Angus monitor farm

A recent farm walk was held on the Angus monitor farm of Robert, Alison and their son, Rory, Stodart. The theme of the walk was examining the winter feed options available, with the farm planning on growing five acres of fodder beet for the first time this winter.

“We have been renting out parks for ewes to graze for the winter months, but it is an expensive option,” according to Rory. “Fodder beet is a new crop for a lot of folk in this area and the hope is that we get a good crop for the winter. We have grown turnips and kale before, but this is our first year with fodder beet.”

The farm encompasses about 1,000 acres in total, with 900 of this owned. A mixed farming enterprise, it is run with sheep, cattle and arable land. There has been a big move by the family to streamline operations on the farm and make better use of the labour that they currently have, with additional labour difficult to source.

Rory only came back to farm in the past couple of years, which has led to a considerable increase in ewe numbers. In 2016, 200 ewes were lambed down on the farm, while this spring has seen a rise to 700.

“We are still trying to find our feet really, there have been a lot of changes over the past few years,” according to Rory. “We are stockmen on arable ground, but we have to go with what is doing well and arable has been strong for the past few years.”

Winter feeding

“We are probably maxed out now in terms of the stock that we are carrying on our grass. We are running about six ewes to the acre,” Rory said.

One of the big decisions to be made on the farm is what to do with ewes and store lambs for the winter months.

“We generally rent out parks for the winter months from other local farmers for the sheep. I would still look after them and do the management.

“It costs about 50p/week for each ewe and 40p/week for each lamb to rent out these parks for the few months. Going on the figures we have the cost of the fodder beet to keep ewes will be 14p/week, so it could be a good saving, if we get the yields we hope.”

Kirsten William from SAC is advising the Stobarts on the use of fodder beet, outlining that yields can vary from 65 to 90t/ha, highlighting the large carrying capacity that may exist. It is important to note that the fodder beet will only be approximately 70% of the ewes’ diet.

It is not a cheap crop to grow, so it is important that it is well looked after to ensure the best yields possible. SAC outline that the cost of actually planting the crop is approximately £173.10/ha, while the inputs required for the crop run to £556.45/ha. Fertiliser is the biggest requirement at £218.80/ha, but it is a crop that must be fed if the targeted yields are to be achieved.

“It also makes management a lot easier because I won’t have to be going as far to look at ewes. It will also help to bring fertility back into some of the ground,” said Rory.

“Last winter about 400 of the 750 ewes went off-farm for part of the winter, along with 250 store lambs which were purchased and went off for a few months and came back in January to be finished.

“We are debating whether to keep all ewes at home and not buy in any store lambs at all this year, but we don’t know yet what we will do,” Rory said. “When we brought all the sheep back home in January any grass that was left was grazed intensively – this lead to health issues with coccidiosis among other things. So that would be my one concern about stocking ewes heavily on fodder beet.”

Suckler herd

The Stodarts run a herd of 150 suckler cows, while also purchasing in-store cattle for finishing. Up until this year they have operated a spring and autumn herd, but the system has now changed, according to Rory.

“We will be all spring calving for the first time next year. We have stopped putting the bull in for the autumn calvers. It was just costing too much to keep them (autumn calvers) fed through the winter. There was also the management side, all the extra work that a small group of cows is causing – you could lose a day doing a small job.

“There will be a little bit extra work in spring alright, but overall it will make things easier,” says Rory.

Making use of arable ground

Rory also outlined how the farm is trying to make better use of some of the arable land: “Last year we under-sowed grass with some spring barley, but it didn’t work well as we probably seeded at too high a rate. We are trying to find a grass that we can grow and it won’t have too much of an effect on the barley yield.

“We have 300-400 acres of spring barley so we were trying to do something that would mean it was not left fallow for winter – we wanted to make some use of the ground. This year we are going to broadcast Italian ryegrass at about 7.5kg/ha over the next few weeks so the spring barley gets a good start. It will probably cost about £25/ha to do, but hopefully it will be worth it.

“The crops are looking remarkably well given the spring we’ve had,” Rory said. “The last two weeks have made a big change here and I don’t think the harvest will end up being affected too much.

Silage production has also began on the farm, with 150 bales made in the past few days.

“It is the earliest we have ever made silage, which is surprising given the way spring has been. It was made for the sheep – it might be a lower yield, but it is better quality. It could be the best quality silage we ever made I would think, but we will have to wait for the analysis to come back.”

Lothians monitor farm

A meeting also took place on the Lothians monitor farm over the past week, where Prestonhall farm and Saughland farm are working together as a joint monitor farm.

Bill Gray manages Prestonhall farm, where 490ha are dedicated to arable production. The focus was on the difficult spring and the knock-on effects that it will have on management for the rest of the summer.

“We’ve had to look at how we will manage some of the poorer crops, especially some of the winter crops that are not performing,” Bill said.

“We cannot treat all of these crops like they are going to reach their full potential, because they are not. Some fields are struggling, so we have to look at the inputs that we are using. We are going to reduce fungicide applications by up to 20% on some of the poorer winter crops, while some of the winter barley crops are going to get reduced nitrogen applications.

“We are going to drop back nitrogen applications by about 20kg/ha. Our NVZ means that we can spread 180kg/ha and we are going to drop this to 160kg/ha. It is a balance – we don’t want to cut it by too much or we could affect what potential there is, so it is just getting the balance right.

“On a positive note, although we started sowing spring barley three weeks later than usual it is looking well and the winter wheat is also growing well,” according to Bill.

Difficult spring

On the neighbouring Saughland farm, the focus is predominantly on livestock and it has been a very challenging lambing period.

“It has been a difficult last six months,” according to farm manager Peter Eccles.

“When it came to lambing ewes were probably not in as good a condition as they would have been in other years, even though we started feeding meal in February, with lambing starting at the beginning of April. We would have used swedes and grass for ewes most years over winter, but this year we had to go to plan B.

“Even though they were getting the concentrates they suffered a bit, while they would usually be at a body condition score of 2.5 to 3, they were 2 to 2.5. Colostrum quality was also effected and there was an increase in mortality in the first 48 hours.

Due to the difficulties over the past months, Peter will make some changes in a bid to make management easier for next winter.

“We lambed 1,800 ewes and 350 ewe hogs this year, but I think I will drop back by a couple of hundred ewes for next winter – with the plan to increase from 70 suckler cows to 100.

“We have also put in fodder beet for the first time this year to be grazed over winter, which will hopefully take the pressure off too,” said Peter.

While cows would generally be let out to grass after calving, the lack of grass meant that cows and calves had to be housed for a month after calving. Due to the pressure on housing, all store bullocks were sold as stores for the first time.

“The plan this year is to sell all the bullocks as weanlings at eight months of age, this will mean that we are not under pressure for housing,” said Peter.

Calving has gone very well on the farm this year, with 69 calves from 68 cows.

“We are good at producing live calves and we are efficient at it, so we are going to focus on what we are good at. We are not specialist finishers, we want to try and utilise grass to the best of our abilities and produce kilos of meat, whether it is beef or lamb,” according to Peter.

The Monitor Farm Programme is managed by Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds, funded by the Scottish Government.