SPARKS may fly when disagreements occur but for the Johnson boys of Low Whinholme Farm , Danby Wiske near Northallerton it was very real sparks that could have caused even more devastation than actually occurred earlier this year when their workshop , grain store and feed store went up in flames destroying tractors including a Leyland 272 1982 model on which they had just spent £ 2500 , 30 tonnes of barley , 5 tonnes of blends and half a tonne of cow ration .

Typically , although Colin and Robin were obviously very worried at the time with the wind direction aimed at the farmhouse building and further along to the cow sheds , like most farmers they haven ’ t turned a drama into a crisis and are planning for the future .

The farm is run via three of them , brothers Colin and Robin along with Colin ’ s son Ross and comprises 267 acres self contained in a ring fence . Dairying is the core business with a herd of 160 cows plus beef and sheep in

addition . Cropping includes around 65 acres of winter barley and 30-35 acres of winter wheat with grass in the rotation . All barley and wheat go into feeding the livestock with the wheat going into wholecrop . Grass is both permanent and rotational and is Italian ryegrass with four cuts usually taken off what is productive clay land .

‘ We have around 144 in milk at any one time ,’ says Colin . ‘ We ’ ve been averaging just shy of 8000 litres and we crossbreed all the time for the hybrid vigour and to create a much easier cow to keep . It ’ s always nice to breed cows you don ’ t know you ’ ve got because they need so little attention . We have Fleckvieh and Montbeliarde X cows and cross them with Norwegian Red and Swedish Red . We ’ re also including British Frisian for ease of calving and fertility . Ross handles all our AI work and I handle all the heat detection . It all helps with improving our all year-round calving pattern .’

‘ We ’ re producing all our own replacements using sexed semen on the heifers as much as possible and fertility-plus Belgian

Blue semen on the rest of the cows to produce beef cattle that we keep until 11-12 months and sell as stores at Northallerton mart . At any one-time Low Whinholme Farm is home to 300-350 cattle overall with the dairy cows , heifers , young stock coming on and beef cattle .’

‘ Our milk has been going to Meadow Foods in Staffordshire for the past five years . We tightened our belts for a couple of years when everyone was affected by poor milk price .’

The most likely new development to the Johnsons ’ milk enterprise is going to a robotic system with three robots which will allow them to go up to 170-180 milkers . When I visited they were in the process of

applying for a grant under the farm efficiency programme .

‘ Robin and I don ’ t want to spend the rest of our days in the milking parlour ,’ says Colin . ‘ And Ross although he ’ s interested in the cows and works hard with us doesn ’ t want to stand behind them twice a day . We ’ re looking towards getting them perhaps in the back end of the year . The cows we have developed are good grazers and we would continue grazing them as well as getting them used to the robots . We feed them every day using a Keenan .’

The sheep are Robin ’ s domain . He runs a successful Bleu du Maine flock having started with them when the breed was first imported in 1983 .

Northallerton Auctions are proud to be auctioneers for the Johnson family , and wish them continued success for the future

Applegarth Mart , Northallerton North Yorkshire DL7 8LZ

Tel : 01609 772034 | Fax : 01609 778786 www . northallertonauctions . com