Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118004641#Comment_118004641

I more alluding to herds cutting back on numbers, the obvious retiring of men who's kids don't continue on, will be at 200 cows here next year, but looking forward dropping all rented ground and going back down to 80-90 cows once I have a good chunk of debt paid down, is looking alot more appealing than killing myself to keep the milk flowing into my co-op indefinitely you'll get no thanks for it of Jim and Siobhain anyway

kevthegaff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118005258#Comment_118005258

I've yet to see a guy drop down that much on numbers!

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118005258#Comment_118005258

You have the breeding to knock out a nice living with 80 or 90 cows.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118005907#Comment_118005907

I've seen two do it and never looked back

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118003984#Comment_118003984

The state is currently paying out millions every week due to non-compliance with various EU Directives, mostly in the environmental and planning sphere. The EPA have highlighted a major compliance push coming down the tracks on the Water Directive with fines likely to spiral which depending on government finances at the time will have some consequences.. This was the one that forced the Dutch to clean up there act and reduce stocking levels on Dairy platforms a few years ago.

Timmaay

Gonna slowly keep pushing output here next few yrs, but I've no real desire to be a dairyfarmer all my life, I got alot of other interests. Fulltime dairying 9years now, lately I've using more and more labour while taking on other challenges, and if the time comes to pack in the whole lot then I won't think too hard about it ha.

Say my name

The epa have their own agenda. Let no one be under any illusion.

We're second best in Europe. Why?

Because of our pasture based system.

You take that permanent pasture away and you become like the rest of Europe.

If there was to be measures that only focused on water quality. What would you do? You'd bring measures in and teach farmers that pasture shouldn't be reseeded (really mean tilled, slot seeding perfect) every less than ten years but more than every forty. You'd ensure that there's always a green crop growing on soil. Any soil disturbance would have to be questioned.

I'll keep forever saying it, you till the soil you release the carbon, the nitrogen moves off and leaches. Carbon holds nitrogen in soil. The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen. Life is made from nitrogen and carbon. What farming practices were done in the past will continue to show effects in the future.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006610#Comment_118006610

It would be interesting to know why water quality crashed in NZ dairy heartlands over the past few decades?? The fact that the likes of Teagasc relentlessly promoted that model over the past 20 years would be of concern

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/explainer-what-dairy-farming-is-doing-to-new-zealands-water/B6SH5CX3U4CXESZJ5EGVDAKRGU/

Some interesting studies on the matter over there but like here it comes down to the fact that if excess N is not taken up by grass it ususally ends up in water - which brings us back to excessive Chem N applications and poor slurry management

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007306#Comment_118007306

‘Lads, for every four bags of CAN ye spread, three of them end up in the environment’.

Jack Nolan.

Studies here have shown that ten years of over use of N seeps 20m down into ground water sources, and it can take up to 5 decades to undo that damage…sobering, no?

Mooooo

Difference between nz and here is that they had no regs, wouldn't be unusual to see 300 plus cows outwintered on a slope next to a river.

Yes we have to do more, but people don't want to hear that we are second best in Europe, what measures have worked in France? Water quality still lagging behind there?

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007444#Comment_118007444

Agree on nz,they’ve had practically n enviro regs to follow for a long time little to n storage on farms ,badge of honour to have a parlour with no roof ,practically no winter housing ,a sheltered spot as a calving area and calf sheds most of us here would proably shudder at ….silage pits been made in a field 😴😴😴and there crying wolf now over what there facing …and this same kiwi model is what we have been told is best practice for years …..

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007444#Comment_118007444

It takes decades. N will keep seeping into the environment long after you’re only using a bag of urea/acre. Water here has been improving with over 20yrs, but you get to a point where positive results just stagnate. That’s where we are here in my neck of woods.

Holland and Germany were very bad. Holland got a kicking. Germany are building digesters. It’ll take decades to undo the damage.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007306#Comment_118007306

They irrigate land.

If land dries out it's the same as tillage. The soil carbon is exposed to air and back to the atmosphere.

You have a heap of dung. You leave it two years outside. At the end of those two years you'll have a quarter of the mass what you originally had. What happened? The carbon mass oxidised back to the atmosphere.

The more carbon you have in the soil the more nitrogen you'll store. But the more of a chance to get that nitrogen to move if you disturb that carbon. It's the reason why any arable farmer a field of permanent pasture is viewed as gold. You keep tilling, you keep loosing that carbon, you keep loosing that nitrogen. Eventually if you go too far you'll end up with sand, gravel.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007469#Comment_118007469

Codswallop.

If you have an NUE of 20-25% all the carbon in the world won’t hold onto the excess N. It’s water soluble you know?

Sure, with all the N you have stored in your soils, you won’t have to buy any expensive N next year…

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007478#Comment_118007478

I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't..

There's some name that teagasc have on nitrogen use efficiency maybe it is that.

