Farming for output and sustainability in Co Antrim

When moving to a lower input farming system, maintaining output levels has always been a challenge.

In recent years, Bill Harpur has concentrated his focus on farming with the environment and sustainability in mind.

At the same time, he has worked hard to maintain output from his beef finishing enterprise, despite reducing purchased inputs, such as fertiliser and concentrate feed, year on year.

As the host for the first “Profit from Pasture” farm walk organised by CAFRE’s beef and sheep advisory team, Bill outlined the changes to his farming system in the last four years.

Greater use of red and white clover, along with multispecies swards has reduced chemical fertiliser use by as much as 50%.

Targeted use of homegrown grain is displacing bought-in feed to finish cattle, while a ruthless attitude to cow fertility and monitoring weight gain in stores has seen kilos of carcase output rise from 600kg to 614kg/ha in three years.

Farm background

The farm unit extends to 69.2ha (170 acres) outside Portrush. Grass is the dominant land use, accounting for 64.3ha (158 acres) with the remaining area in winter cereals.

The grain and straw harvested is utilised by the farm’s cattle enterprise. Traditionally, Bill ran 60 spring-calving suckler cows with all progeny finished through an Aberdeen Angus scheme.

However, the workload and associated costs with suckler cows has seen numbers reduced to 46 in the last two years and potentially dropping to 40 breeding females.

As cow numbers fell, a dairy calf-to-beef enterprise was established with Angus-sired animals bought in. There are 40 beef cross animals split between yearling stores and calves in their first grazing year.

Stocking rate is in the region of 1.66 cow equivalents per hectare, similar to 2020/21 levels before cow numbers reduced.

Gross margin

Gross margin was £844/ha in 2023, down from £921 in 2022 and £1,001 in 2021, reflecting the rise in the cost of farm inputs.

Those cost increases have pushed Bill to implement changes inside the farm gate, geared at insulating his business from rising input prices.

The knock-on from these changes is also reducing greenhouse gas emissions, something Bill is also passionate about as he currently chairs the Ulster Farmers’ Union environment committee.

Cutting fertiliser use by 50%

From 2020 to 2023, chemical fertiliser use on farm is down by approximately 50%, equating to 9.2t of actual product. That has helped lower emissions by 47t of CO2 equivalents.

As stocking rate has been maintained, there is still a significant grazing demand on farm, before factoring in winter forage.

Most of the fertiliser applied to grazing ground is spread in late spring with swards getting one bag per acre of nitrogen in April. Some swards did get another 22 units/acre as required.

From late June to the end of the season, clover will drive grass growth.

Silage ground gets 2,500 gallons/acre and chemical fertiliser for first cut, then 2,000 gallons/acre in second cut.

Slurry has been analysed for nutrient content and 1,000 gallons of slurry produced by finishing cattle contains 12 units of nitrogen (N), 11 units of phosphorous (P) and 65 units of potash (K). Slurry from cows had 8-9-42 units of NPK per 1,000 gallons.

Multispecies swards

In 2020, a multispecies sward of six varieties was established on a six acre field and remains in place on farm. It is currently split in six paddocks and grazed by 18 dairy-beef yearling stores.

It received one bag/acre of fertiliser to aid sward establishment. But no further chemical nitrogen applications have since been applied, saving three tonnes of fertiliser in the process.

As highlighted by Bill during the farm walk, taking fertiliser prices in 2023, the use of nitrogen-fixing legumes saved close on £5,000 last year.

The success of legumes gave the confidence to sow out 12 acres of red clover last autumn with the aim of harvesting high protein silage.

Bill expressed some concern that the sward is potentially underperforming due to low soil pH at 5.8, as well as some issues with compaction.

Weather depending, these factors will be addressed after second cut with 2t/acre of lime applied and some form of sub-soiling possibly carried out.

Grass growth has been a challenge for every farmer during 2024. Grass growth is measured weekly to aid management with the farm currently carrying an average cover of 2,700kg DM/ha.

Growth picked up in late June, increasing to 57kg DM/day with livestock demand on 41kg/day.

In early June, demand was exceeding growth, limiting opportunities to remove surplus grass as baled silage.

Just 19 bales of silage have been removed from the grazing platform this year.

Normally, there would be close to 100 bales of surplus grass removed from paddocks by late June.

Driving suckler cow efficiencies

The 46-cow suckler herd is managed as an “all-in, all-out” system.

Cows are Limousin-bred with replacements purchased as heifer weanlings in the autumn each year.

Around 15 heifers are bought in and mated around 15 months old to calve down at 24 months.

To limit calving difficulties, Bill measures the internal pelvic area of heifers one month before breeding.

Heifers with a pelvic area greater than 200cm2 go to an Angus bull. Heifers under that figure are beefed.

The process is working with eight out of 10 heifers typically calving without intervention.

Progress

Two heifers received assistance this year, one for a calf coming backwards and another that was making slow progress.

All calves are tagged and navel dipped shortly after birth.

Male calves are castrated at this point also, with cows and newborn progeny turned out to grass within a day or two of calving.

Calving figures

The herd had a calving index of 373 last year with 39 out of 47 animals calving in less than 390 days year on year.

That figure should be improved on for 2024, once all calving data is finalised.

Bulls run with cows for a maximum 10 weeks with 82% of breeding females in the herd observed back in heat and mated within 90 days of calving.

Over the years, the replacement rate is typically around 18%.

Cows are routinely culled for low milking ability, temperament, calf quality and falling outside of the target calving pattern.

While the tight selection policy will have a major bearing on cow fertility, so too does the timing of the calving pattern.

Cows calve in April and May, allowing them to go out to grass within a few days and on to a high energy diet of grazed grass.

The no-passenger approach and zero tolerance for under-performing cattle means that steers and heifers are all finished between 20 and 22 months of age at 340kg to 360kg carcase weight.

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