Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122250125#Comment_122250125

How do you keep up uoyour p

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122250159#Comment_122250159

Phoscala

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122249415#Comment_122249415

Ciaran cuffe was concerned that the banks wouldn't be able to recover their loans from farmers after he put them out of business.

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/news/news/green-mep-lobbies-banks-against-lending-to-farmers-663674

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122250125#Comment_122250125

The whole red clover craic started when fert went sky surely old pasture is better tha multispecies id say 99percent of ireland grows old pasture

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122251220#Comment_122251220

I've maiden heifers with the bull on old meadow pasture here, nearly up to their bellies, and they're the happiest animals in the place. Hopefully the relaxed atmosphere and low N grass helps them go in-calf!

I'll top it when they've maybe 2 days left in it.

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122249466#Comment_122249466

What would be wrong with a bit of Timothy mixed in the sward or humic acid applications?

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122249273#Comment_122249273

It won't affect it. If you don't like clover don't use it. Soils in the south west aren't as suited to it and from a p perspective it doesn't have as much to offer because it's iron and aluminium much more than calcium that is locking up p.

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122251825#Comment_122251825

To be honest tiomothy makes very poor silage i sowed timothy ryegrass and fescues mix on some very poor ground the silage is always poor but its some ground to tolerate tough weather and needs very little fert

jaymla627

Its gas the epa have set a standard thats actually unachieveable , https://www.farmersjournal.ie/news/news/epa-results-don-t-bode-well-for-derogation-case-teagasc-specialist-822720 then you go looking at the Eu nitrates directive that sets water over 50mg/l as been in danger…

Then you see this map

Screenshot_20240612_212902_Chrome.jpg

We are been thrown to the wolves, and the lady at the top of the epa is hellbent on seeing it happen

Jack98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252401#Comment_122252401

https://x.com/sineadh2o/status/1800829746890281250?s=46

To add to your point we’re being shafted by the epa.

Less animals are the answer and more tillage, now what do we notice about the areas with higher concentrations of nitrates on the linked map….

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252475#Comment_122252475

The lack of policies that join up tillage and livestock production in terms of slurry and other nutrient management is the key weakness here. This issue has unfortunately been ignored by the likes of Teagasc etc. up to very recently :(

Jack98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252537#Comment_122252537

Perhaps if removing the derogation leads to more land pulled from tillage then nitrates will reduce in the south and south west waterbodies, leaching of nitrates is far more prevalent in areas of higher tillage activity. I’m not for pitting sector against sector for one minute but the greens epa and so on just can’t seem to get their head around the fact reducing livestock numbers will not have any significant difference on water quality.

As jay said the danger levels are 50mg of nitrates and the majority of Irish water is measuring under 8 it’s totally illogical what’s been thrown at us here.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252537#Comment_122252537

It is being pushed by teagasc but it's tillage farmers that are pushing for this.

This is no answer though either. It negates to the reponsibility that tilling soil releases nitrates to water than if that land was left untilled or in grass. It's pushing for a european or american way of farming and having their nitrate results.

All it is taking nutrients and greenwashing that you've made the situation better. It hasn't. All it does is give farmers free nutrients from other farmers. And the first farmers giving nutrients away will only do so for a short while.

The whole exercise is just to put Irish farmers on a par with European farmers who operate a tillage system not a pasture system and claim that both have the same nitrate release to waterways which is nuts as tillage release could be in the 30's and pasture release down in the 5 and 4's.

Teagasc will barely acknowledge this. I'm not naming them but in a webinar one acknowledges how nitrate is tested by mixing soil and then rinsing with water and testing the water. But that is only a snapshot. It doesn't know how much a plant has taken up or how much has leached in field conditions.

Your grassland will hold your nitrates as it's the soil life is the N and the carbon from the roots and dead soil life. But if you till that up to the air. You kill that life and oxidize that carbon and both release nitrate on top of what ever is applied.

My ground now when it rains or ground around me will release nitrate because it has dried out so much in this weather. This is the same as tilling. It's killing some life and oxidizing carbon.

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252401#Comment_122252401

More in the EPA's line to be getting onto Irish Water to get their act together.. 5000 fish dead in North cork… a spill from a wastewater plant.. heard matt Cooper say this evening that he will be putting it to john gibbons when he comes on with matt tomorrow evening..

older by the day

https://www.euractiv.com/section/electric-cars/news/german-car-industry-government-react-against-eu-ev-tariffs-as-bmw-faces-21-duty/

That tariff thing is part of the green deal.the European car manufacturers definitely don't want a trade war with China, that's where they buy most of their parts

john457

The IFA absolutely needs to put people on the radio and TV that have the scientific knowledge, excellent on air communication skills and have the ability to debate. The issue is just too serious. Just because you can win a farming organisation election does not mean you should be on the media debating the other side. Was it Francie Gorman on Claire Byrne this morning? He did his best but it was an horrific listen. He was trounced in debating terms by the other speaker and Claire Byrne!

