Catch Crops

Catch Crops

By Jack Doherty

The success of Catch or Cover crops is mainly based off the sowing date and establishment rate. Drilling the catch crop as soon after harvest as possible will give the crop its very best chance. The benefit of sowing cover crops can be seen at many angles:

· Improving soil health, organic matter, fertility and biodiversity.

· Supressing problematic weeds.

· Preventing soil erosion.

· Preventing nitrate leaching and phosphate pollution.

· Providing increased nutrient levels for the crop following.

Liffey Mills have an extensive range of Catch crop seeds available including the following:

Soil Booster Graze: 50:50 Leafy Turnip:Rape it provides a high energy forage for overwintering of livestock (2ha pack).

Soil Booster Pro: This for a non Brasica cover crop to prevent to build of Clubroot in OSR/ Brassics crop systems. This is a Vetch and Phacelia mix, ideal for maximum soil health (1ha pack).

Regener8: Comprehensive soil rejuvenation mix. It is an 8 way mix, with each specie bringing benefits to the mix.

Autumn Re-Seed

While this spring offered a chance to reseed grassland, opportunities were limited as grass supplies were squeezed in May and June. With rainfall that came in June and July this allowed Grass stocks everywhere to recover. This allows time to start thinking about reseeding into the Autumn. Although input costs have greatly increased for reseeding ground, grass still remains our cheapest source of fodder and utilisation becomes increasingly important coming into the final rotations.

Liffey Mills have been to the forefront in recent years providing some of the countrys highest quality grass varieties and mixing them for our customers and have a wide range of grass seed mixtures again this year to cater for all soil types and farm enterprises.

Our leading mix for high output grazing is what we believe to be an excellent option:

'TETRA SWARD'. This is a 100% tetraploid mix containing 1 kilo of Coolfin clover, as well as the top 3 varieties for digestibility based off of the Teagasc

Pasture Profit Index (PPI), Aston Energy, Nashota, and Xenon. This blend is guaranteed to yield exceptional tonnes of highly digestible forage throughout the grazing season.

We have outstanding mixes for Dual purpose, one cut and graze, intensive grazing, heavy ground, intensive silage, Red clover silage, multi species mixes to give a flavour of our offering. These are available in all our branches, please liaise with your local branch for further details and personal reseeding plan right through to first spraying and grazing.

All of the above mentioned feeds are available in a cube equivalent.

At Liffey Mills our team of nutritionists has our vast range of feeds formulated to achieve the highest possible UFL & UFV values using a composition of ingredients available to us, whilst working in strict parameters to ensure protein and fibre levels are matched accordingly, giving peace of mind that all of our blends are balanced correctly, include full rate minerals and can be fed at generous levels if desired.

For further information on our extensive feed range please contact your local Liffey Mills Branch, technical sales advisor.

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