Solohead – low emission blueprint for fragmented dairy farms – Agriland.ie

Solohead has gained a lot of attention over the years through its implementation of a zero nitrogen (N) input strategy on grass-clover swards.

Teagasc research has shown us that the carbon and ammonia footprints of milk production can be reduced by up to 25% without having any impact on the economic competitiveness of the farm.

More research is set to be conducted by looking at the Solohead system on fragmented dairy farms, which will be implemented by principal research officer at Solohead research farm, Dr. James Humphreys.

This follow up work will be funded through the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine’s (DAFM) 2023 Thematic Research Call.

Solohead – LoCAM

 LoCAM is Teagasc’s project which focuses on lowering the carbon and ammonia footprints of pasture-based dairy production.

The project which is in collaboration with the South East Technological University (SETU) and the University of Galway, and is to develop a low emissions blueprint for fragmented dairy farms.

This system (LoCAM-3.3) will have a stocking rate of 3.3 cows/ha on the grazing platform (representing 73% of the overall farm area).

The remaining 27% of the system area which is inaccessible to grazing cows, will be solely for silage production from red clover swards.

This will be compared with the existing LoCAM-2.4 system in which the entire farm area is available for grazing and production of silage.

As part of this research, both systems will have an overall stocking rate of 2.4 cows/ha and will receive no artificial fertiliser N.

The data will be gathered for a comparison which will include economic performance, greenhouse gas (GHG) and ammonia emissions and impact on water quality.

A second study will examine the impact of implementing these blueprints on 25 commercial dairy farms (LoCAM Dairy Farms) to see whether it is viable.

This data will then be used to quantify improvements in carbon and ammonia footprints while analysing the impact on economic performance.

A third study will investigate reseeding multispecies swards without use of herbicides or fertiliser N.

DAFM 2023 Thematic Research Call

This project is only one of 23 projects brought forward from the DAFM 2023 Thematic Research Call, in which €22.3 million of funding has been made available.

Minister of State with special responsibility for Research and Development at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon T.D. said:

“This will see research work being conducted across a wide range of areas including, low emissions dairy production, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, developing farmland nature credits.”

The other areas that this research will be covering that he mentioned were optimising oat production and processing for healthy foods, assessing the impact of deer in forestry, and improving shelf life of dairy products, among others.

Minister Heydon stated that the agri-food, forest and bio-economy sectors are always growing as he believes that Ireland “should be at the forefront of these developments”.

“A steady pipeline of new solutions is the cornerstone of increasing economic, environmental, and social sustainability,” the minister added.

Minister Heydon went on to say that the objective is to get the output of these projects to reach the likes of farmers, advisors, policy makers and industry stake holders.