UGS hosts successful Autumn Meeting

THE Ulster Grassland Society held an Autumn Meeting this week on the dairy farm of John, Karen and Claire Beckett on the outskirts of Donaghcloney and on the day well over 150 members and friends made the trip to see this award winning dairy farm

Following a welcome cup of tea or coffee Ulster Grassland Society President Harold Johnston welcomed everyone to this Autumn event and thanked the host family before introducing John and Claire Beckett to the assembled crowd

Claire Beckett outlined the history of the farm which had been purchased by her Grandfather from an uncle in the 1950s with dairy farming the main enterprise since then apart from a period in the 1980s when milk production ceased. Today the 200 acre farm supports a dairy herd of 150 Holstein cows with around 90 replacement heifers and around 37 acres of cereals grown annually.

She outlined the four main farm objectives which are:

– Increase output from the land

– Grow and utilise more grass

– Make high quality silage

– Have a clear vision for the farm and what is achievable integrating family and work life balance

The farm tour, led by Claire Beckett, included stops featuring dry cow management; calf rearing, milking cow management, grassland management and grazing for low yielding cows.

At each of the stops during the farm tour she clearly outlined farm policy and a number of innovative or novel management practices particularly focused on ensuring cows calve down and transition to the milking herd easily and achieve maximum production before going back in calf in a timely fashion.

The herd currently yields 10,322 litres with 3,173 litres produced from forage on 3,217 kgs concentrates fed per cow. Milk quality is also important with the herd currently achieving 4.13 per cent butterfat and 3.28 per cent protein and an average Somatic Cell Count of 113 (‘000/ml). The high yielding cows are housed full-time with medium yielders grazed during the day and low yielders grazed full-time. High yielding cows are fed twice daily and low yielders fed once per day during the winter.

Paddocks are pre-mowed every round from 2nd round onwards with grass measured every 5-7 days and grass quality tested regularly throughout the season. The area required for grazing each day is accurately calculated and measured out via a field navigator app to avoid under feeding or wasting grass. Around 10-15 per cent of grassland is reseeded every year with five cuts of high-quality silage made with the first cut taken in 1st week in May and every five weeks thereafter.

There is great attention given to all diets and the forages being used are analysed monthly. This helps ensure that cows calve down ready to produce milk, milking cows go back in calf easily and young stock achieve their target size to join the herd at 24 months or less. Close-up dry cows are fed on a controlled energy, low DCAB diet for the last four weeks prior to calving. The attention to detail in all aspects of the farm business is extremely high with many new technologies in use on the farm.

Some of the innovative technologies adopted on the farm include: slurry used on grazing ground, sulphur based fertiliser used to improve nitrogen utilisation. no clover used when reseeding, use of field navigator app to accurately measure grass allocations, standing hay managed for far-off dry cows and regular urine testing of housed in-calf cows.

Throughout the farm tour there was wide-ranging discussion with plenty of visitor participation through questions asked and dialogue amongst visitors.

At the conclusion of the visit UGS Past President Charlie Kilpatrick proposed a vote of thanks to the Beckett family and particularly complimented Claire Beckett on her contribution to the success of the visit. He also acknowledged the support of event sponsors Fane Valley; Masons Animal Feeds; Trouw Nutrition & Yara

All UGS members also wished the Becketts well as finalists in the British Grassland Society’s Grassland Farmer of the Year competition with the results announced soon.