For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice, while the featured farmer is Will Griffin, Co. Carlow.
Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-4thNovember25
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Aisling Claffey, Teagasc ruminant nutritionist, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss what’s important to remember when it comes to the upcoming dry cow period.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and closing up for early spring grass.
The featured farmer is John Payne, from Co. Longford who is targeting a closing AFC of 800 kg DM/ha on Dec 1st.
Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-28thOctober2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Teagasc Dairy Specialist, Patrick Gowing, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss how to best manage surplus cash, build financial resilience, review production costs, and ensure farmers best prepared for 2026.
As 2025 draws to a close, it will be remembered as one of the best farming years in recent memory due to strong milk prices, increased stock values and good weather for most parts. This means that dairy farm incomes are in a good place for the 2025 calendar year.
Although it has to be acknowledged milk prices have seen significant reductions in the last number of months, the effects of this will be felt more so in spring 2026 as higher constituents at this time of year are having a positive impact on the farm gate prices received.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
John Maher has the latest Grass10 grazing management update, and this week’s featured farmer is Niall O’Regan from Mallow, Co. Cork.
Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/grass10-21stOctober2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
John Maher, Grass10 Manager, and John Leahy, dairy farmer in Athea, Co. Limerick, join Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss applying lime.
Despite difficult weather a few weeks ago, things have improved, John explains, and ground conditions, rotation length and money in the bank will allow people to spread lime.
John outlines that we are very short of where we should be in terms of lime applied to where we should be. It’s more than 40 years since we spread over 2 million tonnes of lime which is what we should be applying.
John Leahy tells of his experience of increasing the pH on his farm. He went after it hard at the start and got it up to where it should be now and he’s at the point where 20-40t keeps him on point each year.
John also outlines how he went after the lime as he felt he could spend a lot of money on fertiliser with little return. He has gotten a phenomenal response to his lime applications.
His soil fertility has taken nearly 10 years to get right but he got his lime right from the start.
Opportunities will present themselves, people need to take them, he says.
For a list of suppliers of lime go to: https://www.grolime.ie/
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and closing up for early spring grass. It’s a great opportunity to spread lime - the cheapest fertiliser one can buy!
The featured farmer is Mark Lonergan, who is from Co. Tipperary and is targeting a closing AFC of 750 kg DM/ha on Dec 1st.
Read more from this week’s Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/grass10-14thOctober2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Teagasc Research Officer, Pablo Silva Boloña, whose work focuses on milk quality, dairy cow mastitis and selective dry cow therapy, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge.
Pablo explains selective dry therapy and why it is being implemented on Irish dairy farms, plus he highlights the important management steps to ensure its successful implementation at farm level.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and the start of closing up for early spring grass. It’s a great week to reseed paddocks sprayed and grazed.
The featured farmer is Jason Coulter, who is from Co. Sligo and trying to get autumn closing sorted out after a very difficult weekend.
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/grass10-7thOctober2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Mike Dineen, Teagasc Senior Research Officer, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the fundamentals to optimising performance from freshly calved cows by making informed decisions around the winter diet.
Winter feed is obviously a significant cost to producing liquid milk therefore it is important farmers get it right.
Mike explains how forage quality is key to generating the best possible margin and outlines some simple management practices that will improve animal performance and feed efficiency.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and the start of closing up for early spring grass.
The featured farmer is Shane Hegarty from Co. Carlow and Shane was the Young Farmer Category Winner of the Sustainable Grassland Farmer of the Year.
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/grass10-30thSeptember2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Kevin Downing of ICBF joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the recent changes to the EBI incorporated into the September Evaluation run.
Kevin outlines the reason for the base change in order to make sure we are comparing the current cows with as representative population as possible to best reflect the on farm performance of herds.
Kevin then discusses the changes that have been introduced in economic values. This is the first update since 2017. This adjustment is done as required and takes a long term view of revenues and costs. It is not responding to annual market returns and costs.
One other major change is the movement of the rearing cost of heifers into the maintenance sub index from the beef sub index. This means that estimating the weight of a mature cow from the maintenance sub index has changed as the heifer rearing element is now included in the € value on the report.
There is a ready reckoner that can be accessed at:
https://webapp.icbf.com/v2/app/msi-calculator
Farmers can use this to estimate the liveweight of their cows based on the new value or use a predicted weight to get the value that they should use in the future.
Evaluations are now live and farmers can look at them on their own ICBF profile on both the website and the app now.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing management and advises using the higher grass growth now to build grass into the autumn as many farms are behind on grass supply. He also has tips on dealing with some difficult grazing conditions.
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/grass10-23rdSeptember2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
John Conroy, Dairy Advisor in Teagasc Nenagh, and Jim Delahunty, dairy farmer, join Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss closing the farm for 2025.
