Going 'clover and above'

The Walsh family may set a very high bar for environmental excellence in dairy farming – rewarded last year with them taking the overall win at the 2024 Teagasc/FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards – but they also exemplify what can be achieved, little by little, hedge by hedge, field by field. They run a very successful dairy enterprise in the beautiful Ballylooby area in south Tipperary, milking 165 cows on a 63-hectare (ha) platform, with total grassland at 107ha, and supply Dairygold. The recent farm walk took us to four important points on the farm, each one highlighting their work on: increasing biodiversity; achieving efficiency and profitability within the dairy operation; ensuring water quality is maximised; and illustrating the importance of soil quality and widespread incorporation of clover to reduce chemical nitrogen application.

“It is the ‘rubbish’ underneath that I want to see”

Our first stop on the farm walk involved learning about the importance of biodiversity and the significance of hedges in supporting and enhancing it. Here, Catherine Keena, Teagasc countryside management specialist, addressed the large crowd: “From a biodiversity point of view, we are not just talking about birds and mammals, we are talking about the fish, the frogs, we have one reptile – the lizard – and the invertebrates,” she said. “You often hear people saying, ‘I love the trees, I just clear the rubbish underneath’. Well, it is the ‘rubbish’ underneath that I want to see. I want flowering plants, the ferns, the mosses, the lichen, the fungi. And what is important is the native Irish flora and fauna that have been here for 10,000 years. Not all flora and fauna are good but if it is here naturally on the farm for 10,000 years then we value those. We do not sow flowers on a farm, we let nature take its course.”

Hedges

Catherine said the Walsh farm is the ‘number-one’ farm she has seen for hedges. “We have two types here – the topped and the tree-line hedges. We want both on every farm but the management of the topped hedges is what is absolutely super here. There is a happy medium between productive grassland and having a network of hedges.
“The average field size here on the Walsh farm is 3.9ha and because of the types of hedges, the number of hedges, and the way John is managing the topped hedges, a lot of interesting pollinators have been found.”
Dr Michelle Larkin, national pollinator monitoring scheme officer with the National Biodiversity Data Centre, who was also present, explained that pollinators – especially hoverflies – love hedges. She said: “We have been surveying this farm for about three years, and we have found 21 different types of pollinators – a wide variety, and they absolutely love the hedges.”

Farm owner, John Walsh, explained that the field we were standing in was originally comprised of three paddocks. The centre paddock, he said, was always difficult to graze in springtime or at the end of the year due to the bad weather, which meant you couldn’t get to the back of it without damaging the field, he explained. “So Brendan [son] suggested that we put a hedge up the middle of it,” said John. “We put a spur road, or a track, along one side of the field so we have access but there is no damage being done to the field.” The planting of the hedge in 2022, was done with great care from selection of the plant mix, through to its pruning in the first three years, to its management subsequently ensuring a wide base, that will eventually grow to be around eight feet tall with whitethorns growing every 50 metres.

John explained the importance of trimming the hedge in the first few years: “That is the secret. You get it nice and thick at the base that way. If you let it grow on its own, it is just too thin on the bottom and it is not good for anything; it is not stockproof and it is not good for biodiversity.”
Another hedge that was planted there in 2021 has grown exceptionally well; it is now stockproof and can be machine-trimmed. John trims all his own hedges: “I do it myself because I know how I want the hedges. I take my time at it. I keep the base wide and trim the top [so that it is narrower] allowing light go to the base, and I let whitethorn grow. It takes a good few years to get it right and the aim is that when I am finished trimming the hedges, I shouldn’t be able to see over them, that is the height it should be."

Cow efficiency

Against a backdrop of munching and curious cows, John's son, Brendan took us through the efficiencies and productivity they have achieved through years of selective breeding using the Economic Breeding Index (EBI). This sees their herd produce an average of 524kg of milk solids per cow per year. Nora O’Donovan, Teagasc advisor on the Teagasc/Dairygold joint programme explained that the average Dairygold supplier produces 421kg of milk solids, so the Walsh family is well in excess of that. The carbon footprint of the milk produced is 10 per cent lower than the national average. In 2024, this carbon footprint was 0.86kg CO2 eq/kg fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM). And while the EBI national average is €187, the Walsh’s is €262.
“All this is reflected in how we breed the cows and use the EBI, which puts an economic value, or a euro value on the traits that are important to us,” Brendan said. “We are trying to breed a cow that maximises the kilogrammes of fat and protein so when we are picking our bulls to breed off, we are picking those that can improve the kilogrammes but also the percentage of fat and protein. This increases the value.
“On the fertility side, we try to match when we calve the cows to when the grass is growing. So the fertility element of the EBI is really important. We are picking bulls that will ensure that the cow will calve at the same time every year.”

Good cow, bad cow

Brendan explained the importance of milk recording in establishing which cows are performing well. They milk-record five to six times a year. “A fact of milk recording is that you can only get information once the cow is being milked and it takes about two years of milk recording to get proper data from which you can make decisions. So the cow is four years old at this point.
“But there is new technology available now, and you might notice that some of our cows have a white tag, which is a genomic tag. It takes tissue samples from the cow’s ear, which then goes to the lab for the cow’s DNA to be analysed. That can be done at the stage when the calf is being tagged. From there, we can get a genetic picture of what the cow’s potential is. So we can get information earlier and we can make our breeding decisions from that.”
He explained how sexed semen is also playing an important role on the farm. “With a sexed semen straw, you have a 90 per cent chance of producing a female. So, we can breed fewer dairy males and breed more to beef, with a higher beef value and because we need fewer dairy AI straws, we can breed from our higher genetic cows. So we can push the ladder a little higher and breed from the top end of the herd.” The Walsh’s cows are achieving 37c/kg milk solids, which equates to €193 more per cow in milk value than the average cow.”

