Samenvatting

Nowadays, Ireland has around 140 000 farms and most of these Irish farmers specialize in dairy production. The growth of grass is important as it is the principal foodstuff for producing milk cheaply. One litre of milk costs the dairy farmer between 20 and 30 cents, compared to 35 cents in France for example. Moreover, the lifting of quotas in 2015 allowed Irish farms to increase their milk production having been subject to several years of limits. Grass growth is, therefore, so important in order to produce low cost milk. With, often, more than one thousand millilitres of rainfall and a temperature that rarely exceeding 25°C, the weather allows for good grass yield per hectare.