Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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We visited UCD Lyons Farm last week. I was extremely impressed by the trials on multispecies sward. We were shown three lots of cattle that were being grazed. One lot was completely on a multispecies sward, clover and ryegrass. No table was necessary to show the increase in performance. Professor Dillon has said that he does not want any chemical nitrogen on underutilised land to increase forage. The multispecies sward must have a huge part to play in that aspiration. Hopefully the ryegrass will have product in the springtime and then the legumes, etc. take over from early summer onwards. I know you are doing trials on them as well and I am not trying to be vexatious in referring to another research station but this was the first time that I was really impressed with multispecies sward. There would be issues as regards farmer practices and getting them grazed but as for producing products for an AD plant, it must have a role to play without the use of chemical nitrogen.