Heavy rainfall this weekend has broken up the good weather but, in general, the ground conditions have been favourable for reseeding, which has allowed a lot of farmers to get cracking on reseeding underperforming paddocks.

At a Teagasc reseeding event on Thursday, April 17, the importance of reseeding was highlighted, which included extra grass grown and grown better in harder times, a better response to fertiliser, and allowing for clover establishment.

The reseeding event was held on the farm of Liam Delaney just outside Portlaoise, Co. Laois, where he was getting ready to reseed a paddock once visitors had left the farm.

Converting the suckler enterprise into a dairy enterprise in 2020, Delaney reseeded the whole milking platform and, this year, already has 10% of the platform reseeded.

He also reseeds 10% of the silage block annually, and any out blocks of the farm that are being reseeded this year will include red clover.

Liam is currently milking 100 Holstein Friesian cows on two Lely robots. He also has 40ac in malting barley and keeps on about 70 calves each year.

The cows produced 537kg of milk solids (MS)/cow last year and, at the moment, due to the lush, quality grass in front of the herd, Liam said that the cows are producing 33L/cow and heifers about 23/L/heifer at 3.64% protein and 4.15% fat.

To date, the whole milking platform has received about 70 units of nitrogen (N)/ac, in which 2,500gal/ac of slurry was spread and about 50 units of chemical N.

The cows started the second rotation on April 2, with the current diet of the cows consisting of 14kg dry matter (DM) grass and 6kg of meal with current average farm cover at 1,050kg DM/ha.

Reseeding

Reseeding is clearly a big focus on the farm, as Liam had a paddock sprayed off with glyphosate two weeks ago, which was then grazed down tightly the evening before reseeding to get up the last of thrash.

Liam had the power harrow on the ground and was ready to cultivate the sward that morning, which was then going to be followed by lime application and fertiliser of 250kg/ha of 10-10-20.

The soil was then going to be tilled and sowed with a seeder with premium grazing mix of 3kg of Aberchoice, 3.5kg Aston Energy, 3kg of Abergain, 2kg of Drumbo, and 1kg of a medium leaf clover at a rate of 14-15kg/ha.

While there is a roller on the back of the seeder, it was advised to still go behind with a roller to encourage soil seed contact, which Teagasc dairy advisor, Donnchadh Dowling and manager of the Teagasc Grass10 programme, John Maher said was crucial.

Maher said that “the more you do to thrash the soil, the better”, adding that if time was not against Liam on the day with rain on the way, he would be advising him to disc the paddock before power harrowing.

Teagasc dairy advisor Donnchadh Dowling, Liam Delaney, and Teagasc Grass10 programme manager John Maher taking at the event

Maher also mentioned that it will take two weeks to kill off the docks and said “the longer you leave the field to die off, the better the machines (reseeding machines) will work”, unless you are ploughing which is easier for weed control.

The message that was highlighted was that a fine firm seed bed must be established to allow for soil seed contact and Maher said that in an ideal world with perfect weather on your side, “disc first and leave it a few days and then power harrow”.

Teagasc dairy advisor Donnchadh Dowling said that it costs about €500/ac to reseed ground when all contracting costs are added up and when fertiliser application is added into it, highlighting that “you’d be fertilsing the ground either way”.

The breakdown of costs per hectare to reseed is as follows:

Operation	Cost/ha
Glyphosate (incl. spraying) (€34/ac Roundup Flex)	€123
Ploughing	€138
Levelling	€57
Sowing	€161
Rolling	€40
Spreading fertiliser	€40
Grass seed (€5.50/kg @14kg/ha)	€194
Fertiliser (3 bags of 10-10-20	€200
Post emergence spray and spraying (spray 40/ac)	€138
Total cost (excl. fertiliser)	€1,091 (€851)
Cost per year (10 year lifetime)	€109/year

Source: Teagasc

He said that, in a good grass growing year, with good milk solids production in return and with a decent milk price year, that investment would pay itself back within two years or, in poorer weather and fundamentals, definitely three years.

Liam will be applying a post emergence herbicide to the paddock after about 45 days when the cover of the paddock is at about 400kg DM/ha.

The cows will return to graze the paddock after about 60 days, at a cover of about 800kg DM/ha for further weed control and to allow the clover to persist.

Before grazing, a pull test should be carried out to make sure that the whole grass and clover plant cannot be pulled from the ground altogether when grazing.

Reseeding is often pushed off until autumn, as farmers fear having a paddock out of the rotation for too long when grass supply can be tight.

However the weather, weed control, and clover establishment is much more consistent in the spring and the paddock should be back in the rotation within 60 days.

The highest producing paddocks on farms are paddocks sown in the last five years, producing about 15t DM/ha and the lowest producing paddocks are paddocks sown between 2013 to 2016 growing 12t DM/ha, which is a loss of 3t DM/ha according to Teagasc.

It can be said, if you’re looking to improve grass performance and milk production and invest your money on the farm to do so, reseeding gives you the greatest return on investment above all other things.

Reseeding

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Reseeding costs €500/ac with returns in 2-3 years, so why not?