With restrictions prohibiting large gatherings from taking place, the Irish Grassland Association’s Dairy Summer Tour will take an on online format this July.
And among those set to feature is David Kerr from Ballyfin, whose farm hosted a Grassland summer tour in 2014 before quotas were abolished. His farm will focus across social media this coming Monday, July 20.
Revisiting three farms that hosted the Event from 2014 to 2016, video clips from the farms airing on Twitter and Facebook from Monday to Wednesday, July 20-22 will look back at where the host farmers were at the time they hosted the tour, where they are now and where they see themselves going in the future.
Then on Thursday, July 23, all three hosts will join the Irish Grassland team and sponsors AIB for an online meeting to answer your questions about the direction that their farms have gone and about their plans for the future.
Commenting at the launch of this year’s Summer Tour, Tadhg Buckley, Head of Agriculture, AIB said, “We are delighted to continue our support of the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Summer Tour.
“The approach taken by the Association this year has been necessary in response to the global pandemic and the cancellation of large scale events.
“This year’s event will allow us catch up with some of the previous tour hosts and see how things have changed since they hosted the Summer Tour, in terms of development, changes in performance and future strategy.
“The live webinar on Thursday evening will also offer the opportunity to ask our hosts any questions you may have. We at AIB are looking forward to this distinctly different 2020 Dairy Summer Tour just the same as previous tours.
David Kerr from Ballyfin hosted the event in 2014. The theme for the event was ‘Successful strategies for expansion’. His strategy was based on increasing herd size from within his highly fertile dairy herd with investment in low cost slurry storage and cow accommodation.
Over 450 farmers from around the country attended to hear how David operated a predominantly grass-based system of milk production on his 160-acre farm.
Milking 140 cows that year, just prior to quota abolition, David also reared his replacement heifer calves but the yearling heifers were being contract reared off farm. That year the cows were on course to produce 400 kg milk solids.
At a farm stocking rate of close to one cow per acre, he expected grass growth to exceed 14 tonnes of dry matter on this mixed free-draining and peaty farm.
Other farmers that will feature include Henry Walsh from Oranmore in Galway who farmed 240 cows in 2015 on a 76-hectare block and Conor Creedon from Rathmore in Kerry on the theme of ‘milk production on more challenging soils’ – he farms at 300 metres above sea level and typically receives almost two metres of rainfall per annum.
For more information logon to the Irish Grassland Association website www.irishgrassland.ie and follow them on Twitter and Facebook for links to the Dairy Summer Tour online event.
The Laois links to the Irish Grassland Association continue through its current chairman who is Paul Hyland, a dairy farmer from Ballacolla.
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