The Dairy Now farm aims to reflect the best practice of current conventional farming, operating at a system 2-3 level with around 20% of animal intake being met by supplementation. The farm will apply up to the N cap of 190 kg N per hectare.

See the summary table for an overview of the two farms

During the 2022-23 season we will continue with the same system applied last year, but this season we are working with partners in the Low N farm systems research program to design a farm system with substantially lower N loss, whilst maintaining or improving profit and green house gases. These outcomes have historically been a focus of the farmlets and links to published results are available on our Research Page. The plan is to implement the new farm system design in the 2023/24 season.

From an animal perspective we will focus on welfare of both replacement heifers and our milking herd. Ongoing research in the living lab continues to investigate the impact of pre-weaning nutrition on life time productivity. There is growing need to reduce reliance on N fertiliser and we are currently collating the results of last year's fertiliser trial to help plan our fertiliser strategy going forward.

Throughout the season the Living Lab team will meet regularly to track progress and present regular updates on the production and performance of the two farms.