Bungaree near Ballarat is well known for its spuds, but the Trigg family has found a way to successfully blend in a dairy business.
A.J. Trigg and Sons is a rare example of commercial dairy and seed potato operations working together on the same property.
It has been that way for generations and partner Mark Trigg sees no reason for it to change.
Innovations over the past decade — including a huge cow shelter and introduction of a robotic dairy — have made sure the future looks bright.
As the only potato-dairy farm in the region, it’s also one of only about six surviving dairy farms in the Ballarat area, west of Melbourne.
The farm is a fifth-generation partnership between Mark, his father Ron Trigg, cousin Tony Trigg and partner David Lee.
Pete McAdam takes care of the cropping side of things and has been with the farm for 14 years after arriving as a tractor-driving backpacker.
The farm still includes the original eight hectares selected by the Trigg family more than a century ago, but has now grown to nearly 500 hectares.
Although it takes up less space than the 350 cows, the potatoes are more intensive and it’s about a 50:50 split between the two business streams.
“It’s always been a mix and it works in well with rotations,” Mark said.
Running two businesses on the one farm serves up some challenges, but there are also benefits.
Irrigation is shared through both businesses as needed and the rotation and re-sowing systems are not down pat.
“We grow all our own fodder for the dairy — maize, grass silage and half our wheat,” Mark said.
“We plough up poorly performing pastures and put potatoes, maize, wheat and biannual rye-grass on them.”
Pete uses two-year rotations for the dairy pastures and it’s usually five to six years between potato crops.
“We’re chasing protein out of the grasses so we find Italian rye-grasses are best for us,” he said.
“We get up to three per cent more protein by planting every two years and it’s more forgiving on your harvest date. With annuals you have five to 10 days and you’re in trouble if you miss it.”
In the rocky paddocks that will go back to spuds every five to six years, they use perennials, most recently rye-grass, but that could change to a mixed species to help diversity.
“They’ll sit there for five to six years till you’re ready to go back to spuds and you get a bit more winter growth off them,” Pete said.
“But for the bulk feed to put into your silage, you can’t beat Italian rye-grass. In years like this, we try to plant a little bit later and prefer a tetraploid over a diploid and use AR37 to make sure the root aphids aren’t a problem.
“Everything we plant is between a plus-12 and plus-18 flower date.”
Mark said the aim was to be as self-sufficient as possible.
“We only buy in a few concentrates, canola meal and Malte combings, and maybe a couple of loads of cereal hay. We supply all our hay and grass and maize silage.
“About 350 cows is ideal for growing our own fodder and having potatoes at the same time.
“To go for more cows, we’d have to sacrifice potatoes or we’d have to buy more land and that’s so expensive at the moment.”
The farm has access to water, but it’s metered and that governs what can be grown.
They are considering stopping maize and putting in more wheat for silage, buying crushed corn and substituting that with fibre content from the wheat to free up more water.
“If we had a bit more land, we’d be able to do that instead of growing maize which we find very taxing on the soils,” Pete said.
“It would be half the work for the same result but be less taxing on the land. Maize can need as much water as the potatoes.”
The wet winters and the need to make the most of the land prompted construction of a 160-metre long by 40-metre wide shed about 10 years ago.
“We had to get the cows off the pasture,” Mark said.
“Our winters here are shocking and we had trouble moving cows around and with lameness.”
The shed was also the starting point for robots.
“We needed a new dairy so decided to get the cows out of the paddock and then look at robotic dairy,” Mark said.
The plan was to reduce staff and achieve lifestyle improvements. They have had four DeLaval robots in use for the past six years, with two more to be installed.
“We built the barn with robots in mind,” Mark said.
“We put straw into it for the first winter to get the cows out of the mud and house them at night, but we were going through 12 to 14 big square bales of straw a week to keep them clean and dry.
“That wasn’t sustainable so we cleaned that out and started concreting the following year.”
They milk 200 cows on the four robots and the overflow goes onto the rotary.
The system selects cows that need to be milked with a feed-first guided traffic with the use of a one-way gate and smart gates.
The mostly Friesian herd is producing well, averaging about 38 litres a day through the robots — an increase on their previous output.
The cows average 2.4 milkings a day and get milked when they like. The top cows can peak over 60 litres and get milked up to four times a day.
In another nod to future farming, the property is home to three shipping containers where a methane digester is being investigated by a Ballarat engineering company.
The Triggs already have success with their manure.
“It goes back on our pastures and we’re getting great results,” Mark said.
“It’s such a great resource and cost saver.”
While the seed potatoes are sold to McCains contract growers and other processors, the milk is collected every second day and goes all the way to Saputo near Warrnambool.