How Reseeding Supports Higher Performance

How Reseeding Supports Higher Performance

From The Dairy Edge by Teagasc

April 29, 2026 · 29 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of reseeding in dairy farming and its impact on performance.

Tom O’Connell, dairy farmer in Inniscarra, near Cork city, and John Maher of Grass10, join Stuart Childs to discuss the importance and management of reseeding. John first outlines the national figures which are poor in terms of the amount of reseeding taking place each year and this is a negative for the industry. Tom is the opposite, reseeding every year on both grazing platform and silage ground. Reseeding every year is what Tom says allow him to have the confidence to take out the ground safe knowing he has responsive swards that will grow at sufficient levels to meet herd requirements while he waits for the reseed to slot back in, as evidenced by the performance of the spring 2024 and 2025 reseeds. Tom splits the 10% so that it isn’t all gone out together and generally takes the 2nd piece out when he knows the first bit is nearly ready to come back in. This as an insurance policy against having too high a stocking rate with all ground out at the same time. Tom has also reduced his overall milking platform stocking rate through land acquisition and a slight reduction in cow numbers so that now his stocking rate with reseeded ground out is where his stocking rate was before he…

People in this episode

Host: Stuart Childs

Guests: Tom O’Connell, John Maher

Topics covered

  • reseeding
  • dairy farming
  • grass management
  • stocking rate
  • agriculture

Keywords

  • reseeding
  • dairy farmer
  • grass growth
  • stocking rate
  • agricultural management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Grass10

Places: Inniscarra, Cork city

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