Grassland Series
This four-part series takes a detailed look into the different ways to make the greatest return from this most valuable and productive resource – grass. We partnered with British Dairying to create this Grassland Special series.
Maximise your grassland
This series will take a detailed look at the economics to reseeding grassland and why the returns outweigh the investment, alongside a farmer case study.
Grass is as important as the livestock and treated as a dedicated crop. Like cereal crops, grassland needs consistent management throughout the year to improve the yield and quality. Understanding your production goal is as important as knowing the starting point.
The Value of Grassland
Maximising the potential of grass has been the bedrock on which UK livestock production and progression has been built upon for centuries, and now more than ever, farmers should be ensuring that the forage they are producing is reaching its potential to help offset the exposure to external costs.
Soil Management and Nutrition
Ambitions to maximise forage quality and yield will be increased when sowing productive modern grass varieties into soil that is in good heart, and that starts with getting nutrition right and fully understanding your goals.
Planning the Reseed
Knowing your goals from any grassland works will allow an informed choice when it comes to selecting grass varieties and additional species, and the benefits to getting it right will have far reaching advantages across the whole farm.
How to Maximise your Grassland Investment
This looks at choosing the right establishment to maximise your investment, with the cost of grassland rejuvenation and the options available for implementing the works and why replacing tired swards with modern varieties can increase the return from existing land.
Case Study
Darren Shepherd – Birchills Farm, Hassop, Derbyshire
Darren Shepherd farms 485ha at Birchills Farm in Hassop, Derbyshire. The family run dairy farm has a pedigree Holstein herd, milking 600 cows twice a day and rearing all their own followers, selling any surplus animals through local markets. Current herd numbers stand at 1,300 cows.
The focus of the farm in recent years has been to produce more milk from forage with a programme of changing older grass leys into more productive areas. The 485ha is divided up into grazing and silage land.
“Part of the aim from the investment we are putting into the grassland is to reduce concentrate usage across the farm and achieve higher yields and quality from the forage we produce,” says Mr Shepherd.
One of the challenges, he said, in the early stages was to know where to start. “Being able to choose the correct grass varieties that would be suited to our system and our soils to achieve the maximum potential, required expert advice to get us started.”
The knowledge Mr Shepherd has gained by having professional advice has been invaluable, and this isn’t just down to sowing the right grass varieties, but also the various cultivation techniques that he has now adopted.
