This year’s Teagasc national beef conference, taking place in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone, on Tuesday 13 October at 3pm, is themed ‘‘applying technologies to sustain profitability’’.

The conference is divided into two sessions with session one focusing on improving breeding performance in suckler herds, while session two focuses on improving performance in beef finishing units. Session one includes a presentation from Noirin McHugh, Teagasc, on the performance of high and low replacement index cows in commercial herds.

Teagasc’s Mervyn Parr will outline recent findings on AI and outline optimum AI usage programmes for suckler farms, while Adam Woods, Teagasc, will outline new research and production systems on Teagasc suckler demonstration farms in both Athenry and Grange.

Aidan Murray is chair of session two and will oversee presentations from Paul Crossan, Teagasc, who will outline the principles and guidelines for profitable beef production.

Strategies

Edward O’Riordan will identify feeding strategies to optimise performance from grass in steer and bull finishing systems.

Alan Dillon, Teagasc and Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm programme adviser, will discuss how farmers in the BETTER farm programme have used new technologies on their farms to sustain profitability.