Last week’s Grange beef open day was the first that I couldn’t make for many years. Because I didn’t go, I was anxious to find out what I had missed and what the latest research findings were throwing up.

The entire event took place in the context of an ever-increasing supply of beef coming from the dairy herd, which is accentuated by the continuing decline in the suckler herd.

The book, published by Teagasc alongside the open day, provides an excellent guide to how policy is developing across a range of areas and, more to the point, pinpoints how, as beef producers, we can respond to both the changes in policy and advances in technology.

On the basic husbandry details, while I was clear that with dairy beef crosses performance at grass was critical, having grass supply up to 90% of total food intake is a target I know I am not meeting, but I will have to do the calculations to find out what I am achieving and establish how I can improve.

While we have adopted paddock grazing, the strong recommendation to leave a stubble after grazing of 6cm will mean either a shorter time in each paddock, or fewer cattle in each paddock.

I was also unaware of the finding that rubber on slats for finishing cattle improves weight gain and performance, but is of no help to weanlings.

While with a long-standing suspicion of the beefing quality of Holstein progeny, the value of knowing the commercial breeding value of bought-in dairy beef stores is becoming critical for profitability.

In normal circumstances, the traditional beef hormones, that are of course now banned in Europe, would have had a fundamental improvement in these dairy beef animals’ performance.

These are not likely to be reintroduced in the foreseeable future, but some kind of compensation would seem justifiable.

It is also becoming clear that the new methane controlling additives are now clearly a prospect, so while we may continue to dance on the head of a pin in relation to agricultural emissions, the continuing widespread and increasing use of coal as an energy source is of infinitely more importance than short-lived static methane production from a static Irish cattle population.

With the new knowledge becoming more widely available and more details from ICBF, we should see a continuing increase in efficiency.