Now in its 7th year, the national Soil Farmer of the Year competition aims to discover, engage, and champion UK farmers who are passionate and successful in safeguarding their soil ecosystem, whilst building a resilient business. The three finalists who were announced earlier this summer at Groundswell will all host farm walks this Autumn.
Kicking off the first farm walk earlier this month, Andrew Rees was crowned runner up in this years Soil Farmer of the Year competition, recognising his outstanding achievements in building soil health on his spring calving dairy farm. Along the journey to improve his soils, Andrew has boosted local biodiversity, reduced synthetic inputs, and enhanced stock fertility, milk production and animal health.
Welcoming an enthusiastic group of farmers and industry specialists to Moor Farm near Haverfordwest, Andrew showcased his innovative approach to dairy farming.
Over the last decade Moor Farm has been evolving away from conventional high input management and towards a more regenerative system. Andrew has a 310-head spring calving Friesian herd, producing around 490 kg MilkSolids/ha. Moor Farm consists of 162ha, made up of a 105ha grazing platform, plus youngstock and silage ground. Winter brassicas have been removed from the grazing regime since 2020 and replaced with full rotational grazing, herbal leys, and diverse covers. Herbal leys are already well integrated into the youngstock rotation and are now being introduced into the main milking herd.
Sticking into the Irish Sea and usually receiving over a metre of rainfall a year, the climate provides a challenge for high density, outdoor based livestock grazing. However, the farm has high hedgerows and thick swords, seeded with deep diving varieties with a thick permanent root stock, opening the clay loam and increasing soil organic matter. Even with the dramatic climate, calving in March is both indoor and out, weather allowing. If born indoors, calves are reared outside by four weeks, and weaned onto grass. This is possible due to the retaining of thick hedgerows to fend off the weather, and careful diet management. Moor Farm has been closed herd since 1983 and rear bull calves to sell as store cattle at 18-20 months.
The first field visited on the farm walk was a forage herbal ley drilled in spring 2021, which included chickery, ribwort plantain, red clover, white clover and a mixture of grasses. Although the herbal ley wasn’t heavily diverse, there was the correct balance of herbs and grasses for both cattle and soil fodder. Beneath the sward, last year’s crop residue was visibly degrading, with sections pulled into worm burrows and replaced by castings, a peak into the biosphere below our feet. Andrew noted that without the longer rest periods, the herbal leys began to lose diversity. Therefore, they adapted to a 60–120-day rest period, promoting full recovery before grazing.
The second field visited previously grew kale as an over-winter fodder, so Andrew then seeded a highly diverse cover crop, including elyann oats, laureate barley, livioletta peas, jose vetch, sunflower, buckwheat, linseed, chicory, ribwort plantain, red clover, crimson clover, white clover, tillage radish, forage radish and forage rape. The variety of rooting depths, structure, and mycelium relationships, creates an abundance of soil biota from nitrogen fixing bacteria to beneficial beetles. In turn this management of the soils promotes a magnitude of physical, biological, and chemical benefits, both for the farm and the public. Importantly for Andrew it creates flexibility, resilience, and a healthy herd. At the point we visited in August, this particular field had reached 2m growth, producing 4.5t/DM having already been mob grazed twice already earlier in the year.
Youngstock grazing the fresh herbal ley
With most of the UK exposed to summer drought conditions, Andrew explained that his fields of perennial ryegrass are more vulnerable to the extreme weather conditions. Despite this, Andrew still believes that there is a place for ryegrass within the sward, just not as a monocrop. Most of the herbal leys contain ryegrass, yet the total nitrogen demand is less and the ability to recover nutrients from the soil is greater.
Above ground, the species rich handpicked seed concoction isn’t just about the bright colours. The mixture of varieties within the ley provide significant benefits to stock health and condition. The tissue mineral content of the ley crops have been found to be twice as high as the ryegrass tissue. Individual varieties, such as chickery provides anti-pest properties. The varied habitat of herbal leys provide a refuge for pest predators. A varied crop canopy reduces the burden of worming, and the faecal egg count provided Andrew with confidence that no wormers were required in 2022. The sward provides a varied protein count and a diversity of sugars and fibre. Last but not least the cows and heifers are kept busy and interested, playing games with sunflower heads, and frequently given new land to explore. For welfare, this system is truly exceptional.