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252683#Comment_122252683

Problem with that is that if we don't produce feed in terms of grains etc. here used for finishing stock etc. - we will have to increase imports from the likes of South America where environmental, labour, welfare etc. standards are abysmal . Of course the tillage sector here needs to up its game too in terms of the Nitrate issue . Simple measures like fencing off waterways and unploughed setbacks from same, expansion of riparian vegetation zones, better hedge management, contour ploughing, unploughed and unsprayed headlands etc. can achieve alot in this space and really should be mandatory at this stage in vulnerable catchments.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252537#Comment_122252537

Definitely yes.
The powers that be need to show how the excess nutrients produced by livestock farms are actually fertilising tillage land and reducing the use of artificial fertilizer. This argument is used here to demonstrate the importance of livestock/poultry production in the overall scheme of things, and it works because it kills any argument against livestock numbers and stocking density.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252984#Comment_122252984

Maybe it’s time to park the plough in the nettles and go min-till and direct-drill…along with proper use of cover crops etc. Irish tillage is a long way behind in taking up on non-disturbance soil management.

alps

Is water quality better in France?

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253115#Comment_122253115

No idea, but I doubt it..history of heavy industry and a legacy of seriously polluted rivers has taken its toll.
On my catchment we’re running on 4-8mg/L nitrates. That’s with 140kg and restricted artificial N.

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252823#Comment_122252823

Matt: "John, welcome to the show. Lets start with Uisce Eireann. I'm sure you've read about the issues they had over the weekend in Cork where a spill from one of their plants entered the local river, a river in a Special Area of Conservation, and has resulted in a massive fish kill"

John: "I did hear about it Matt. The EPA released their latest water report and it's not good. It's all agricultures fault and I can't believe that, after, how many years now, that the government haven't exterminated all livestock farmers. We're in a climate emergency Matt, and we all need to make sacrifices but those sacrifices wouldn't be as great; we could still have our holidays, our disposable tat imported from China, maybe keep fossil fuel cars on the roads, reduce the spend on retrofitting and all that if we just got rid of farmers and their livestock"

atlantic mist

local town got the tides wrong with sewage release (which is done at night, when tourists arrive)……"do not swim" notices on local beaches atm due to "bacteria in water"…..this bacteria is coming up our rivers when tide is in……epa checking local river……who will get the blame????

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253134#Comment_122253134

We have friends in France who grew up in the Brittany area but settled in the alsasse region and they originally came to Ireland because of the fishing,in fact the only man I ever went fishing with.he always maintained that rivers in ireland were a.million miles ahead of French ones which he said were destroyed.he used to tell the story of how the farm labourers that used to come to his father's farm had it written into the contract that they could only have salmon twice a week because fish used to be that plentiful that the farmers used to want feed fish to the workers all the time as it was free but the fish are gone now.I know a group that was over there recently and the algae in the rivers from nitrates was frightening .

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122254237#Comment_122254237

That's due to all the tillage. Not much permanent pasture in France.

ginger22

Been to Nantes a few times and the Loire is actually green.

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252900#Comment_122252900

Farm orgs neef profesional speakers and debaters just because someone is leader of a farm org doesnt make him a good debater or negotiator.

Jack98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122254445#Comment_122254445

They won’t pay for them though, same in co ops farmers will give out about the likes of Kerry all day long but they’ll send the highly qualified farmers elected to represent them on the co op boards to negotiate with the plc board about the next potential jv and then wonder why they can’t get a good deal.

Francie made a complete fool of himself yesterday on claire Byrne, his heart is in the right place but just kept circling back around and not answering questions had no actual figures to back up anything he said, Dr.Mcgoff really did make him look like just a stupid farmer which we all know he’s not.

K.G.

Look lads it's not about one sector or the other it's about the rules and regulations being put down which are drawn up by theorists rather than practical experience which no doubt like alot more things they ll come back in couple of years and oh well actually that wasn't right thing to do but we ll do the opposite now.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122254502#Comment_122254502

Any time a goverment/dictator has went about meddling in farmers ability to produce food, and cut the legs from under them, you end up with widespread starvation and famines, spent the last two weeks listening to the real dictators podcast and every single one firstly villified and ocstrachised farmers turning the general public against them and then implemented polices to destroy farmers and collectivise land….

The path the Eu commission and are own shower of head-bangers like An taisce/greens are openly advocating socialist/communionst polices its crazy stuff