The conference will take place in the Seagoe Hotel, Portadown on Tuesday 12th November at 10.30am. The title of the conference is “Future-Proofing Our Pastures: 25 Years of GrassCheck and Beyond”.
After a welcome and introduction by Professor Gerry Boyle (Chair, AgriSearch), the morning session will examine the evolution the GrassCheck programme over the last 25 years.
The session will start with a video featuring GrassCheck farmers discussing their farming systems, grassland management and the benefits of participating in the GrassCheck programme.
Sinclair Mayne will cover the early years of the GrassCheck project which commenced in 1999 with GrassCheck plots in Hillsborough and Greenmount. Plots have provided 25 years of invaluable data which have been used by farmers and policy makers alike. The GrazeGro grass growth prediction model developed as part of the project was one of the first grass growth prediction tools in the world.
Jason Rankin will then speak on the second phase of GrassCheck which began in 2017 and brought on an initial 35 dairy, beef and sheep farms from across Northern Ireland together to participate in GrassCheck. Today over 50 farmers participate in the GrassCheck project, measuring grass covers on their farm each week and sending in grass samples for analysis. This has helped GrassCheck to deliver timely and locally relevant grass growth, quality and weather data in its bulletin and digital channels every week.
Sinclair Mayne and Jason Rankin will both highlight key data from the past 25 years.
The morning session will round off with a panel discussion, with questions taken from the audience. The pane will include GrassCheck farmers Roger Bell, Brian McCracken and John Egerton as well as Sinclair Mayne and Jason Rankin.
The afternoon session will look to the future. Starting with GrassCheck farmers outlining what they see as the potential future challenges for grassland management.
Dr Taro Takahashi from AFBI will take a deeper look at how grass growth has changed over the past 25 years and model the future of grass growth in Northern Ireland based on Met Office climate predictions.
Dr David Patterson from AFBI will then examine how we can adapt our grassland swards and their management to meet these future challenges.
The special guest speaker Brendan Horan from Teagasc will discuss growing and utilising grass under difficult conditions. He will discuss the results of trials at both Curtins Farm, Moorepark, County Cork (which regularly experiences summer dry conditions) and Ballyhaise College, County Cavan (which is in a high rainfall area).
There will then be a final panel discussion chaired by Ian McCluggage (Vice-Chair, AgriSearch) including the afternoon speakers and GrassCheck farmers. This will include an opportunity for the audience to give their feedback on future grassland research and innovation needs.
All are welcome to attend the conference and places can be booked via the AgriSearch website.