Kieran Coughlan: Pinning your colours to the mast for nitrates banding

Band 1 herd average milk yield less than or equal to 4,500 kgs per cow. Band 2 covers average milk yield between 4,501kg and 6,500kg. Band 3 covers average milk yield north of 6,501kg. Picture: Larry Cummins

There will be plenty of flags flying over the weekend with the green white and orange flying high but the ball is squarely in the dairy farmers court when it comes to pinning their colours to the mast for nitrates banding.

The deadline for farmers to choose which nitrates band they intend on applying for year 2023 for their herd is fast approaching. The band they choose is based on the herd average milk yield in kilogrammes of milk produced and can for this year only be related to one of three reference options, being a) the historical three-year average for 2020-2022, b) year 2022 only or c) year 2023 intended supply.