Dairy focus: How to manage drought effect
Whatever rain fell in July/August was patchy and in some areas pasture growth stopped around mid-August. Fortunately, there is a good supply of surplus bales to fill any gaps in feed supply.
Unfortunately, the milk price is dropping, but is still relatively good, and at a higher level than would have been forecast a few years ago. The real price is determined by demand and supply on the world markets, especially for commodity products.
The US and New Zealand have a major effect on supply, while China has the biggest effect on demand. The relatively cheap grain in the world markets has boosted US supply, and China has cut back on purchases in recent times. An expert on these matters tells me China usually builds up good stocks, then lets prices fall before it comes strongly back into the market.
It is difficult to forecast Irish milk prices, but, for certain, they will be volatile within a wide range. For the coming season, milk purchasers, understandably, are not making predictions, but some indicate a price in the low 30s.
A drop in price will make it difficult for those with super-levy payments. Dairygold must be complimented for making arrangements to ease these payments.
Officially, dairy farmers with fewer than 70 cows are classed as small farmers, and are treated as unimportant by the organisations that develop dairying.
There seems to be a total focus on largescale farming, and away from our traditional family farming.
Inevitably, we will lose some of our present dairy farmers. But with proper support, we can, and should, maintain the vast majority of them and help them grow into viable units.
Unfortunately, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney’s distribution of the SFP, and particularly the greening elements of the CAP, were anti-family farms, contrary to the maintenance of a viable rural Ireland.
It should not be a difficult task, after the end of quota, for most small-scale producers to increase production by 20% to 25%, with very little extra investment.
Increased milk-yield-per-cow, mainly through reseeding and improved grassland management, will go a long way towards achieving this potential.
By gradually increasing cow numbers, as efficiency increases and more resources become available, farmers will be able to establish sustainable dairy units, which will be able to withstand price volatility, or other difficulties ahead. On the other hand, rapid expanders, with heavy borrowers, are likely to be under a lot of stress and will not be able to withstand difficulties.
Irish dairy farmers, and the organisations advising them, should not go down the road of New Zealand, where the average borrowing is estimated to be over €10,000 per cow and many of the rapidly expanding farmers spend the best parts of their lives working for the banks. In New Zealand, rural life is dead.
Unfortunately, we very often hear of the successful stories of rapid developments from at home and abroad, but we never hear when things go wrong.
Fortunately, this has been a good summer and autumn for reseeding, because there has been a big deficit in reseeding in recent years, due to unsuitable weather.
The cost of reseeding is high, but also highly rewarding, if the job is done right and pre and post-sowing spraying is carried out properly. Most of the reseeded pastures were burned off with a glysophate product a few weeks before preparing the ground for reseeding. But this only killed the old sward and existing, growing weeds, and had no effect on the millions of weed seeds lying in the top few inches of soil.
These seeds will germinate with the grass seeds and it is important to spray the new reseeds before the weeds reach 4in high, because they are more easily killed at that stage. This will usually be six to eight weeks after sowing.
Spray when the clover has at least one trifoliate, and the grasses have at least one-to-three leaves. Teagasc trials have shown that the financial rewards for spraying reseeds can last for eight years, if the swards are managed correctly. If the reseeded ground did not receive a pre-reseeding glysophate spray (eg Roundup), and contained docks and other perennial weeds, the weed seedling emerging from the roots of these will only be temporarily killed by the post-sowing sprays. A minority of reseeds may only contain a low level of annual weeds, such as chick weed, fat hen or red shank, and these may not need spraying, as these weeds will not regrow after a good grazing or topping.
However, if these annual weeds are very prevalent, especially chick weed, they should be sprayed, as they will leave blank areas into which weeds and poor grasses will grow.
The best way to keep weeds out of a new pasture is to maintain a vigorous, well-managed, well-fertilised sward and this will enhance the effect of spraying. If there are gaps in the sward, they will be populated by undesirable species, unless the good grasses are competing.
