Farm of the Week: The award-winning father and son duo breeding cows on their Yorkshire farm

It was Tom’s turn to pick up a beef farmer of the year accolade, for the north of England, due to the success of the farm’s suckler herd of 100 cows that includes 20 pedigree Limousins. Tom said it was a natural progression to expand the existing herd after coming back to the farm following his studies.

“I went to Harper Adams for four years and when I came back in 2016 we upped our cattle numbers. We bought some pedigree Limousins, we’d tried other breeds but when we ran a couple of Limmies to the commercials we found they were just faster on growth rate, had better carcases, easy calving and were really good suckler cows.

“We currently run five stock bulls, use a bit of AI on the pedigree cows and embryo work, flushing a couple of our best cows and producing seven or eight calves from embryos a year.

Tom said the embryo transfer work had paid off handsomely with the very first calf born through it.

“The first embryo calf we ever had was from a cow we had purchased in partnership with my uncle in Shropshire. We sold him as a bull in Carlisle in May 2021 where he was Intermediate Champion and sold for 50,000 guineas, the top priced bull that year.”

It was payback for the amount originally invested in what Tom terms the best Limousin cow there was available, Millington Highlight, in 2016.

“We paid 50,000 guineas for Millington Highlight with a calf at foot when John Weatherill’s herd dispersed and AI’d her with Ampertaine Foreman.

“We mainly calve in spring with a few embryos calving in autumn. We flushed in February and put seven in that will calve November. We turn everything out in spring, renting additional grazing. We also grow lucerne and fodder beet to feed over winter.

“We finish bulls at 13 months and around 700 kilos and heifers at 16 months and between 550-600 kilos. We use all homegrown feed.

“All commercial stock is sold at Selby livestock market with pedigrees sold either privately or up at Carlisle, and produce our own herd replacements. We have a lot of heifers calving this time that are daughters of Millington Highlight. We are slowly improving the genetics.”

Jonathan joined his uncle Jim at Park Farm in 1984. Jonathan said he was never interested in following his father John into the dairy world.

“My grandfather, uncle and father moved up from Essex in 1938. This was a rented farm on the Everingham Estate owned by the Duke of Norfolk. My uncle Jim never married and farmed here on his own, not in partnership with father. I came here after studying at Bishop Burton College.

“The farm was 340 acres, just arable with 30 suckler cows. When the estate was being sold they agreed to put me on the tenancy agreement with Jim, as joint tenant. I managed to buy the farm in 1993.

“It’s now 400 acres owned and we rent another 280 acres.”

The most significant change to the farm enterprise came 25 years ago when Jonathan took on broiler production, which has also led to distinction in livestock production.

“It was 1998 that we diversified into broilers and now they are the biggest part of our business. We put one shed up, then another two in 2003 and another in 2016.

“We have won quite a few awards for growing them and we have been top broiler grower in the country seven times in the past 20 years and once the top grower in the world.

“We have 140,000 birds across the four sheds. They are all reared in a welfare friendly system and Red Tractor approved. They come in as day-olds from Thirsk and all gone by 44 days in an all in/all out system to ensure bio security. We produce six crops per year. We grow for wholesalers Sullivans. It’s all about attention to detail.”

Jonathan said the arable operation is now much more concentrated on maize, because of the market grown with dairy farmers near Skipton.

“Our land type varies from blow away sand to very heavy clay, but basically it’s a sand land farm with a block of heavy land. This year we are growing 100 acres of winter wheat, 80 acres of grass and 20 acres of winter barley, but the largest crop is 350 acres of maize of which we rent 250 acres from neighbours on yearly lets specifically for the crop.

“It’s a good break crop on sandy land and the customers are there. We started growing 8 acres for ourselves and it’s just ballooned. We usually average around 20 tonnes per acre, although last year’s drought affected that. We clamp about 6000 tonnes. We have artic loads going out daily in winter over to dairy farmers west of Skipton.

“We use our chicken muck and the maize just loves it, that’s how we can grow good crops of it. Any we don’t use, we sell for straw and we sell any surplus straw in winter. We also use a lot of cattle muck as well, but maize is very hungry so we still use a good deal of artificial fertiliser.”

Jonathan said his heavy land is continuous wheat and has been 36 years, but that there is no problem with the soil.

“We haven’t any problem with grass weed and it’s probably yielding more now than it has ever done. We put compost on every year and in the last two years it has done really well averaging 4 tonnes per acre.

“We do some min-till on heavy land, but still plough a lot because min-till doesn’t particularly suit maize.

Jonathan said they use contractors and also act as contractors themselves for combining, baling, muckspreading and drilling.

“We have Chris Liversidge drilling and foraging for us. Last year we invested in two new John Deere tractors and a new John Deere combine. I contract combine 500 acres. Tom runs a baler and makes 6000-7000 big square bales a year with his Fendt tractor and baler. It’s another business that sees us selling over to the west side of Skipton.”

Park Farm is also well served by green energy as Jonathan added 4 x 200kw boilers in 2013 that heat the chicken sheds; 2 x 250kw turbines in 2014 that provide 70 per cent of all the farm’s electricity and he has also added solar panels.

Jonathan and Tom also have another important member of their team, local man Chris Sowden who has been with them 20 years.

Jonathan is married to Clare and they have a daughter Rebecca who works for Ripon Farm Services in Market Weighton. Tom is marrying Jess Close, an accountant. They met through Market Weighton YFC just like his mum and dad.