Category: Case Studies

Carbon Farmer of the Year Farm Walk at Durie Farms – November 2023

Posted on December 4, 2023 by - Case Studies, Carbon Farmer of the Year, Insights

The 21st November 2023 came in as a bright and sunny day, in stark contrast to the near constant rain which had fallen for the previous weeks.

The occasion was the farm walk for FCT’s Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition on the winner’s farm – Doug Christie of Durie Farms, Fife. Durie Farms is a mixed farm combining arable and cattle enterprises, organic and non-organic as well as woodland.

Liz Bowles (Left) CEO of Farm Carbon Toolkit welcoming people to the farm walk

Before we set out on the walk, Doug introduced his farm and explained some of the practices he has adopted which earned him the title of Carbon Farmer of the Year.

Fundamentals include the incorporation of conservation agriculture (minimum till cultivations and more complex arable rotations including peas and legumes within the rotation as standard) and the integration of extensively managed cattle within the whole farm. Central to this has been regular soil analysis with records going back to 2006. These records include soil organic matter which means that Doug is able to track soil carbon changes over time too. Unusually for the time, Doug also measured soil bulk density  which makes carbon stocks estimates more accurate. Alongside measuring soil carbon stocks, Doug also keeps enterprise fuel allocation records which has allowed him to have a much better understanding of hot spot areas. Through doing this he was able to identify the high fuel usage associated with housing cattle in the winter. This knowledge together with his adoption of holistic grazing practices has enabled him to keep cattle out longer,  with some groups of cattle e.g. in calf heifers now not being housed at all.

Our first stop on the farm walk was the large heap of brushwood next to the farm lane (a result of woodland management) and a question posed to the walkers as to how best to deal with this. Burning the pile would release a lot of carbon dioxide, but would that be less than chipping the pile and then burning it as a fuel? Or what about leaving it to break down naturally and possibly combine with farmyard manure and use as a soil amendment?  Now we are starting to look at these things through a number of lenses, these are the sort of questions farmers are increasingly grappling with.

The first field we entered was growing a cover crop, established in mid – late August after a cereal crop.

Doug Christie  (on the right, spade in hand) describing the cover crop

Doug now makes up his own cover crop mixes using farm saved seeds when possible. The cover crop had really motored on since early September and was providing pretty good canopy cover, in flower and up to waist height.  This cover crop will be holding nutrients in the soil, keeping living roots in place and improving soil structure through the varied rooting depths of the different plants in the cover crop.  Doug puts cover crops in place wherever possible and, for cereal harvesting, uses a stripper header leaving straw to rot down and provide food for earthworms. This was evident when inspecting a soil pit where the number of worms was high – worms everywhere. In fact this field which had been harvested with a stripper header, and had been undersown with a grass clover mix, with cattle having been mob grazed across it a few weeks earlier. The cattle had removed some of the straw and helped to break down the rest, and on the day of the farm walk it was clear that the grass clover sward was coming away nicely. Testament to the improving soil health at Durie Farms is the fact that Doug sold his subsoiler some years ago- surplus to requirements!

Doug shared with the group that he has not used insecticides since 2003 and is now working closely with the James Hutton Institute to carry out research on his farm. He has a fantastic site to investigate the impacts of this decision on insect life on the farm.

Arriving at the in calf heifers as we walked across the farm, it was clear they were wondering if it was time to make their move for the day. 

In calf heifers curious to know what we were talking about

Donald Christie, Doug’s son commented that since moving to holistic grazing and generally daily moves the cattle have become much more biddable, and in the move to outdoor wintering the challenge has been to make sure that this group do not carry too much weight as they approach calving. They receive no supplementary feeding when on grass.  One of the group commented that since adopting holistic grazing cattle health has improved and that the growth rate of outwintered animals surpassed that of housed cattle the following spring.

The group asked Doug what he is doing to reduce his reliance on artificial N fertilisers, one of the hot spots for arable farmers. Through improving soil health and bringing pulses and legumes into his cropping rotation Doug has reduced his reliance on granular urea by 30% since 2009. Yields have gone down but net margin is up. When choosing inputs such as fertiliser it is worth noting that different branded products, produced in different parts of the world, may have very different emissions factors. At Farm Carbon Toolkit, we offer Calculator users the ability to choose the product they have used so an accurate figure for emissions will be included.

The group also tackled the topic of cattle and methane, with an acknowledgement of how complex this topic is. The box below discusses the reasons for looking at a better mechanism for accounting for methane, one of the shortest lived greenhouse gases and one which is produced by ruminants as an intrinsic function of rumen function. 

