exactly the sight that greeted the judges when they visited the Duggan farm in Foxford, Co Mayo in mid-December.

To be fair, the weather was exceptionally dry and Alan turned the milking cows out for one last time to clean off the highest cover on the farm.

Like many farmers in the west and north-west, 2022 was a superb year for grass for Alan and that’s reflected in his total grass growth figure of 16t DM/ha grown.

Alan is milking 67 cows on a 37.4ha farm. The farm is split by a busy road and there is 18.5ha that the cows can access, leaving a stocking rate of just over 3.6 cows/ha on the milking platform.

Total chemical nitrogen use in 2022 was 192kg N/ha

The land across the road is used for silage and the heifers are contract-reared. Alan is putting a big focus on clover and has over 35% of the milking platform with really good clover.

Alan scores his clover paddocks regularly and any paddock with good clover content and good distribution of clover across the paddock is considered to be a five-star clover paddock and that gets less nitrogen.

Judges on the farm of Alan Duggan. From left: John O’Loughlin, Grassland Agro; Diarmuid Donnellan, AIB; Liz Hyland, Department of Agriculture; Alan Duggan; John Maher, Teagasc; and Pat Gilligan, FBD.

These five-star paddocks got no chemical nitrogen after 1 April 2022 but did get some 0:7:30 after every second rotation. He plans to oversow clover on 10% of the farm in 2023. Total chemical nitrogen use in 2022 was 192kg N/ha.

Alan was a new entrant to dairy in 2021 and continues to work off farm, so running a simple, safe and people-friendly farm is a big priority for him and his wife, Trish.

The pair are considering getting into small-scale pigs and poultry units and selling their produce from the farm.