Watch: growing more grass in Caithness

Mark and Shona Mackay farm in partnership at Greenvale with their two children, Sophie and Katie. Greenvale is a 360ha (900 acre) farm and carries 160 Aberdeen Angus and Simmental cross suckler cows put to Charolais bulls to produce 8- to 15-month-old store cattle. The farm also uses an Aberdeen Angus bull to breed replacements from.

The cows are split fairly evenly between spring (March/April) and summer (May/June) calving. Housing is a limiting factor on the farm, with all of the spring cows and weaned calves housed at Greenvale while the summer calvers overwinter on a large area of sandy hill. The farm grows around 20ha of spring barley every year to be used as feed for the cattle. Ewe lambs from a hill farm are also grazed from September to April.

Farm plan

Currently, the stocking rate at Greenvale is running at 0.74 livestock units per hectare (LU/ha) of grassland. Targeting a stocking rate of 1LU/ha will lead to an increase in output. With the control Mark has on his variable costs, this will have a major impact on profitability.

In order to increase the stocking rate, the business will intensify the grazing on the lower ground. Grassland management will be a major part of the farm plan. A comprehensive fertiliser plan has be established for the farm to address soil nutrient deficiencies over the next couple of years. By growing and utilising more grass on the farm the Mackays will not only be able to increase the stocking rate, by improving sward quality liveweight gain at pasture will improve, increasing output per cow significantly.

Mark and Shona Mackay with their daughters Sophie and Katie.

Cattle started going to grass on 8 May. We had planned on an earlier turnout but April was just so cold we had to hold off. All the cattle are now at grass and growing conditions have really improved, with the weather in May really picking up.

Summer calving is coming to an end now, with just 10 left to calve. The summer calvers were drawn from the hill twice a week to a paddock across from the yard as they came close to calving. This makes it much easier to keep an eye on them and run anything that needs assistance into the yard. The few empty cows were in good condition so with the current price being so good we have put them away.

We are really pleased with the calving figures so far but there is along way to go until they are through the sales ring so we won’t get carried away just yet. That being said, the spring calving is ahead of last year’s results and the summer calving is on track to match last year’s.

Grazing fertiliser went out in the second half of April, with 250kg/ha of 27:6:6 going on. We have also spread a good bit of lime this year as when the soil samples came back, we had a couple of fields with a pH lower than the target of 6.3 for grassland.

As part of the project, this year we are having a go at rotational grazing. Since turnout, we have had a bulling group of 35 cows and calves running on just under 11ha. Originally it was two fields, a 3.5ha and a 7ha, so we split the 7ha field in two with some posts and a single electric wire to make three evenly sized paddocks.

Summer calvers are wintered on a sandy hill.

The original plan had been to put in 25 cows and calves but by the time we could get cattle out, the field was further ahead than planned, so we put in 35 cows and calves. We had planned to have the cows on weekly shifts between the paddocks, giving a 21-day rotation across the block. Unfortunately, with the grass being further ahead than we would have liked at the start, we realised after a week or so that the cows were never going to make it across all three paddocks without some of it getting too stemmy.

To keep quality in the sward, we skipped the middle section and moved the cows straight across to the other side of the block and cut the middle for silage. It was mown on the afternoon of 24 May, lay for a day and I baled it on 26 May. I would estimate that the 34 bales will have given us around 5t of dry matter of really good-quality silage.

Newborn calves at Greenvale.

After it was cleared, I spread another 125kg/ha of 27:6:6 and it is recovering nicely. We should get back in to graze it in the next few days. So far, we have used about 80kg of nitrogen on the 11ha, costing around £90/ha. We are also considering lifting the wire between the paddocks a little to allow the calves to creep graze ahead of their mothers into better-quality grass.

With the grass being a little ahead of us, I am now topping the other two paddocks to clear off the stem that has come up and reset the grass for the rest of the season

Bulls are now out with the spring cows and with the good grass in front of them, we have seen plenty of activity. Unfortunately, one of the bulls has gone down with laminitis. We are putting it down to the transition from the end of winter feeding on to lush grass. Next year, to make sure this doesn’t happen, we plan to run the bulls out on to a bare paddock for a few weeks before they get turned out with the cows.

The Caithness suckler group came together last week, with a farm walk hosted by group member Mark McKay. Grazing management was central to the group meeting and the merits of setting up a rotational grazing system debated.

Mark has set up three paddocks on a 10.5ha (25 acres) grazing block which is comfortably carrying 35 spring-calving cows and calves.

Group discussion revolved around:

1 Frequency of moving animals: Cattle are working off a 21-day rotational, meaning they are back grazing the first field in the rotation every 21 days. Cattle are moving around three paddocks, with cows staying for one week in each division. Mark commented on how quickly cows become accustomed to moving to fresh pasture and do so without fuss.

2 Grass utilisation: With strong grass growth on farm, utilisation is becoming an issue at the moment. Cattle are being held on paddocks for longer than planned in an effort to bring grass quality under control.

With cows moving into heavy grazing cover, there is a lot of wasted and soiled grass.

The option of splitting paddocks further to reduce size was discussed and is something Mark would be in favour of.

A smaller area would offer more control over grazing and allow for additional silage bales to be harvested from the land block.

Last month, 36 bales of good-quality silage were harvested from one 8 acre paddock. Grass re-growth may be offered to calves through creep grazing. Simply raising the electric wire will allow calves to creep ahead of cows, but still hold back cows.

3 Topping: As grass turns to seed and stem, sward quality drops quickly.

Group members suggested increasing stocking rates on the land block to clean out swards fully, ideally with sheep. This is not an option for Mark, so he is going to top swards instead.

After topping, cows will be allowed back into the paddocks to clean off grass that has been mown.

The group discussed the merits of topping, the height to set the blades and whether to fertiliser the sward afterwards.

Mark decided to cut swards to 4cm using a disc mower and apply one bag per acre of fertiliser to stimulate regrowth.

Group action

As part of group discussion, several members said they would be willing to try and replicate some sort of rotation system on part of their own land this year.

The advice from within the group was to start with larger paddocks that can be reduced in size, once cattle and the farmer have become used to managing the setup.