Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

No, my neighbour is allowed 5 cows/ha. I will be limited to 2.3. Biggest problem I have is compact calving and high EBI cows producing over 6300 litres. He has rough looking British Friesians and stock bulls and an outside block of land for silage.

I'll be grand. The point I'm making is how long are they going to be kicking the ball down the road and pushing pointless sh1t like moving water troughs and the likes instead of tackling the real cause. I'm keeping an eye out for a second block to buy locally but I won't overpay for it.

I see China are restarting coal plants instead of phucking their country. Their green vibes weren't long fading.

Ya, about a cow to the acre. It would just take the pressure off. I sell alot of surplus replacements as calves and would like to sell them older. Plenty flying herds out there. Would consider keeping cull cows for it too. I'm also thinking of just buying like 10 acres or so to grow maize. I could buy that further away like.

Won't improve water quality and so we will go around and around and around again.

Nitrate over loading on the grazing block is a large part of the problems

Looking at the latest water quality report there from the summer, the issues arise form areas with greater production. The east and the south. The issues with nitrates tend to be within the catchment areas south Leinster and east Munster. Higher stocking rates and tillage ground tends to lead to this.

I can see greater field margins going to be required in these areas as a filter. Stocking rate limits, and the greater uses of the 3 crop rule with tillage.

As farmers we have to adapt our business to the conditions that are outside of our control, we do it daily with the weather and growth. Cap and the greens are going to force the agenda and this will see a reduction in fertiliser used, limits to sr, especially to the milking platform, longer closed season, and potentially an end to dero

Each to their own on how the decide to comply, for some it might be taking more ground, others it might be a reduction in stock, some other it might be leave the industry.

The agenda of environmental change is set, and while we might not like it, we are not going to turn this tanker around. It will be fighting to find some half way ground will be key. Times of great change lead to times of great opportunities.

No such evidence to prove that

teagasc have done work on it

if you return majority of slurry to support ground it’s the same as being stocked at 2.5 if you’ve all your land around the yard

Can’t say I know anyone at 5 cows /ha

we’re at 3.8 cows but consistently growing 15t of grass to do so

Teagasc have done a lot of good work for the Irish farmer and I’ve benefited a lot from there advice

IMO I farm responsiblly, follow all the guidelines/rules. yes I could reduce Chemical N a bit, am planning to do so

spread 250kg N/ha this year between slurry and bought N

ive a high ebi cow and very happy with them, heading for 560 kgs of ms this year and never picked a bull on litres

Tegasc have done a lot of good but they’ve drove us here ,they drove dairy expansion ,drove early n drove 80/100 units n before April ,drove loading on cows first and shur worry about things like housing and slurry storage later on etc they were the driver of proposed n bands ….blinkered vision and one track advice ….too late to table with clovers and there overestimating what it’ll do away from clonakilty ….solohead is not a wet farm ….constant drainage and money threw at it

We spread 200u N /ac on out block for silage over 3 cuts and a grazing for heifers

it got 5 k gallons of slurry between 2 spreadings then

yes spreading Ps and Ks on milk block to account for off takes

haven’t soil tested in 4 years, testing this December so we’ll see if I’ve been putting enough back or not

They had a slide up on the webinar teagasc and the dept had over the new nitrates bands

jack Nolan concurred with the results

if you’re returning all your nutrients evenly across your farming area there’s no issue with high stocking rates on one block unless they’re way and above a reasonable level

if they go to limit milking platform stocking rates they’ll make a lot of small dairy farms unviable

Real interesting side bar to the whole clover sh**te their going to start shovelling now and they themselves have researched this and printed papers, on high molybdenum soils in wetter areas like the Midlands etc going in with clover on these farms is beyond stupidity, below link on their own work on the subject....

Their generic one farming system fits all bulls**t is getting tiring at this stage, and the poor gobshites not following their preachings are system drift junkies

It sounds appealing ..having chat with accountant about it and what implications tax wise it’ll have …on paper sounds like a plan and if your no where near a river and are complient as regards having enough storage etc well what can anyone do ….

The storage ,spreading with less spreading dates etc I’ve zero issue with ,proposed bands and how it’ll affect my income is my worry ,flogging off the entitlements and all that comes with it would nearly make it worth while