There has been a move towards feeding more concentrates on farms, according to data from PastureBase Ireland. Discussing grass growth learnings across a decade of PastureBase Ireland at a climate change conference, Teagasc’s professor Michael O’Donovan said since 2018 higher levels of concentrates have been recorded by users of the management tool.
There has been a move towards feeding more concentrates on farms, according to data from PastureBase Ireland.
Discussing grass growth learnings across a decade of PastureBase Ireland at a climate change conference, Teagasc’s professor Michael O’Donovan said since 2018 higher levels of concentrates have been recorded by users of the management tool.
In 2018 1,122kg of concentrate was fed per cow, this dropped to 750kg in 2019 and then increased each year to 2022 to reach 1,009kg per cow.
“Since 2018, whether it has been bad habit or what, there has been a move to higher concentrate feed regimes in the system.
“There has been a move, I would probably call this an adaptation, where there’s grass growth, very little taking place in the spring, and in the mid-season there’s more forage being offered to the herd during that grazing season,” he said.
O’Donovan added that spring is becoming increasingly important for grazing.
“Days at grass showed a very positive response rate from farmers in PastureBase
Ireland.
“Spring now is a key period, we all knew it was a key period, but it’s an even more important period now,” he said.
For the data presented, O’Donovan used a sample of 250 farms across 22 counties that have been in the PastureBase Ireland system since its inception in 2014.
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