John says it has been an exceptional year for the most part, in the area he covers, with people complaining about making bales at this stage which is a far cry from the situation experienced in 2024.
However, the recent dry spell has reduced the building of grass having come from a very strong position in early to mid-August.
John encourages people to continue to work on building the cover between here and the start of the last round.
Jim says that he has grown well in the last week but his demand is high so he is considering housing cows by day in order to reduce demand to exploit growth over the next week or two to increase farm cover. He has also blanket spread the farm to drive growth once the rain came and this has helped close the gap.
Jim also discusses how he is going to drop his stocking rate next year as he isn’t getting enough reseeding done at his current stocking rate.
John and Jim then cover the targets of closing the farm to ensure that there is grass in the spring as this worth multiples to him more than it is in the autumn.
Finally, John says to close the farm in the way you want to graze in the spring targeting the best, most accessible for the early grazing which means targeting these for grazing in the second half of October to have the right cover to acclimatise the cows to grazing again.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing management and advises using the higher grass growth now to build grass into the autumn as many farms are behind on grass supply.
He also highlights this week’s feature farm, the O’Dea Farm Partnership, who are having a phenomenal grazing year with 14 tons DM/ha grown already with an input of 140 units N/acre and superb clover!
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/grass10-16thSeptember2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Seamus Kearney, Teagasc Tirlán Joint Programme Co-ordinator, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss soil fertility actions that can still be taken despite the chemical fertiliser deadline passing for 2025.
Firstly, Seamus outlines the reduction in chemical nitrogen in the last 9 years and these reductions are becoming more conspicuous where soil fertility isn’t on point.
Seamus explains that lime is magic as it frees up 70-80kgs of N and frees up P and K that are locked up in the soil.
With increased output and output value in 2025, farmers may be exposed to the higher rate of tax and every €1 invested in lime can generate a return of 7:1 and if you’re in that high tax bracket, there is another win in that you can reduce the tax exposure but get really good value from the spreading of it this year and for subsequent years also.
Seamus also talks about K fertiliser applications and recommends that farmers apply 1 bag of Muriate of Potash (MOP) to increase the K levels as this will improve N utilisation and increase grass growth.
Seamus discusses bringing soil samples to life either by having the map on the tractor or by some form of markings out in the paddocks that will quickly identify the paddocks that need the different nutrients
Finally, Seamus says that people should keep things simple and by using protected urea and 18-6-12 and MOP for their fertiliser programme it is both environmentally friendly and €20/cow on current prices cheaper than other fertiliser regimes which can save €2000 for the average 100 cow herd.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice and as many farms are behind on grass supply, he advises using the higher grass growth now to build grass into the autumn.
The featured farmer is Patrick O’Neill from Longford, who is having a good year with grazing and is on target!
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-9thSeptember2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Padraig O’Connor, technologist with Teagasc, joins James Dunne on this week’s Dairy Edge to outline how farmers should manage their herd somatic cell count this autumn, how to make best use of the milk recording information and what to do with identified problem cows.
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher discusses current grazing advice as some farms are dealing with low grass supply.
He also talks about the featured farmer Mike Ahern, who is the Sustainable Grassland Farmer of the Year, and who is opening his farm to the public on Tuesday Sept 9th at 11am , in Ballyduff Co. Waterford.
For more go to:
Link to this week’s Grass10 newsletter:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-2ndSeptember2025
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com
Ruth Fennell, Collaborative Farming Specialist, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the various collaborative farming options that exist.
Ruth outlines the options that range from contract heifer rearing, nutrient sharing, machinery trading and land leasing to more commonly thought of collaborative farming options such as registered farm partnerships and share farming. Effectively, collaborative farming is of mutual benefit to both parties.
Ruth then explains how the various options work in different scenarios and how different arrangements may be more appropriate for a given set of circumstances. The key to all of these arrangements are the people. If you have two people that work well together then you can decide the structure that suits their circumstances.
Legal agreements need to be developed to protect everyone involved as, like any business, it could need to be dissolved for any number of reasons in years to come. If that situation arises, it is important that the structure can be dismantled relatively easily and this starts at the beginning with a clear exit strategy.
There are financial incentives that are associated with some of the collaborative arrangements such as young farmer top-ups which should be accessed if appropriate but this will be case specific and what is right for you will depend on the circumstances.
The availability of various grants should not be the sole reason for entering a registered farm partnership, especially if share farming is the more appropriate structure for your circumstances.
Ruth finishes by outlining the planned Generational Renewal Week that will take place from 8-12thSeptember and people interested in viewing some of the webinars which will cover these arrangements, starting the conversation on succession and making a will as well as the taxes and reliefs available, can access the registration page by clicking here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_e2st24BhQu6uJ1CdjETOGA#/registration
For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com