Donal Burke Junior and Donal Burke Senior co-farm alongside Colin Doherty out of Adare in Co. Limerick.
Burke Jr entered into a 50:50 co-farming agreement with his neighbor Doherty after making the decision to move to West Co. Cork, where he now milks a separate herd of cows.
The original Kilveney herd was sold to a farm in Wales, with Doherty purchasing his own cows as part of the agreement.
The farm now milks 200 Jersey Cross cows, and given Doherty won the 2021 Grassland Farmer of the Year award, there is a clear focus on grassland management on the farm.
The farm, which is stocked at 2 cattle units (LU)/ha, got the cows out to grass in early February, getting them ready to start the second cycle at the end of March.
The average farm cover (AFC) is currently 880kg of dry matter (DM) per hectare, and cows currently consume 16kg of grass and 2kg of meal.
Doherty is a big believer in spring reseeding, and with 10% of the paddock reseeded annually, it has made the farm an ideal candidate for Teagasc’s spring grazing event.
The crowd at the recent reseeding event held at Kilveny Farm
Teagasc Grass10 Director, John Maher, and local councilors Derby Brown and Darragh Joy both spoke on the day.
They highlighted the importance of reseeding in the spring and talked about what this process entails, including methods, time frames, soil health, preparation and variety selection.
Re-seeding
Burke and Doherty also talked about their experience with spring reseeding so far in 2026.
They told the audience how they identified pastures that would be candidates for reseeding last summer and took a piece of feed from them in September.
The pastures were grazed in early March, then grazed again during April despite the difficult weather conditions.
This prepared them well to go out in the first dry spell and spray the field, which ended up happening on April 25th.
Spray old pastures in April
Doherty said they arrived four or five days later to seed the field.
His preferred method of reseeding is the Earth machine, where a local contractor plants the pasture at a rate of 17kg/ac.
He chose a mix of Nashota, Anurad, and Astonergy, because he felt those varieties were the best.
Maher noted that the mix ended up with a strong spring grower, an average spring grower and a poor spring grower, but he said the balance is balanced out by strong grazing and pasture quality numbers that continue into mid-season.
No silage land has been reseeded this year, but Doherty usually chooses Aberclyde when he reseeds those pastures.
In the mix planted this year there was also Coolfin Clover, but the farm also grows Clodagh, Dungloe and Crusader Clover on pasture.
Since reseeding at the end of April, Kilveney Farm has spread 10-10-20 and slurry on the ground.
Currently, 90% of the farm has a phosphorus (P) index of 3 or 4, 69% of the farm has a potassium (K) index of 3 or 4, and 91% of the farm has a pH of 6.2 or higher.
if Clover If well established, they will handle “very lightly” nitrogen applications, aiming for 20 units once a month.
It has now been three weeks since seed sowing and participating farmers will be on alert to safely spray post-emergence clover when covers reach around 400kg DM/ha.
However, they are happy with how clean the pasture is currently and hope early grazing will work wonders for conservation Herbs From establishment, hoping to clean it before it reaches 1400 kg DM/ha.
Reseeding was done for two and a half weeks
Because the fields have been reseeded by direct drilling, there is some surface waste that needs to be managed.
Doherty has been waiting for the weather to dry, but plans to remove lime in the coming weeks to counter the acidity of the decaying grass and ensure successful germination.
Once that’s done, he hopes to have the pasture grazed within five weeks, a total of eight weeks from the reseeding date.
