Demo Farms, Demonstrating Research in Practice

The BGS, DairyCo, and SRUC Research Partnership will be demonstrating research in practice on working dairy farms in a knowledge transfer initiative to translate the information coming from agricultural research in the UK into something farmers can make use of.

In 2013 demonstrations were run on three dairy farms, one in Devon, one in Cheshire and one in Yorkshire. In 2014 two new demonstration farms have been established in Cornwall and one in Devon, which join on-going research at the Cheshire and Yorkshire farms. In Cornwall, one farm will be looking at aeration strategies for grassland compaction and out-wintering of dairy heifers. At the other farm we will be following their experience of growing Lucerne for silage, a crop which is relatively new to them. In Devon, the demonstration farm will investigate the use of separated slurry and the influence of slurry application with and without slit aeration.

The farms are very different systems but are all aiming to run the farm at a profit and produce milk from forage where possible. The demo farmers are facing issues with soil compaction, battling with fields damaged by the last year of wet weather, grass variety choices, nutrient use, the effect of lime, and are looking for solutions on how to solve these problems.

DairyCo and BGS will be working closely with these farmers running on farm “trials” to see how the research work done by SRUC translates into practice. With the farmers, we will run open meetings for farmers to attend to come see if what we’re trying will work for them.

 Read a Farmers Weekly article about our lucerne Demo Farm here

Overview of the 2013 Demo Farms click here. 

Booklets from the 2014 farm events and results from the demos are provided below (pdf format).

Information and outcomes from the demo farms is summarised in the documents listed below: