Located in Dromiskin, Co. Louth, Tomas and Aaron Smyth run a grass based dairy farm of 180 Friesian cows, spanning 200 acres. The herd is split calving, with approximately 30 cows calving in autumn and the remainder in spring.
The Smyth brothers are leading the way to ensure customers have the freshest of milk, having become the first farm in the Republic of Ireland to offer fresh vending machine cow’s milk on their farm.
They opened the Wholey Cow Milk Shack on their farm on March 26th, 2021, and it has proven to be a big success to date, with milk collected, pasteurised, filtered and bottled within two hours every day at the farm.
According to Aaron, making the most of grazed grass is a key profit driver for their system.
“Grass is the cheapest source of feed, therefore its essential that we try and get as much of it into the cow’s diets as possible. We are currently growing 15 tonne of dry matter grass per hectare per year and the aim is to improve on this through a regular liming and reseeding programme on farm.”
The Smyths have been using Agritech’s Tipperary Grass A4 for the last four years and we recently caught up with the brothers to discuss their reseeding programme and experience of using the grass seed mixture.
At Agritech, our Tipperary Grass Seed Range has a mixture to suit every requirement, whether that is intensive grazing, cutting, zero-grazing or overseeding. For the Smyths, Tipperary Grass 4A was chosen as the most suitable mixture as it successfully encompasses all of the key traits that they look for in a grass seed mixture, high digestibility, palatability, longevity and a good inclusion of clover.
Top grass varieties available from Agritech
Nashota, AberPlentiful, AberBite and Callan are some of the top varieties available from the 2021 Tipperary Grass Seed Range.
All Tipperary Grass Seed mixtures are treated with a unique GroQuik Seed Stimulant, to further enhance germination rates and crop lifetime production. GroQuik is particularly beneficial for the germination of clover, and considering future regulations which may be coming down the track, this is another added benefit to factor in.
Need help and advice?
For further advice on spring reseeding or to choose a suitable grass seed mixture, contact your local Agritech Sales Advisor or click here.