Farming in a unique climate in far Northern Scotland, Willie Harcus and his family run a 1,220-acre mixed beef, sheep and arable enterprise at Quanterness Farm on the mainland of Orkney.

With 400 acres of grass set aside for silaging, Willie aims for just one silage cut in the summer, weeks after many other parts of the UK may already be well underway with their second or third cut, so ensuring his entire operation performs is crucial to achieving maximum quality from a single silage cut.

Willie says: “Despite the challenging weather we face in Orkney, we manage to keep the cattle out from April to Christmas. And with a stringent rotational grazing system in place, we move the herd every two to four days, with a 21-23 day break for the grass to recover before the cattle return.

“This ‘intensive grazing – intensive rest’ approach has allowed us to halve our fertiliser applications over the last five years. To bolster the forage, clover is sown into the grass, and we grow chickery for the sheep to graze through the winter.

“We get a lot more grass from managing it this way. It’s a very simple system, considering the scale of our operation, but that’s how we like it, and it works well for us,” he says.