Clover Open Day
May 22, 2025
“We warmly welcome all grazing livestock farmers including dairy, beef and sheep farmers to attend the Clover Open Day” writes CAFRE Forage Technologist, Robert Patterson.
CAFRE invites you to attend a Clover Open Day, being hosted at the CAFRE Beef and Sheep Centre, Oldstone Road, Antrim on Thursday, 5 June 2025. The Open Day comes in the third year of an ongoing four-year project of incorporating white clover into the grazing swards at the CAFRE Beef and Sheep Centre and the CAFRE Dairy Centre.
The successful incorporation and utilisation of clover has the potential to significantly reduce the need for chemical nitrogen (N) inputs, increase nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and improve animal performance on many farms in Northern Ireland.
White clover is particularly suited to grazing swards and can convert atmospheric N to a plant available form of N, supplying up to 200 kg N/ha per year from 12 – 18 months after establishment. The aim of the CAFRE clover project has been to reduce chemical N applications, whilst maintaining grass DM production, improve sward quality and increase animal performance at grass through increased intakes.
Join us at the event to learn more about the benefits that integrating clover into grazing swards could have for your business. Furthermore, you will be able to hear which methods of clover establishment have been investigated on the CAFRE farms, see how they have performed, understand the practical challenges encountered with establishing and managing the clover swards and how these challenges have been addressed.
CAFRE Livestock Technologists will be on hand to talk about the current structure and performance of the beef and sheep enterprises on the CAFRE farm, as well as CAFRE Carbon Technologists who will discuss how the changes made have affected the sustainability of the enterprises.
Practical farmer findings from the ‘ZeroNsile’ project ran by Agrisearch, with support from the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) will be discussed and you can also hear about the exciting upcoming projects in this area planned at CAFRE in the future.
Three tours will be held on Thursday, 5 June, commencing sharp at 11:00am, 3:00pm and 7:00pm and will last approximately 1.5 hours.
Booking is not required.