Farmer Focus: Investigating soil and genomics results
Brian Yates © Jim Varney Here we are again, where do the months go?
We’re in February already and the weather has been so mild – it’s more like spring.
But does this mean we will have a late winter?
Because we put slurry on two months ago, we feel we should sample the soil in some of our fields to see what the pH is like.
We got the results back a week later and we now need to spread a little lime on a few of the fields to get the pH levels back to where they should be.
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My son Michael’s talk at the Semex conference went well despite it being his first big talk.
His smaller Holstein Club talks prior seemed to help prepare him.
Hopefully by the time you read this we would have received our genomic results on the heifers we have tested.
So we are looking forward to the mammoth task of sifting through all the information.
My wife Sheila and I had a nice couple of days away to the little fishing port of Port Patrick in south-west Scotland.
We thoroughly enjoyed a run around the Mull of Galloway which we have never been to before.
Michael is at it again, this must mean it is show time.
We are trying our two show cows on a hay diet to see if it will give them more body capacity ready for the UK Dairy Expo in March.
It was a nice start to February with our first sexed IVF embryos being born on farm.
They all went a week over due which was concerning, but they all arrived safely.
They are out of the red and white show cow from America, Starmark AD Hotstuff by Absolute.
On another note, I hope you all remembered to send your better halves a Valentine’s card this year.
Brian Yates milks 250 pedigree Holsteins in partnership with his wife Sheila, son Michael and daughter Anna. Surplus heifers are sold for breeding.