Archive Article: 2001/03/09
Chris Knowles
Chris Knowles farms in
partnership with his parents
in the West Penwith
Environmentally Sensitive
Area near St Ives, Cornwall.
The farm consists of 97ha
(240 acres) of grassland and
45ha (110 acres) of rough
moor land, stocked with 160
dairy cows, 80 followers and
50 assorted beef animals
WHAT a difference a fortnight can make. For the first time since last September we actually have some decent ground conditions.
The milkers went out on Feb 15, initially for about three hours. Currently they are out for seven hours and grazing about 6kg DM/head. The dry weather came just in time, as silage stocks were starting to look fairly low.
We have gone from using just over 5t silage/day to just over 3t. Concentrates have yet to be cut back in an attempt to produce and sell as much milk as possible in this quota year.
We have about 40 cows left to calve; those furthest off are in on silage and those showing bag are out at grass full time. This last group are given a fresh break of grass after evening milking to encourage them to calve during the day. This has resulted in about 80% calving during daylight hours.
We are taking a different approach to grassland management this spring than in the past. All fields will be grazed and no ground will be shut up for silage until grass growth really takes off in April.
Having always made silage during the first week of May, we will now be looking at late May instead. I should let our silage contractor know of our plans, although he has recently taken on the tenancy of our local pub so I expect I will be seeing him there from time to time anyway.
Cornwall has recently secured the highest level of European funding – Objective 1 status. Most farmers are understandably eager to know how this will affect their businesses and exactly what opportunities for funding there will be.
At present there seems to be a lot of confusion over what is eligible for funding. I recently received both an application form and explanatory notes. Perhaps the provision of a dictionary and thesaurus would be useful as both documents smacked of European bureaucracy at its most complicated. *
Despite the spectre of foot-and-mouth hanging over the industry, life goes on… Chris Knowles has turned cows out for a few hours a day recently and plans to change his approach to grassland management this year.