I farm: “30ac with my wife, Janet, and three adult children, Meghan, Craig and Sophie, who all lend a hand on the farm when they’re home. We are primarily a beef farm, but keep 50 ewes to help manage the ragwort.”

Sucklers: “We used to keep a lot of sucklers but in recent years we’ve cut down on numbers. I have five pedigree Parthenaise cows and 15 black Limousins.”

Beef: “For the past five years, we have been in the ABP Blade Farming system. We take in 180 12-week-old calves on contract and send them for slaughter at 340kg to 350kg. The calves are a dairy-Angus cross and are fattened on the farm for 14 to 18 months.”

Colin Tyner pictured with his wife Janet and daughters Meghan and Sophie. \ CJ Nash

BEAM solution: “As part of the BEAM scheme, I am required to reduce the production of bovine livestock manure nitrogen by 5%. We have cottages on the farm and we thought wouldn’t it be lovely to sow a few acres of sunflowers for the visitors while also meeting the 5% reduction.”

Sunflowers: “The sunflowers have grown like mad. They are 6ft tall and nearly four acres are now coming into bloom. We decided we needed to share the flowers with the public while also doing some good.”

Charity: “Our son, Craig, works for the Irish Cancer Society. We thought it would be great if we could raise money for the society and the Wicklow Hospice Foundation.”

The four acres of sunflowers are just coming into bloom and the field will be open to visitors in aid of charity for the next three weeks. \ CJ Nash

Visit the field: “We welcome everyone to come and visit our field of sunflowers. People can go for a walk through the field, take pictures, and bring some of the flowers home with them. We have a donations box at the entry to the field and all money raised will go to charity.”

Warm feedback: “Charities have been hit hard this year by the various restrictions and we hope our fundraiser will make a difference. We have a comments book in the field and have received some heartfelt messages.”

The Tyners’ sunflower field is located at Eircode Y14 X440 and is open to visitors from now until the end of August.

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