I thoroughly agree. I hate Italian with a passion.
Big problem here in cereals because of it’s developing resistance to gramicides and glyphosate and it’s spreading really fast.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0000CKHBH/ref=olp-opf-redir?aod=1&condition=used&tag=bookfinder-test-b-21
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/elliot.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi86cbPq4_5AhXUlFwKHf9MA2kQFnoECCUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0eX30RZUfiJksDRzz5lMGz
You have to piece it together but it's all there.
Could be huge saving in N fertiliser if ploughing/discing in for a spring corn crop.
I'd be inclined to sow RC with hybrid ryegrass companion. Gives the option of a 3-4 rather than a 2 year crop.
Mainly cos I see Italian RG as a weed!
Any links?
Are you THE Farmer Phil from Longford?
That’s exactly what I was doing, using clovers etc between tillage crops, and ensiling some that were near the pits for dairy cows, until I overdid the system and got disease. Most were planted and used as green manures before crops. Dry season clovers before the likes of wwheat and wbarley etc, and wet season clovers before summer crops like maize, sunflowers etc. Worked a treat until I pushed it too far. A lot of the cause of getting disease, imho, was from not ploughing and mostly DD and mintill.
The only silage I use are high protein legumes etc. That works well with maize and no bought-in meal.
As regards 3-4yrs of continuous clover, I’m actually not a huge fan because 1, it’s hard on Carbon in the soil and 2, there’s only a few crops you can grow afterwards because of lodging etc.
Having briefly read the thread on red clover is there much of an advantage including a crop of red clover into a tillage rotation to bring up the quality of the yearly pit of silage. And is there much of an advantage to the soil after 3-4 years of red clover?
The focus on herbs comes from Clifton park but cockle park farm is more what most farms should be looking towards.
Clifton park system was ground that never saw inputs of any kind so had to rely on herbs much more to make anything worthwhile grow.
Cockle park farm system was developed when there was an abundance of slag and lime was also applied. So much more representative of farms today where pH, p,k are not limiting.
Mix of the main grass species and white clover plus slag and lime was all that was needed for their system.
When nitrogen started to creep in post ww2, they reduced the proportion of other grasses in favour of more ryegrass compared to the original mix.
There you go.
Tough reliable, drought resistant grasses that’ll thrive absolutely anywhere and are high yielding throughout the year.
Good a place as any to explain the importance of Carbon when growing clovers, and how growing clovers will upset the C:N ratio in the soil. It’s important for farmers to know because Teagasc won’t explain, even though they’re encouraging clovers to be grown now.
All those seem to get attention instead of cocksfoot, Timothy and fescues.
A mix of grass species and clover, job done for most farms
No mention of grazing on that in fairness. Says 14tDM/ha of high protein silage is achievable…and you’re paid to plant it!
Yes I did recommend a crop of straight RC, as per the scheme, because that’s by far the best way to utilize the crop…then I suggested that feeding through a TMR is the best way to utilize the resulting silage from the crop. That’s just my experience of growing clovers for forage.
Jeez there’s some amount of ‘schemes’…!
Bang on…you can add Yarrow, Trifolium Michelianum, and Sainfoin to that. Not to mention that pasture Plantain encourages wild Plantain to establish in the sward.
😂.
You're a big fish in the Boards pond though
I think the mss terms and conditions does stipulate exactly what species and proportions.
It's likely Pippa Hackett of the greens saw a mix work on her farm and automatically assumed the whole country is the same.
I'm overrated tbh.
But why bother with the plantain, chicory then. If you sow only grass and clover at least you can spray for the weeds. The other way you end up with a field of grass, clover and docks.