There's more of a focus now and in the coming years to see what farmers are doing rather than the table sized plots.

I view my carbon store as nitrogen and money in the bank.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007306#Comment_118007306

And round and round we go it's the same thing over and over again.. I do agree with you by the way

einn32

Is there any data on N in groundwater under Irish dairy farms?

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118008274#Comment_118008274

Epa have a host of maps you can play around with, https://gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/, they know exactly where the problems are when you start playing around with the maps and toolbars, localised groundwater nitrate pip map is what your looking for I'd say

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118008274#Comment_118008274

The bord bia records for well water.

ginger22

can anyone explain why if your farming and producing food you have carbon emissions but if producing energy crops or fuel you are carbon neutral or "green"

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010544#Comment_118010544

Proably planting a few trees 🌲 or something to offset it 😴😴😴

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010544#Comment_118010544

Indeed this is fair and valid question it's has been asked here numerous times.its being completely ignored by everyone in power so don't hold out much hope for any ureaka moment from the powers that be......the answer for the other companies is they buy carbon credits that farming in one form or another created ..you couldn't make it up

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010544#Comment_118010544

Most Biofuels are a scam as little regard is taken for the energy used in their growth and transport - or the fact that they can displace food crops or natural habitats eg. The ongoing Palm oil disaster in the likes of Indonesia

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007444#Comment_118007444

Problem is that water quality here is going the wrong way eg. In the latest EPA report it shows that the number of "pristine" quality rivers/lakes have "collapsed" in the past 30 years. Of course that isn't just intensive farming - upland conifer plantations, windfarm development etc. have damaged many upper catchments. Across the EU the story was one of historical damage to rivers caused by the industrial revolution(which bypassed this country which is why we started out with better quality rivers back in the day) but efforts on the continent since the Water Directive came in has seen steady water quality improvement in major rivers like the Rhine and Seine(Salmon have returned in the past few years on both) though obviously alot of work remains to be done to get many rivers back anywhere near historical quality

Injuryprone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118002492#Comment_118002492

12 * 2.5 = 4.0 * 7.5

I've absolutely no problem with you stocking the MP at 4.0, if you tell me the cows are only at grass for 7.5 months, and all the slurry from the other 4.5 months is collected and spread on the outblock.

I've made this point to you before. I think we all know the above is not what's happening, so imo it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that what you're currently doing is no worse for the environment than a farm stocked at 2.5 when the numbers quite clearly disagree.

On the off-grid thing, I think it's hardly inconceivable that they'd introduce a new section into the bord bia inspection, where the inspector checks your stocking rates are acceptable.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118011704#Comment_118011704

the MP gets about 2500 gallons slurry

the rest goes to the out block

i want to reduce Chemical N on milk block going forward but to do that it’s going to be clover and slurry, which means putting more putting more slurry on mp

theres no guarantee it’ll reduce any N runoff either

we need to look after index’s too going forward and compounds might not be as cheap into the future/or come back in price, so how do we maintain index’s if we increase the land area farmed to reduce the SR ,

The gold standard would be to have all our land around the yard for cows to graze but we don’t have it and majority of Irish farms don’t

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118011704#Comment_118011704

+1.

I wonder are the Dept/Teagasc so thick that they don’t know this..or are they just turning a blind eye?

Lads here think that I’m constantly putting the boot into dairy farmers because of N pollution, but it’s quite the opposite. I see here first hand what pollution can do, and the hardship of backpedaling/undoing the damage of previous generations. A rough guide is one decade of pollution takes roughly five decades to undo.

It’s all those young little farmers that are going to suffer. Anyone that thinks that a year of high fert prices is going to sort pollution are delusional.

mf240

If silage is being brought out of out farms or zero grazing then nutrients have to be returned by was of slurry or you wont have silage to cut after a couple of years.

The lads with rough grazing in a diffent province for maps is a different story.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007450#Comment_118007450

Not a dairy farmer, know little of NZ, just watch a few videos on youtube of " once a day farmer" and " farming family fun ? " and they seem to look after their animals fairly well with little infrastructure. In Ireland look what happens every Jan 15 - every second field around me black with slurry. Which is better??

As for continent we have no idea here just how bad rivers were there ( know someone with B& B who catered for fishermen from europe who were delighted with fishing here ) so even a small improvement can inflate their % improvement if you follow me

Injuryprone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118012146#Comment_118012146

The gold standard is that all excretions are recycled equally across all the farm. I genuinely can't believe you'd write the above post publicly.

Why would you need to increase the slurry spread when you are already well in excess of the 250kgN on the MP?

You graze for approx 270 days and roughly half your slurry from the other 90 days is spread on top. That's 10.5 months of slurry going out on the home block.

(10.5/12)* 4.0 * 89 = 312 kgN/ha which is nearly 25% greater than the 250 level and nearly double the 170 level! At 92, you'll be at 322 and at 106, you'll be at 371!