Co. Down milk producer, Philip Truesdale, claims that grassland reseeding has secured significant performance benefits for his farming enterprise.
The Ballyward farmer recently hosted members of the Ulster Grassland Society on a farm walk.
He explained that the home farm was entirely reseeded to tie in with the conversion to dairy from beef and lamb production five years ago.
There are six out farms within the business, which are used to rear young stock.
Reseeding and soil fertility
Philip told his visitors: “Maintaining high levels of soil fertility is a priority. As part of this commitment, we ensure that all the out farms receive regular applications of slurry.”
The farmer also outlined his enthusiasm for farm visits.
“I have always been committed to visiting farms where good management practices were followed.
“This was an approach to farming that I learnt from my farther. Seeing how other people went about their business allowed me to pick up ideas, which I have since tried to implement and build on here at home.”
Philip is a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast. It had always been his intention to come home to farm: that happened in 2015.
Within five years, he had managed to double the sucker cow and sheep numbers on the farm. Finishing dairy-beef was an additional enterprise on the site at that time.
“By that stage, I felt I had taken that model of farming as far as it could be progressed,” Philip commented.
“It had become obvious that milk production was the way forward.
“There was a very simple question to be answered: how can I get the highest level of performance from the grass that can be produced on the farm?
“I had taken the beef and sheep enterprises as a far as I could. It was this thinking process that paved the way for the dairy herd that we have today.”
But the real turning point came courtesy of the drought that impacted very heavily across most parts of Co. Down back in 2018.
Philip found himself feeding significant quantities of meal to his then 80 sucker cows, simply to keep their levels of milk output for the calves at a reasonable level.
He said: “I realised then that dairy would work, provided we went down the road of an autumn calving herd.
“In a perfect world, I would like to have a spring calving system and push to get cows out into the grazing paddocks as early in the year as possible. But my one concern is that we would not have enough grass to make this work during the summer months.
“The system that we follow at the moment takes the pressure off grazed grass supply at that time of the year, as the cows are coming up to the end of their lactations.”