I think you forget we’re in Ireland and farms are small
a field of purely red clover cannot be grazed by stock, that’s reducing options for farmers to keep stock out into the fall
if a farmer can grow a crop of ryegrass red clover mix with no chemical fert it’s a massive saving, why dismiss that?
instead you recommend a straight crop of red clover silage, buy a diet feeder, and tie up a field on small farms that can’t be grazed
But you end up with a good grass clover sward as a result
Well one thing for shure chicory and plantain dont like wet feet, only suitable for very dry free draining land. Wont survive beyond 2 or 3 years if wet.
Not for this scheme. But new ACRES will be
Well so far have heard it from a rep that an altered invoice is what some are going with. I do hope there is a results based check/follow up but I'm guessing it's not this time
Not this time. My understanding is that agri advisors will grades the MSS swards and you will be paid on that. These schemes will be more and more results based
What you do is get the invoice changed after buying normal straight ryegrass to say mss and claim your money....
Good honest post KG.
There’ no magic bullet. I’ve never claimed that clovers are the answer, but they can seriously reduce N use, and produce a high quality forage…and in pasture can work well with grasses etc. in reducing N use. Win win but you’ll still need to buy N.
To change the subject a little, is there a stipulation for the MSS grant that you need x amount of different species? I’ve seen photos of MSS seed labels and swards and there’s species in there that have no reason to be there whatsoever. Crazy stuff.
The best bit of advice I’ve ever got is NOT to apply artificial fert when planting swards. Makes sense when you think about it.
I think that a little bit of clarification is needed. For the sake of clarity shall we call red clover…’Maize’. OK?
RC is a forage crop just like maize. You don’t get into an argument that maize is SH1T for grazing at the shoulders and is a waste of time, no? Because we all know that maize is not for grazing.
Before someone chips in that they ran xxxx over ‘Maize’ in the shoulders, that’s fine too, but could posters please compare apples with apples?
There are heaps of different clovers out there, ‘Maize’ happens to be just one. Did Teagasc trial it and give it the nod for gov to fire a grant at it, or what? There are heaps of options out there. All those options need to be extensively trialed in replicated plots all around the country. That’s Teagascs job. But picking one variety and encouraging farmers to grow it by way of grant aid, without educating the farmers is absolutely ludicrous.
All clovers need a special type of agronomy that can’t be got from a bag….I’ll leave that to @SayMyName
Because I did all.of these 5-15 years ago. Red clover and hybrid/Italian. Sowing grass with Barley, or with barley and pea's. They all save nitrogen but they all have there issues. The inability to graze RC or Hybrid/Italian swards is a massive disadvantage.
Grazing on the shoulders is one of the biggest cost savings in Irish grassland system
Check the date.the grant scheme came 8 months later.the only thing that changed was the acres as we didn't have some of the land at the time.this red clover thing is learning experience for me but at the moment I feel it offers the opportunity of cutting nitrogen use and a higher protein shoulder feed.i m not sure clover in a grazing scenario is going to deliver what they are telling us but I am still trying to encourage it and have reduced bag in fields that had been newly reseeded.it was a tough year to do it as it was lack of moisture was hurting growth too.on a positive note it s pissing this morning. Edit to say the fertiliser price hike concentrated the mind on things as well
I honestly can’t understand why you’re even posting on this thread Bass. If you’re farming system is based on bought in meal and fertilizer, then away with you, RC is of no interest to you whatsoever.
RC is just one little tool to break the meal and fert dependency, amongst a host of other solutions. I suspect that the grant is the only reason that this thread even exists. As KG posted he’s just using the grant to get some chape reseeding done…and it results in some high quality forage, that’s not grass, being in the yard and causing hassle.
Its a perfect example of money being completely wasted by government. The carrot never works with farmers, the only thing we respect is a feckin big Schtick.
Yes, especially if it’s damp. They go stone mad for it. I certainly wouldn’t do that. Anyhow if you didn’t kill a lash of them, the objective is surely to minimize buying expensive meal from the Coop, and create your own balanced feed produced on your own farm?
Saying that I’ve fed it to young stock as baled silage alternated with some kind of gutfill. Not ideal.