Herbal ley in field 1 (left) and diver cover in field 2 (right)
The third field seen on the farm walk was separated into a youngstock grazing paddock cells. The paddock had 0.1 ha markers so that the grazing cells are managed in multiples of 0.1 ha depending on the recovery times they are working to at that point. The recovery times are predetermined by Andrew depending on the weather and soil conditions. Each cell was separated with the assistance of a hotwire and portable troughs are used to create easy access for supplements and water. Andrew uses a ‘leader-follower approach’ within his rotational grazing system. This is where the R1 heifers (this years calves), at 3 to 10 months old, are the first to be released into the grazing cell, after 12 hours the R2 heifers (last year’s calves), at 10 to 22 months old follow in the grazing rotation. This means that the younger cattle have access to favoured grazing and are not limited on their nutrient intake. The more mature cattle then push a harder but have the capability to digest the remaining forage. This method discourages young cattle from grazing down and helps lower worm burdens, yet the forage is still high for the R2 heifers. The remaining residue is trampled and slowly retracted into the rhizosphere. If the ley becomes too stemmy, the block is moved more often (up to three times a day), or the cell size is increased. This grazing regime means that the stocking density has a capacity of 1,100 head a hectare of grazing heifers. However, this may change with the recovery time at that point. Once the grazing pressure has been released, the cell has the ability to continue to take solar energy and replenish what was lost.
The rotational grazing platform incorporates a deferred grazing system which has the capacity to out-winter R1 heifers at around 8-10 months old. When the land is suitable and travels well, bales are positioned to provide supplementary feed. This system has totally replaced the brassica winter feed, which previously caused poaching and soil wash, contradicting Andrews soil health ambitions. Outwintered heifers are usually light due to their age and are scheduled to be rotated every two days. Since the ground and weather conditions are much less reliable in the Welsh winter, this can be increased to three times daily. However, Andrews system remains resilient as they have the housing capacity to fulfil total stock numbers.
The milking herd also graze the highly diverse cover crop and the leys have been integrated into the dairy grazing platform, to provide resilience and to extend the grazing season. Currently the milking herd have balanced diet of ryegrass pasture, herbal leys, diverse cover, and silage. Additional feed has reduced daily supplements to 4 kg, cutting costs. Butter fats and milk quality have improved, whilst empty rates and mastitis cases per 100 cows have fallen, 10.5% (2019) – 5.5% (2021) and 19.9 (2019) to 3.5 (2021) respectively.
Milking herd grazing the diverse cover and trampling residues
To create herbal leys the previous fields are either surface cultivated and drilled shallow, or direct drilled through the straw using pre-soaked seeds. It takes around 85 kg of seed to drill a hectare of herbal ley. The seeds consist of either an ‘off the shelf’ Cotswold seed or Andrews handpicked highly diverse selection. Since there is a multitude of seed sizes and shapes, from beans to rape, the drill is generically fitted to suit all seed varieties. The hopper is filled with the varied seed mix and calibrated to the largest seed size, then adjusted to fit distribution. The seeds are drilled shallow to promote all seed development, the larger seeds then to make the break for smaller seeds. Inputs are low and only 35 kg Ha of liquidised urea was used for establishment. In 2018 Moor Farm matched their slurry capacity with their stock, three years ahead of The Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations 2021, that transition the total Welsh land area into NVZ rules.
Andrew Rees and his team at Moor Farm have knocked 140 kg N ha off their operations. The only inputs they buy in are 6 ha of maize for feed and 16 ha of hay. In response to their transformation over the last three years, their cow health has improved, fertility rates have increased, and their rates of Bovine mastitis have fallen. Since transitioning his management practices, Andrew has calculated all their carbon baseline and from now this is only expected to improve. The new ambition is to measure biodiversity baselines and record how their wildlife changes with their regenerative progression. The understanding of the nutrient balance of their soils and requirement from their crops has been assisted through the measurement of the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soils in each field. Andrew now knows that he needs to promote freely exchangeable Ca+ cations within the system and hopes to adjust soil exchangeable calcium to luxury levels, this is to promote longevity and palatability of all fodder.
Concluding whilst a cow chomped through the head of a sunflower, Andrew explained how Moor farm will continue to measure, monitor, review and improve their system. He hopes that they will continue to replace perennial ryegrass with more adapted herbal leys, the only thing slowing them down is the initial expense. They aim to continue to explore their seed mixes to improve the leys to match their environment. They are moving towards an ambition of zero chemical nitrogen inputs and less overall inputs on a whole farm level. Moor Farm aims to continue to promote the longevity and recovery of their grazing rotations without compromising milk quantity, quality, or animal welfare. Stocking rates are forecasted to increase with a settled system as are fertility rates hoped to continue to rise. Moor Farm aims to increase their on-farm and landscape biodiversity, to marry the productivity of the farm with the natural capital of the farms system.
Andrew Rees accepting the SOFTY award from FCT CEO Liz Bowles
The Soil Farmer of the Year competition is run in partnership by Innovation for Agriculture and the Farm Carbon Toolkit and is kindly supported by Cotswold Seeds and Hutchinsons.
