Danny Bermingham on flexible management to achieve top performance on challenging soils

Danny Bermingham joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast with an insight into his dairy farm, including how his management practices differ from the standard guidelines. Through participation in the heavy soils programme, Danny has learned the correct drainage techniques for his soil types and this in combination with improved soil fertility and grazing infrastructure, days at grass has increased which has had a positive impact on milk solids and fertility. Danny explains that cows generally get out to grass by St Patricks Day and are housed again around 1st November, with additional days at grass in the spring and autumn considered a bonus. Over the last 10 years, milk solids have increased from 420 kg to 523 kg and Danny credits greater days at grass, compact calving leading to more days in milk, improving genetic merit and herd maturity to greater milk performance and hopes the cows will surpass this by achieving 540 kg MS in 2021. For more information: https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2019/Danny-Bermingham-booklet.pdf For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/ The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com