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

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