Switching from whole crop to grain in England's wet northwest

Breaking with convention, a dairy farming family from Lancaster has ditched wholecrop forage in favour of a high value cereal concentrate feed, despite the constraints of their wet, northwestern farm.

Convention has it that the Lune valley in northern Lancashire – sandwiched between the Forest of Bowland,  the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales – is not an area suited to growing and harvesting grain. Any cereals grown are usually wholecropped early in the season and stored as forage. And any attempts to harvest grain have often been met with disappointment in one of the UK’s highest rainfall regions.

But the Norris family have never been constrained by convention. Although they had historically grown and wholecropped cereals for their 350 Holstein dairy cows and around 600 beef and followers they run at Priory Farm, near the village of Hornby, they began to question why. For while they were filling their clamps with wholecrop cereals, they were also buying in wheat to use as concentrate feed in their dairy and beef rations. But as the price of wheat and straw went up, they began to realise this practice was costing them dear. “We have around 1,000 head of stock on the farm at any one time, and we were buying 1-2 artic loads of caustic-treated wheat every month, and were also buying in straw,” says John Norris, (pictured above) who farms the family’s 700-acres (283ha) with his parents, Peter and Jackie, and wife, Megan, with the part-time help of their daughter, Charlotte.

Aware they were perfectly capable of growing wheat on their land – whose soils range from heavy clays to some fertile and free-draining, alluvial soils in the river valley – they started to contemplate how they could take it through to harvest as grain. However, they were worried about weather and ground conditions if they harvested late and were also concerned the straw would be too wet to successfully bale and store. These concerns were compounded by their lack of dry grain storage.

Finding a contractor

The switch to crimp was instigated by Andrew four years ago and the first challenge he faced was finding the right contractor. “Very few people combine or bale straw in this area and we don’t own a combine ourselves,” says John. “But Michael Carpenter [technical director for Kelvin Cave Ltd], helped us find three separate contractors to combine, crimp, bale and wrap the straw who were all from near Garstang, around 18 miles away.

“Andrew and Michael just got it all sorted and the three contractors all worked well and seamlessly together,” says John. Four years into the process, which John has now taken over, he says it continues to work just as well, including the management of the straw. “The combine leaves a smallish row of straw and we bought a hay bob and turn it once, or sometimes twice.”

Crimping wheat

Meanwhile, the crimp itself has been an even greater success, taking its place in the total mixed ration for the dairy herd as well as the growing stock. “We’ve just harvested a record crop of wheat for crimping,” says John. “Average yields have come in at 5.2t/acre [12.85t/ha] which was combined on 23-25 July and baled a few days later [28 July]. We have never had a crop like this – we’re ecstatic.”

Michael explains how higher yields are expected when cereals are harvested for crimping, not just because the moisture is higher, but because the crop is in a better condition and has not senesced like dry harvested cereals. There is also much less grain lost through shedding at the higher moisture,” he adds.

Finishing Holstein steers

Finishing pure Holstein steers, in another break with convention, John explains: “It’s what we know and we’ve stuck with it because it works. We have recently used some sexed dairy semen but at the moment, we have male Holstein calves and we keep them until they’re finished.”

Their finishing TMR – fed from liveweights of about 350kg – comprises 1.5kg crimped wheat, 5kg beef blend, 2kg maize silage and 12kg third or fourth cut grass silage. With around five bullocks finished and sold each week, daily liveweight gains averaging just over 2kg/day are achieved in the finishing period, with some  ndividuals exceeding 3kg/day.

“This has definitely improved since we switched from the ration based on silage plus the beef blend in a hopper,” says John. “We would feed more crimp if we could, but we have been crimping all the wheat we can grow.”

John’s nutritionist, John Long, also includes as much crimp as he can in the dairy ration, currently at 3kg per head, and similarly says he would feed more if available. With this year’s higher than expected harvest, this figure is likely to increase. “Crimp is the perfect cereal for dairy cows. We find it to be totally trouble-free and very easily digestible,” he says.

This is borne out by the farm’s experience and John Norris recalls: “I sometimes used to see whole grains in the dung when we were feeding soda grain – but that’s never the case with crimp.” Other ingredients in the dairy ration, which is fed for maintenance plus 37 litres, include 10.5kg first- and 5.5kg second cut grass silage, 3kg maize silage, bulk moist feeds and a variety of other ingredients to give an energy density (ME) of 12.5MJ/kg DM. Nothing is fed in the parlour.

Dairy performance

Performance has also improved and the herd’s yield on twice-a-day milking is 10,500kg at 4.4% fat and 3.4% protein. However, this has just been stepped up in a recent switch to three-times-a-day as the farm’s new team of milkers – who have largely taken over from John as he took on his brother’s work – have been keen to do more. “Yield has gone up for the herd by about 1,000 litres a day without additional feeds,” says John Long. “I always felt the diet was worth more.”

For the future

With the herd ticking over smoothly and the extra production on tap, the Norrises are investing in a new 30/60 herringbone parlour and are building cow numbers to 400. “We could not have done it without Andrew,” says John. “He set everything up before this tragedy and worked till the end. We owe absolutely everything to him.”

What is crimping?

Crimping cereals involves the rolling of early-harvested grain to expose the carbohydrate and protein, and the application of a preservative such as CrimpSafe 300. This ensures a controlled fermentation and maximum nutrient retention once stored in an airtight clamp (or plastic tube). A range of modern preservatives allows cereals to be crimped at moisture contents of 25%-40% and maize at 35-40%.