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We held our 2018 FarmSight Forager Event at the prestigious Rothamsted Research this morning (29th June).
A group of contractors and livestock farming customers joined us as well as specialists in the field to show how getting the right field data can help make the right decisions to benefit your business.
Many of the customers who attended have been recording data for years but with new technology and better insights from professionals, data recording has become easier and can now be used to make more informed decisions.
The talks kicked off with Bruce Griffiths, Operations Manager from Rothamsted Research telling us about the history of the research centre and how it has developed to where they are today with 4 centres across the UK. Celebrating their 175 year, Rothamsted Research is the oldest Agricultural research institute in the World.
Their local site in North Wyke, Devon which we have been working with, has 3 individually managed farms where they carry out their research. The biggest project currently being their Farm Platform and the one where they are using their brand new John Deere 8000 Series Forager with support from our FarmSight team.
Farm Platform:
This project began to not only study but improve grassland livestock systems. Covering 63 hectares with 3 farms, each having their own heard of cattle, they are individually managed using new and alternative approaches to grassland management.
Measuring the inputs and outputs of each system such as water quality, air quality and green house gas emissions they are able to assess the sustainability of each alternative system to make informed decisions about best farming practice.
Dominic Burt, our FarmSight Specialist at Masons Kings then took the floor to share where we see technology in farming moving forward focusing on grassland.
He explained the landscape of the agricultural industry is changing with technology becoming more and more paramount. Most machinery is now coming fully fitted with the latest kit to record data in the field. On our John Deere forager it’s all about the NIR Sensor. Capable of measuring organic material on-the-go, with no in-field calibrations required the results are immediate, but knowing what to do with that data is another matter entirely!
The John Deere 8000 series forager now has the capability to produce yield maps to show a host of valuable data including nutrient off take, balance, nitrogen applications and soil sampling plus supporting farmers to be compliant with legislation.
Always looking for ways customers can get the most from one piece of kit, the Harvest Lab sensor can be removed from the Forager and used on a table top in the winter to measure clamp silage samples or used on slurry tankers to measure nutrients on application.
Dominic then showed a real life example of the Rothamsted Forager’s data by logging onto their My John Deere account. Once the data has been collected there are endless tools on the portal to analyse the data and make informed decisions for the future as our next guest speaker explained.
Mark Cole an Agronomist from Pearce Seeds continued to expand on the benefits of yield mapping using our John Deere 8000 Series Forager and how it gives them results to gauge their actions and decisions on. It ensures the poor performing areas within the field can be identified easily and how as an agronomist he can provide the best advice to stop this re-occurring year on year.
Data like this also allows a true value to be put on the the crop and a cost! With good quality information, lots of realistic changes can be made which together can add up to serious benefits for your business.
Mark also discussed new legislation where there will be greater emphasis on record keeping, application records before and after applying and application justification. The Reduction and Prevention of Agricultural Diffuse Pollution Regulations which came into force in April 2018 can be found by clicking here.
The last presentation of the morning was from Pete Davis, a Ruminant Nutritionist from Crediton Milling. He began by explaining there is plenty of room to improve forage yield in the UK with the national average at 2,200L of milk from forage but what is actually possible is 5,000L of milk from forage!
But how do we improve this? Data collected in the field will play a large part in knowing what actions to take to improve the yield.
Two things which can be measured with the NIR sensor on the forager which a nutritionist would use to make these decisions are:
- Quality of the forage, it’s dry matter percentage to determine how good the nutrition is the livestock is therefore getting.
- NDF (Neutral Detergent Fibre) which includes components of hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin and some protein fractions.
Dry matter ideally should be between 28 – 32%. When going into a silage clamp this can change as it matures so monitoring at the time of cutting with the forager is great but this should ideally be measured regularly through Harvest Lab to record changes. When forages become more mature, NDF increases and digestibility decreases. If it decreases too far and you don’t amend your feeding requirements for your livestock you could be underfeeding.
All the knowledge shared and insights gained about data collection and what you can use this invaluable information for on the farm, whetted our customers appetite to get out and see our impressive John Deere 8000 Series forager first hand.
Our sales rep Steve Batten, who specialises in Forage Harvesters lead the way out for a tour around. He focused on where the technology is on the forager as well as the importance of calibration and crop flow. Finishing off with an in depth Q&A session our customers left certain they would be taking full advantage of the data they measure!
We’d like to say thank you to everyone who attended this years Forager Event, wish you all the best for the harvest and remember if you need us we’re always here to help!
Also thank you to our speakers and everyone who supported this event including Bruce Griffith & Melanie Wright from Rothamsted Research, Mark Cole from Pearce Seeds, Pete Davis from Crediton Milling and Oliver Beekes from John Deere.
If you would like more information about our FarmSight packages or missed our SPFH Grassland Event and would like to know more, please contact our FarmSight team on farmsight@masonskings.co.uk or 01626 852 140