What is becoming clearer is that how cattle are managed will have an impact on their overall impacts on our environment. Certainly Doug is minimising their negative impacts, through minimising their consumption of foods which could be eaten by humans directly, minimising their use of other sources of emissions such as fertiliser and fuel and making sure that their grazing activity has a positive impact on the soils they stand on and sequestering as much carbon as possible in their wake.

Accounting for methane: GWP* and GWP100
GWP (Global Warming Potential) is a measure of how much impact a gas will have on warming the atmosphere. The most common method to evaluate the effect of different greenhouse gases (GHGs) is by comparing them over a 100-year lifetime; this is known as GWP100. This is the internationally agreed metric chosen under the Paris Agreement and the primary tool for emission reduction targets globally. 

Using GWP, it’s possible to compare the impact of different GHGs by converting them to their carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) value. The latest research suggests that using GWP100, biogenic methane emissions are 27 times more powerful than CO2; and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are 273 times more powerful. However, unlike CO2 and N2O gases that last for hundreds of years in the atmosphere, methane only lasts for an average of 12 years after which most of it is broken down. This means that using GWP100, the impacts of methane could be considered overestimated in the long-term, and underestimated in the short term. 

In an aim to better account for methane, in 2016, a team of researchers proposed a new metric, known as GWP* that works over a 20 year period. Over a 20 year period, emitting a tonne of methane today has 80 times more temperature impact than carbon dioxide. However, the new metric is also designed to reflect the warming impact of ongoing emissions of methane in relation to the current levels of that gas in the atmosphere. The theory is that, over time, ongoing emissions are not adding warming to the atmosphere, but merely replacing old emissions that have degraded. Essentially, GWP* focuses on changes in emissions rather than absolute emissions. This accounting approach has been gathering support within UK agriculture sector, however it does also face some criticism (example).

As we turned for home, and the beckoning hot drinks and cakes, conversation turned to reducing the negative impacts of growing potatoes and the potential for woodland to sequester carbon into trees. On the topic of reducing the harms associated with growing potatoes there is a clear role for keeping living roots in the soil for as much of the year as possible, but to date no alternative has been found to the punishing soil management routine required to grow potatoes, although research is underway.

Liz explaining to the group how woodland is accounted for in the Farm Carbon Calculator

Doug has 50ha of woodland across the farm, with different areas having been in place from 10 -240 years. As his summary carbon footprint report shows, the woodland at Durie Farms alongside soil carbon sequestration offset the business GHG emissions last year. Of the total sequestration, woodland contributed around 50%. It is worth noting that the carbon sequestration associated with woodland depends on the growth rate of the tree. The Woodland Carbon Code has developed “look up tables” for this which the Farm Carbon Calculator  has incorporated into the sequestration area of the Calculator. For users, providing accurate information on the age of the trees as well as their varieties will enable a more accurate assessment of the scale of sequestration to be given. A rule of thumb is that most trees sequester only small amounts of carbon for the first decade or so of life. From the age of around 15 – 30 years carbon sequestration is at its maximum. After that age growth tends to slow down and with it carbon sequestration.

Doug is continually trying new ideas, with pasture cropping a new initiative he has ‘frustratingly’ tried this year. Doug’s long term membership of BASE UK  has supported him in his quest for adopting new and more sustainable farming practices. A quick look at the BASE UK website revealed a number  of fascinating events coming up in the next month including this one:

14/12/23 BASE-UK Member Nick Wall will present his review of the study tour recently taken by 15 members to visit Frederic Thomas and other BASE France members in November 2023 – it wasn’t all good food and drink – there was some learning involved! 

Back in the cattle yard (not in use yet) we finished with a round up of questions, answers and general discussion.

Thank you to our hosts, the Christie Family, for a memorable farm walk and great hospitality.

Farm walk with 2022 Soil Farmer of the Year Runner-up Andrew Rees

Posted on August 16, 2022 by - Case Studies, Insights, Soil Farmer of the Year

In the first week of August a range of farmers and industry professionals met at Moor Farm in south west Wales to hear the 2022 Runner-up to the Soil Farmer of the Year competition, Andrew Rees, explain how he has developed a dairy system with soil health at the centre. 

