I hosted two farm business advisers from Finland last week – taking them to see dairy farmers in England and Wales, the largest grass trials site in the UK and ending up at a rain-soaked Grassland UK.
Anu Ellä and Jarkkos Stolberg learn how to interpret platemeter readings at Tim Downes’ farm in Shropshire.
They looked in envy at Tim Downes’ and Neale Manning’s grazing-based systems in Shropshire. From what I can gather ‘fields’ can be in short supply in Finland – with lakes and forests more common than pasture. And they were impressed by the quality of the silages on Edward Evans’ farm in South East Wales.
PRG in Finland?
Long, snowy winters and short, hot summers are more conducive to silage-based systems in Finland, with cows housed mainly indoors in ‘barns’.
Timothy/tall fescue leys start growing in May but are ready for cutting within a few weeks – you can almost see them grow said Anu.
Anu and Jarkkos find some tall fescue in England – but this variety is for playing golf on, not for making silage!
By the end of the season the Timothy has often died back leaving just tall fescue, reducing the quality of later cuts. The advisers are keen to find a perennial ryegrass to include to extend yield and quality; but it has to be a tough cookie to survive the low winter temperatures.
Benchmarking
Anu and Jarkkos run many farmer discussion groups across Finland and were interested in the use of groups, mentors and benchmarking in the UK to improve farm business profitability.
As I dropped them off at Reading station at the end of the tour, Jarkkos remarked that the over-riding message for him was, knowing and controlling costs is the most important driver of a dairy business, and that applies to whichever country you happen to be farming in.