Water quality

Water quality and quantity in our rivers, lakes, groundwaters, estuaries, and coastal waters is assessed under the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters can be awarded one of five statuses: high, good, moderate, poor, and bad. The Walsh farm is located beside the River Thonoge, which has a ‘good’ status of water quality. This is down to the work that the Walshs are doing, combined with the actions of other farmers in the area, according to Claire Mooney, catchment coordinator, Teagasc.

Determining good water quality is done by analysing the macroinvertebrates – bugs – that are present in a water body. In order to do this, a ‘kick’ sample is required and involves kicking up the gravel on the river bed and catching everything that is disturbed. “And like everything, there are good and there are bad,” Claire said. “So if you see the likes of the mayfly, the cased caddis fly, or the stone fly in those kick samples, they are indicators of really good water quality. They won’t survive if there is a lot of nutrient or sediment. However, the freshwater shrimp, the leech, or the blackfly larvae, like dirt and nutrient so they will survive in poorer quality water bodies.”

Claire outlined several other water-focused measures undertaken by the Walsh family. For example, every water course is fenced off to a distance of 1.5m from the top of the bank; they have planted a spatially targeted buffer using willow in one area to deal with grey water coming off the roads The willow will mop up any nutrient before it gets to the stream, she explained.

Mark Plunkett, Teagasc’s Signpost programme specialist spoke about nitrogen on the Walsh farm, from the point of view of achieving good water quality. “So we are trying to retain as much nitrogen inside the farm in terms of growing grass and reducing the nitrogen that is lost during the growing season,” he said.
In relation to slurry storage, he pointed out that the national average for slurry storage is around 112 days while on the Walsh’s farm, it is 205 days. “That puts them in a very good position in terms of managing a very valuable nutrient on the farm. They can pick the right days and the right conditions to put that slurry out, and they can match it with grass growth also.”
Soil fertility is also a priority on the Walsh farm, and good soil health is the basis for nitrogen-use efficiency, said Mark. “So they are on a low level of chemical nitrogen on the farm – around 110kg of nitrogen/ha – which is coming in as protected urea. This is a very sustainable form of nitrogen and an efficient form of nitrogen in terms of grass production for the climate we have here in Ireland.”

Clover – little fertiliser factories

The Walsh family is making clover work very well on the farm and about eight or nine paddocks on the grazing block have not had chemical nitrogen since 2021, Mark said. This is a significant achievement. “The only nitrogen those paddocks see is from the slurry tank,” he said. He described the clover paddocks as ‘little fertiliser factories’; the clover fixes the nitrogen to grow the grass – around 13.5t in 2024. “This is a big technology, not a simple one,” said Mark. “But it is important in terms of the world we live in today around water quality and a more restricted environment around nitrogen, climate, water and biodiversity.”
Stuart Childs, Teagasc dairy specialist elaborated on some of the things that the Walsh family is doing to ensure that there is sufficent grass growth including optimising soil fertility, targetting use of nutrients, using GPS for precision applications, using protected urea, and reseeding with clover.
Elaborating on Mark’s updates, Stuart explained that the Walshs have reduced chemical nitrogen use by 40 per cent since 2020 without a compromise to grass production. Last year, for example, their chemical nitrogen use was 130kg N/ha down from 220kg N/ha in 2020, and nitrogen efficiency was 29 per cent.
This efficiency is possible due to the optimised soil fertility – 64 per cent of the soil is at optimal levels for pH, phosphorous and potassium – as well as the fact that 52 per cent of the grazing platform has high or medium clover content.
Daughter, Helena Walsh explained that all the clover paddocks are reseeded to achieve the best establishment of the crop. Over-sowing was tried but was not satisfactory, she said. The paddock we stood in as Helena spoke was reseeded in 2019 and six years later, the clover content was still excellent. She explained that they do weekly grass walks with PastureBase, measuring both the grass that feeds the cows and the amount of clover in the swards. That informs the decision to apply chemical nitrogen or not. “We have two strategies, as such. We go with zero chemical nitrogen or we go with our full rate nitrogen. All paddocks would get slurry or dairy wash as well.”

Red clover and bloat

Helena explained that they have about nine acres of red clover mainly for silage. “We get three cuts off them and we graze them too, once in spring and twice in autumn – this is buffer feeding in spring and summer because it is really high-quality silage.”
In any conversation about clover, of course, the topic of bloat arises. On this, Helena said: “It is not a nice thing to experience and it is a major challenge. We put preventative measures in place because the key is to prevent it rather than cure it. So we have a 'breakfast break up' where the cows come in and graze for a couple of hours. They are restricted to a smaller area, so they have to eat grass as well – that avoids them gorging on the clover, and it means they get more fibre in the diet. We also offer straw at the feeding barrier and we have a good opportunity to feed them [straw] while they are being milked. We use bloat oil, more as a treatment, in the troughs. It is important to have all measures in place.”