ABOVE LEFT One trial which is currently taking place at
Acrehead Farm is looking at cutting and carrying grass to feed cows in the shed compared to TMR and grazing.
ABOVE RIGHT Hosting visits can be very rewarding and most
schools provide a scrap book of their visit to look at.
BELOW Cows at Crichton Royal Farm graze two windows out of the three during the summer.
of the first years a school visit was hosted from Wallace Hall Academy, Thornhill and Samantha Haining showed a lot of interest. Unfortunately, her school did not support her request to spend one day a week on placement at the Crichton Royal.
Luckily for Samantha, Hugh was keen to encourage her in to the industry and organised her a place on the Modern Apprentice course at the local Barony College. She then progressed to completing her HND in Agriculture two years later and now has a full time job at Crichton Royal Farm and is a valued member of the team. “This is the kind of result I hope
working with the community can achieve. It is rewarding seeing someone with an interest be able to get started and flourish in a job they enjoy,” explains Hugh. It isn’t only schools that Crichton hosts visits for, Hugh is always welcoming to any organisation and is regularly invited to deliver presentations and talks which usually result in a visit after. The groups range from Rotary Clubs from Stranraer, Dalbeattie, Castle Douglas and Dumfries, Annan Business and Professional Ladies Club to French and Brazilian farmer tours and in between, including groups from Whitby and Southern Ireland. For 10 years Crichton Royal Farm has opened its gates for Open Farm Sunday in different formats. The first year was run on an invite only basis and then for seven years the gates were open completely with an invite only system back in place for the past two years. “We find limiting the numbers to 100 is more manageable and we can concentrate on the group taking the right message away from the visit. The past two years I have invited local Churches. They are a cross section of the community and already know each other, so I can then focus on the tour and they happily communicate among themselves.
“It is extremely rewarding hosting visits and being able to spread the story of dairy farming in a positive way. It is important to be positive in all aspects of farming, particularly during challenging periods such as the present climate when returns are diminished due to a poor milk price.” On a practical level the team of six full time and seven part time staff milk 510 cows three times a day across two units on the 700 acre farm just outside Dumfries.
The herd of 280 cows at Crichton Royal Farm carry the long established Langhill prefix which originates from Edinburgh University’s Langhill farm and was taken on when the herd moved to Dumfries in 2002. The herd itself has been part of research since it was founded in the 1970s and has been managed as a Holstein Genetic Study comprising of High (Select) and Average (Control) Genetic Merit Traits throughout this period. Cows in the control group are bred to bulls selected on average genetic merit for the UK, while the select group are bred for high genetic merit and bulls are selected with high butterfat and protein yields. Average sire £PIN for the control group is -2 while the select group is 37 and sire £PLI for the control group is £3 with the select group averaging £173.
THE JOURNAL AUGUST 2015 25
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