As organic farmers, the Jenkins and Rees family farm by the principle that feeding the soil and looking after the organisms living within it benefits every aspect of their farming business.

The only nitrogen (N) they use to grow grass at Treclyn Isaf, Eglwyswrw, is the farm’s own slurry and clover.

The family has been farming organically since 2001, a decision initially driven by economics.

They had been farming 61 hectares (ha) on another farm near Cardigan, a land base that restricted herd size to 75 cows.

There was no opportunity to increase cow numbers to produce more milk but what they could improve was their milk price, by converting to organic.

Since then more land, both owned and rented, has been acquired and the business, Jenkins and Rees, now farms 384ha in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, milking 400 cows in a split block calving system.

High quality home-produced feed is key to capturing 4,010 litres of the 7,333 litre annual average yield per cow from forage, one of the factors that helped the family win the 2022 British Grassland Society Grassland Farmer of the Year competition.

Grazing by tack sheep is used as a tool to rejuvenate swards ahead of spring turnout; the farm has clay soils so grazing must be carefully managed

Paddocks are grazed to a residual of 1300kgDM/ha with the sheep leaving the farm in the last week of December to allow regrowth before turnout.

Contractors then apply 6,250kg/ha of slurry with a dribble bar; thereafter, there are in-house applications at rates of between 3,750kg-5,000kg/ha after grazing or cutting.

Slurry in the 1m gallon store is treated with a calcium carbonate-based liquid humus additive to help reduce losses during application.

Tunisian soft rock phosphate is applied to the silage ground at a rate of 187kg/ha annually.

A foliar feeding system was recently introduced with humic acid in powder form, magnesium sulphate and a salt product containing 90 different trace elements dissolved and applied through a conventional sprayer.

The herd at Treclyn is turned out in mid to late March, grazing paddocks in rotation to a target grazing residual of 1,650kg DM/ha to maintain high grass quality high and encourage grass growth.

When growth is low, silage is buffer fed to specific cow groups to allow grass covers to build.

Weekly grass measuring on the grazing platform provides data to inform the reseeding policy.

The performance of silage fields is also reviewed throughout the year, with any fields that need reseeding going into the arable rotation.

In this rotation, winter forage rye and vetch is grown in year one as feed for the autumn calving dry cows, harvested in June and followed by forage rape. In year two, fodder beet is introduced and, in the third, barley and peas are undersown with grass and clover.

Grazing and silage fields are aerated with a heavy spike roller; if certain areas of fields have been poached they are reseeded using a fold up chain harrow fitted with a Stocks Fan Jet Seeder Box.

The main form of weed control in the reseeds is growing cereals in the rotation; for established grassland, it is down to grazing management and a multi-cut silaging system.

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Aled, who farms Treclyn Isaf with his wife, Hedydd, their son and daughter, Owain and Mared, and in partnership with his uncle, David Jenkins, reckons that topping and hand cutting or picking weeds is the most efficient and only way to deal with problems that might arise in an organic system.

“Grazing a paddock hard when required does suppress most common grass weeds too,’’ he says.

Five cuts of clamp silage a year are taken, the first cut at the end of April and subsequent cuts every five or six weeks with the aim of ensiling around 3000t.

Three hundred autumn and spring block-calving cows are milked at Treclyn Isaf.

Cow type has changed in recent years, with Jersey genetics introduced two years ago into what had been a pure British Friesian and Friesian Holstein herd to improve milk solids to maximise returns from the business’ constituents-based supply contract with Rachel’s Organic.

To further improve fertility, feet and legs, the first three-way cross from Viking genetics were born last spring.