James Bourke and his father Seamus looked at future-proofing their Co. Cork farm, before issues in relation to the storing of soiled water on farms under the Nitrates Action Plan came to light.

The pair switched to a robotic-milking system in early 2021, replacing their 12-unit milking parlour with two DeLaval VMS V300 robots and in doing so, increased their slurry storage capacity as well as creating soiled water storage.

Speaking to Agriland about their decision to future-proof the farm, James said: "We put in three new tanks in total - two within the shed and one outside where the grazing gates are found when we made the switch to robotic milking.

"It was a good move putting in the tank for soiled water. We didn't know what was coming down the line at the time of putting it in but it was a good move in hindsight."

James said that the soiled water is great to grow grass and comes in at an important time to keep grass growing when fertiliser is no longer applied after the middle of September.

He said: "The parlour washings is powerful stuff to grow lush green grass at the back end of the year when fertiliser is no longer spread.

"We grew a pile of grass after September 15 last year with the soiled water. In fact, we grew the same amount of grass as if we had spread it with nitrogen and we'd be utilising around 13t of grass/ha so we are very happy overall."