A thought-provoking presentation at Fermanagh Grassland Club recently by dairy farmer, Hugh Harbison, from Aghadowey, was well received by members at their first meeting of the 2024/25 winter season.

Hugh set out his farm management plan with clear goals for the future, detailing his farm performance alongside describing some of the heritage that is clearly preserved for the future.

Now farming at the family’s Ballydevitt Farm, Aghadowey, near Coleraine – which was originally acquired by the Harbison family in 1965 – Hugh graduated from Newcastle University with a degree in Agriculture with Business Management, after which he went to Australia for work for a spell before returning to run the farm as his father stepped back from the daily management.

It was a farm which has been visited by the now King Charles in 1996 on one of his visits to Northern Ireland.

The farm in total has 110 hectares with a further 30 hectares rented, and is split onto four blocks where up to 190 crossbred dairy cows, bred from New Zealand genetics, are milked.

They produce an average of 7,941 litres per cow, with composition of 4.67 per cent butterfat, 3.65 per cent protein, and 136 SCC using 2.25t concentrates.

The trend in recent times has been to produce more milk solids rather than milk yields, with a goal of producing 700kg milk solids per cow by 2025.

The best cows and best bulls are bred, which has resulted in less milk but higher milk solids.

The cows were housed in early October this year and Hugh described 2024 as a year to forget, as it was frustrating to get jobs done.

He tried to get cows out to grass in March, but had to rehouse, and then had to resort to a zero grazer with trailer in April to bring grass to the cows to get the heavy covers off.

By the end of April, grass covers were out of control, and overall during the year, just 8.3t of grass was grown, compared with 11.4t in 2022.

Overall, he managed to get four cuts of silage with 20 acres of forage rye fed to dry cows. He believes the quantity of silage will be an issue. Protein is also an issue as it was so cold in June.

He got some reseeding done at the end of June using an Erth Direct Drill, but it was slow to germinate and grow and grazed in September before getting a coat of slurry.

He also planted three paddocks of multi-species mixtures which performed reasonably well, but the herbs have died out.

He then spoke about the farm’s PH, and the importance of getting the basics right. His soils are high in magnesium. He feels 6.2ph is too low and would be striving for 7.

Regarding sustainability, Hugh said profitability should be the number-one goal.

Hugh got involved in the ARCZero project where selected farms across Northern Ireland worked with the industry to investigate practical ways to measure, manage and reduce carbon emissions from dairy, beef and sheep farming.

The project uses advanced technology to test soil and find out about how much carbon it can capture, and LIDAR technology is used to measure the green area of trees and hedges for Carbon sequestration measurement.

One of the practical results of this is that five kilometres of hedges from the 18kms on the farm have been left to grow higher, to capture more carbon.