Moor farm is a 160 hectare grassland farm near Haverfordwest, which over the previous five years has been undergoing a holistic regeneration away from winter brassicas and a high input system to a fully rotational grazing system integrating diverse species-rich swards. Andrew has seen significant benefits to his business from this change of approach, including a reduction in fertiliser cost and usage alongside better herd health demonstrated by the vast reduction in veterinary fees.

Experimenting with different mixtures and management has led Andrew to create a system intended to provide year-round forage for his dairy herd. Moving away from pure perennial ryegrass leys has had its challenges, but Andrew explains

“Working to a 21 day grazing rotation is stressful, you can quickly run out of grass during adverse conditions, the aim of using herbal and diverse leys was to increase the resilience of the grazing platform. Now we have much more ahead of us and much more flexibility within the system where we aim for a 60 day rest period, but this can be up to 120 days in some cases”.

He adds,

“We started by sowing simple herbal ley mixtures, but as they were still managed like ryegrass we lost a lot of the diversity and therefore also potential yield. Now we have much longer rest periods between cutting or grazing to allow for regrowth and the leys are far more resilient.”

Fields are divided into 0.1 hectare blocks and animals are moved according to need. Andrew now has a keen eye for how much forage his grazing groups require despite the wide diversity of covers across the farm. When asked about his system Andrew states,

“We use a leader-follower approach whereby the R2 cattle (10-22 months old) follow the R1 heifers (3-10 months old), with 24 hours between the groups in each grazing cell. Having the smaller cattle grazing first means they have preferential grazing and we are not limiting their intake in any way, not forcing young animals to graze down also helps lower worm burdens. Older animals can then be pushed a bit harder and are able to deal with the more mature forage”

He further adds,

“Anything which isn’t grazed is hopefully trampled; that is when we know we have the stocking density and number of moves per day right – if the ley is starting to become a bit stemmy we move them more often, up to three times per day.”

This trampling action which Andrew integrates into his system has wider benefits for the soil in that it is better protected from environmental conditions and also now of higher quality with the constant organic additions from the leys above. Andrew fully promotes this system outlining to the group,

“Changing grassland management has given conditions for native seeds to germinate. We don’t want bare soils that cap and produce the conditions for weeds to appear. By keeping the surface covered with either growing plant matter or the trampled residue, we reduce our weed burden.”

Since the transition to more species-rich leys Andrew has found,

“The different rooting systems we have in the fields open the soil up and improve the structure, therefore we are removing the conditions in which weeds can become dominant.”

The R1 heifers from this spring moving onto a new block of grazing. Andrew uses a portable watering system to make sure troughs are easily accessible regardless of where the cattle are grazing.

The system Andrew has created focusses on a long rotational grazing platform for both the milking herd and young stock combined with deferred grazing to provide areas for out-wintering cattle. He explains,

“We used to have kale in the rotation to provide over-winter feed but were finding that there was far too much damage and soil wash. We now use a deferred grazing system to out-winter our R1 heifers which are between 8 to 10 months old. We position bales when the land is dry and travels well, ready to provide additional feed throughout the winter period.”

The condition of the soil and the health of the livestock are the key priorities when outwintering stock, to manage this Andrew explains,

“Heifers that are outwintered are scheduled to move every two days, but this can increase to three times daily to avoid soil damage if conditions become wet. This system works for us as our heifers are light and we still have the capacity to bring them in-house if the weather or soil requires it.”

Following these outwintering processes, fields are re-seeded, with Andrew tailoring off-the-shelf mixtures to suit his system,

“We have started reseeding with a half-rate Cotswold herbal ley mix, with half-rate Barenburg Barrmix (this was more because it’s what I had in the shed to give right balance of clovers and herbs) with additional annuals to provide a boost to performance in the first year whilst the other species establish”.

When establishing his leys, Andrew aims to use as simple and minimal cultivation system as possible, removing old or tired leys with low rate glyphosate buffered with humic and citric acid to lower the pH. He then drills the seed in two directions to increase the eventual cover with an application of seaweed to give a starter boost of nutrition.

Attendees to the farm walk gather in a spring established diverse ley which was previously used as deferred grazing this past winter. 

Andrew has, on average, reduced nitrogen usage by 140kg per hectare whilst still producing silage for the milking herd. He has recently started silaging the herbal leys which are highly diverse and contain species such as pea, barley, vetch, sunflowers, linseed, radish, chicory, plantain and a mixture of clovers. This will be analysed when the clamp is reopened and fed as part of the usual ration. In addition to regularly analysing silage, Andrew also frequently tissue tests his leys – results suggest the mineral content of his leys are double that found when they were in a perennial rye grass system. The species composition has a naturally far lower demand for nitrogen compared to perennial ryegrass and is much better at scavenging existing nutrients within the soil, further reducing the need for artificial inputs.

