Lancashire: Managing soils for a sustainable future

Join us for an on-farm event at Lodge Farm, Myerscough College to find out how Ruari Martin, Director of Farm Operations and Innovations at Myerscough College, aims to produce as much energy and protein as possible for feed, but also encourage carbon sequestration.

Stocks of soil carbon can either be sequestered (captured) or emitted (released), depending upon land management and grazing practices, so it is vital that we protect our soil health as it is critical to environmental and business sustainability.

You will also hear from Independent Grassland Consultant, Dr George Fisher, about what it takes to conserve the ability of your soil to continue sequestering carbon.

This event will also cover:

• The ins and outs of soil carbon – measurement and management
• Remedial steps already taken place at Lodge Farm to reduce soil compaction and how you can assess soils to decide upon the most suitable way to improve your soil
• How a “field to field, and season to season” approach is important for soil health
• GREATsoils – AHDB information on soil management

To assist with biosecurity and conform to government guidelines please ensure outer clothing and vehicles are clean and that clean boots that can be disinfected are worn. Please note children under the age of 16 and dogs are not allowed at the event, even if they are staying in the car.

Health and Safety guidelines for AHDB Events

Our speaker - Dr George Fisher

Dr George Fisher is an Independant Grassland consultant with both an academic and commercial background. A former British Grassland Sociecty President, he has published many papers and is currently working with ADAS as part of the Grass YEN project which focuses on increasing grassland yields.

About Myerscough College

Lodge Farm is one of three farms which Myerscough College tenant from the Duchy of Lancaster. The farm is based next to the main college campus just North of Preston, Lancashire. The farm team consist of 8 full time staff and up to a further 4 casuals at busy times of year. The dairy enterprise is managed by Farm Director Ruari Martin with help from Assistant Manager Patrick Armitage and a herdsperson.

The farms form neighbouring units which make up the 300 ha farming business, run as one operation comprising 200 dairy cows, 1500 breeding sheep, 70 suckler cattle, 300 finishing beef and 40ha of arable. This commercial activity provides a working example of the industry for over 5,000 students in land-based courses across the North West each year.

The dairy herd is managed as a 200 cow, all-year-round calving, 9,000-10,000 litre semi-intensive herd on a CO-OP liquid milk contract. Cows are milked twice a day averaging 4.2% butterfat and 3.45% protein year to September 2020. Sexed semen is used to breed the best heifer replacement with all other inseminations to beef to put through the finishing unit at Lodge. Heifers calve at 24 months with a full RMS courtesy of Genus.

Cows are housed most of the year with PD+ cattle grazed from March to September, weather permitting. PD- and fresh cows are housed all summer to maintain diet consistency and aid fertility. The farm runs a PMR with one diet for open cows and another for PD+ with cows fed to yield through out of parlour feeders. These mixes consist of predominantly grass silage, whole crop, blend and minerals. The future aim is to improve grassland productivity through reseeding to open more cropping ground for home produced forage and grain.

Find out more about Myerscough College

About Strategic Dairy Farms

Strategic dairy farms help farmers learn from each other through regular on-farm meetings where we share key performance data and showcase what the best farmers are doing.

They form part of the Optimal Dairy Systems programme which aims to help dairy farmer’s lower costs and increase efficiency by focusing on either a block or all-year-round calving system.

The growing network of strategic dairy farms have calculated key performance indicators (KPIs) for their enterprises which are shared at meetings and published online. These are physical and financial performance measures that are critical to success. Farmers can benchmark their businesses against these KPIs and identify areas for improvement.

Explore our other strategic dairy farms