Wiltshire: Extreme Grazing - How to plan for challenging seasons

Cold springs. Hot dry summers. Relentless rain. Over the last few years British farmers have faced some of the most challenging grazing seasons on record. Wolfhall Farm near Marlborough have rapidly assessed and adapted their grazing strategy to ensure grazed grass could be maximised in their diet.

Join us at AHDB Strategic Dairy Farm Wolfhall Farm where herd manager Antony Mitchell and LIC Pasture to Profit consultant Piers Badnell will review the decisions made this season and discuss how to plan for the extreme weather events in the future.

At this meeting we will discuss:

• Using grass growth data to plan grazing strategies
• Limiting damage in wet conditions
• The when, what and how of cost-effective supplementary feeding
• Planning winter forage stocks
• Inclusion of forages resistant to climatic extremes 

About Piers Badnell:

Piers has been working with AHDB for years, as a part of his role with Pasture for Profit, providing consulancy for our Forage for Knowledge network.

Piers recently worked on a case study with Wolfhall as a part of Forage for Knowledge.

If you would like to better understand how to manage a herd in a grass & forage-based system in climatic extremes, such as the prolonged wet weather of 2023/24 or the extreme dry weather of 2025, this practical session will provide the tools, knowledge, and next steps to take action on farm.

Learn more about Wolfhall Farm.