Breeding and Grass Management, Key to Dairy Margins
Dairy farmers at an Open Day at Curtin’s Research Farm Moorepark today (Thursday 2 June, 2005) were told that adoption of recent developments in milk production technology will allow significant opportunity to increase financial returns on dairy farms. Speaking at the Teagasc Open Day, Dr. Pat Dillon, Head, Teagasc Production Research Centre, Moorepark said that new research information relating to the use of high EBI sires to breed future replacements and continued innovation in grazing management were the key to improving dairy margins.
Dr. Dillon said “The use of high EBI sires will result in increased profit at farm level as dairy farmers can reduce the costs associated with infertility and improve animal productivity. A study over the last four years at Curtin’s Research Farm showed that a high EBI herd generated almost €9,000 more profit than a lower EBI herd on a 50,000-gallon quota. Analysis confirms that daughters of high EBI AI sires from the ICBF active bull list can leave on average nearly €80 more profit/ lactation compared to daughters of stock bulls”.
Speaking on increasing the utilisation of grazed grass, Dr. Dillon said, “recent research has developed grazing strategies to increase the proportion of grazed grass to 3.7 tonnes per cow (75%), reduce grass silage to less than 1.0 tonne per cow (20%) and reduce the level of concentrate supplementation to 0.3 tonnes per cow (5%) in free draining land. Research has shown that a 10% increase in grazed grass in the diet results in a cost reduction of 2.5 cent/litre of milk produced”.
Other topics covered today were management practices to achieve compact calving, recent results from once daily milking studies and the role of white clover pastures for milk production. Speakers at the Open Day included both Teagasc Research and Advisory staff.
In acknowledging the financial support for the research programme from state grants and the dairy levy research fund, Dr. Dillon said that Irish dairy farmers are now farming in a decoupled scenario, where premium supports are no longer tied to production and the Single Farm Payment can be retained even if milk is not produced. This new situation puts major pressure on dairy farmers to develop systems of milk production capable of delivering satisfactory returns in a lower milk price scenario.
“These new developments in milk production technology will be essential in the future in maintaining farm incomes”, concluded Dr. Dillon.
Ends
Issued by
Larry O’Loughlin, A.Head, Public Relations Department, Teagasc
Tel. 059 9183408; 087 2562434; Email: lolouglin@hq.teagasc.ie