Andrew uses slurry in combination with a Tow and Fert system to help maintain fertility and production across the farm. Fields destined for silage are given slurry before and after the 1st cut with a 25kg sprinkle of N prior to cutting. The Tow and Fert is used to top up fine lime, phosphate and humates alongside some foliar potassium. Andrew samples a fifth of the farm every year, with the whole farm last sampled in 2018 – having this up to date data allows him to understand where his nutrients are most required and move away from broadacre applications. Fine lime is regularly used across the farm with Andrew detailing, “Applying fine lime helps increase the free exchangeable calcium in the system, we are aiming to have calcium at luxury levels which will take time but will help with the longevity and palatability of the tall covers.”

As a dairy farmer, herd health is a main priority for Andrew. Through implementing changes to grazing species composition and management, alongside reducing the nitrogen use across the farm, livestock performance has seen vast improvements. The dairy herd are also grazed on diverse summer cover crops, being turned out for a few hours after milking.

Andrew explains this strategy,

“Having the cows grazing across the diverse leys has improved butter fats and allowed us to stretch out the grazing season where historically we may have run out of grass. This means that the herd is currently balanced between herbal leys, traditional grass pasture and silage in the yard when they come in to be milked. The additional grass means we only need to supplement feed them around 4kg of cake per day, massively reducing costs.”

The cows are now found to be far more content, with lower nitrogen covers thought to lower the free nitrates in their system, reflected in the results of the milk testing. This contentment has also improved fertility and the health of the dairy herd. Empty rates have decreased from 10.5% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2021 with mastitis per 100 cows also reducing from 19.7 in 2019 to 3.5 in 2021.

The milking herd grazing following afternoon milking, the whole herd is mob grazing this 0.1 hectare paddock full of highly diverse species.

The increased fertility in the herd has also allowed Andrew to move his spring calving system later so they can calve to match the grass growth, reducing the housing requirement as calves are weaned on grass with outside grazing access from 4 weeks of age. Worm burden has also drastically reduced and consequently, so has the requirement for anthelmintic products. Faecal egg counts are conducted to see if any wormers are required, however Andrew has found that due to the long-grass grazing system with animals biting higher up the plant in combination with chicory rich pastures, very little, if any, are required. 

When asked about how he would advise others beginning along the herbal or diverse ley journey Andrew has these words of wisdom,

“Start by drilling the leys in the spring as this gives a much better chance for establishment whilst you are experimenting with your system. If you are going in later when the conditions could be dryer or colder it might be tough on the clover to get up and away.”

At Moor Farm, the leys are highly diverse and full of many different species. Andrew’s thinking behind this is,

“When you establish herbal leys you can often see a drop in yield compared to a perennial ryegrass whilst they establish, therefore we also drill in summer annual species to help build the quantity of forage available to graze. If we are establishing a ley in the spring, we would expect to be able to graze it that autumn. However, this would be a lighter graze than in the second year and not as tight, just to make sure we don’t stress the plants too much”. 

The remaining cover approximately 1 week following grazing ready to be re-drilled compared to one of Andrew’s diverse leys which has recovered following previous grazing. 

The next challenges for Andrew focus further around nitrogen reduction, as he discussed with the group,

“The aim would be to be using zero chemical nitrogen whilst managing to maintain our current production. I want to be able to leave the land in a better condition than when we started whilst also being financially profitable.”

During the Soil Farmer of the Year competition, the judges found Andrew’s approach highly innovative, understanding how to maximise the health of the soil to produce high quality, mineral rich forage for his cattle using less inputs, but instead through his grazing and nutrient management system. The benefits Andrew has observed upon the health, welfare and productivity of his cattle through diversifying the leys has been highly successful – also giving him additional flexibility in other areas of the farming business now he is secure in the growth of forage on the farm, developed through increasing the resilience of his system. 

Ourselves at FCT would like to thank Andrew, his family and his team at Moor Farm for such an excellent tour, providing insight in how the system works and inspiration of what is possible for dairy grazing systems. The Soil Farmer of the Year competition is run by FCT in association with Innovation for Agriculture and this year has again been kindly sponsored by Cotswold Seeds and Hutchinsons. If you would like to find out more about the Soil Farmer of the Year competition please keep an eye on our website for updates on the other farm walks in October 2022 and the opening of the 2023 competition.