Organic Beef Production
Richard Fallon Grange Beef Research Centre, Dunsany, Co. Meath
and
Brendan Swan Johnstown Castle Environmental Research Centre, Co. Wexford
The organic suckler herd was established on an organic land base in Johnstown Castle in 2003. The basis for its establishment was to provide the knowledge and technologies to allow farmers to triple our current organic beef output and thereby meet Irish and British market requirements.
The current shortage in the supply of organic beef has resulted in a 20 to 30 percent premia payment for organic beef over conventional beef.
The present experiment was designed to determine the effects of early and late maturing sire breeds (Charolais and Aberdeen Angus) on output and meat quality within systems operating under organic beef production standards.
The 44 continental crossbred spring-calving herd is principally made up of Limousin-X and Simmental-X cows. The cows are introduced to the herd for breeding following calving down as heifers to an Aberdeen Angus bull.
Spring 2009 saw the crop of calves brought through to finish at 20 or 22 months of age and the steers at 22 or 24 months of age.
The results to date indicate that the animal performance achieved was comparable to that obtained from conventional beef suckler systems.
The carcass weights for the heifers finished at 20 or 22 months was 269 and 311 KG, respectively, and the corresponding values for the steers was 337 and 372 KG.
Production responses to sire breed type and level of finish were similar to conventional beef suckler systems.
It was found that all animals irrespective of gender or age at slaughter achieved acceptable levels of finish and acceptable carcass weights.
