organic farming

Yeah but lots of hiiden costs in the Organic, meal way higher, more straw and no fertiliser less grass and poorer quality grass so cattle do poor thrive and less money. Less choice of cattle etc. You could be 3 or 4 k better off on paper on 100 acre farm but soon find it go.

Very few linear options planting hedges, coppicing hedges etc. That all costs money and in farm like my own I cannot plant any more hedges have kms of it as it is any my hedge cutting bill in the 1000s as it is.

Stone wall maintence and fencing river need you to have them on your farm.

I am doing riparian zone 1500 per ha over 250 per ha and that's on worst land in place fence a few drains run a few Dexters and lift full acres and only down 500 on organics .

You would not be much €10125 per year at 250 per ha once converted on 100 acres. Lump sum of €1800 on top so about 12k then take off €800 a year cert costs leave you about 11k v 7.2 k in acres. Run all continental myself but most those lads bred them themselves like I do. Go look for springing organic continintal heifers or cows not many about. Marts to buy cattle are Drumshanbo once a month and odd special sale. You have to buy meal I cannot see how keeps cows and produce weanlings without it; I go through 6 to 8 tonnes a year. Alot of lads saying not feeding meal are. You are right I am not! I was farming fairly organically anyway, never was into spraying, and I get max 19k so madnees for me not to be in it but no market for organic

You want to get that checked out as when i was in glas if watercourses didnt show up blue on map then no payment but criteria for acres is different and all streams drains that hold water are eligible.

Jsut checked online most my farm PIP rank 4 so ineligible and small bit PIP 3 so no worth for that bit.

35 to 40 same as ordinary hay pretty much but hard sourced as lots of organic hay but not certified!

Is it just a fancy way of saying we outwinter cattle and keep some grass for them to do so.

Done the Holistic planned grazing course before too, its a game changer in terms of profitability once you get it up and running and are committed to it.

Grass growth, weight gain, improvements in general management and decision making etc. Also stock are healthier as you'd have little to no vet bills.

Ah I guess 2 or 3 growing seasons doing it would see decent benefits. Would recommend doing the course in it, especially as NOTS offer the course and it's fairly well subsidised here in Ireland.

I did the course with NOTS, was a good bit ago now, think it might have been the first time NOTS did the course… Did the grazing for 2 seasons - all I saw was an explosion of weeds and skutch (couch?) grass came into fields… Didn’t see any improvement in animal health or thrive. Felt I didn’t grow as much grass to be honest, but I don’t measure so hard to so definitively….

Would be more inclined to agree with Herds approach above. But - both myself and herd are/were sheep only, so maybe that’s the reason we didn’t see it working…

Yea not sure, some fairly complex stuff going on in the soil for me to devise my own interpretation of it, I generally just followed what the course says.