Farmers Weekly visits Chris Knowles’s dairy farm
Trink Farm has been operated by the Knowles family since Chris Knowles’s grandfather arrived there in 1962. Knowles returned to Cornwall after completing a three-year HND at Seale-Hayne and has farmed at Trink since leaving college in 1991. The holding covers 263ha, including 202ha of grass and 61ha of moorland, on light sandy soil over granite.
The dairy herd consists of 280 Jersey-cross Friesian cows and 120 followers. The cows are milked once a day, while beef calves are sold at three weeks. Arla Foods takes about 90% of the milk. The remainder is sold through local wholesalers or directly to customers as liquid milk, yoghurt and flavoured milkshakes through an on-farm vending machine. Rachel Knowles and their daughter Maddy manage the added-value sales, while Naomi carries out most of the tractor work.
Knowles said the farm changed direction after the contracting business operated by his father in the early 1990s failed to make money. The dairy is now the main enterprise. Field work is split between the farm’s own or shared machinery and contractors, who are used for jobs including baling and umbilical slurry application. All the farm’s silage is baled.
The conditions affect the machinery fleet. Salt-laden air damages paintwork, while slurry, manure and exposed granite add to the demands on equipment. Knowles has mainly used Massey Ferguson tractors, but said future purchases would also be assessed against Deere and Case models. In 2020, a Deere was priced at £20,000 more than the alternative, and the farm retained its Massey Ferguson.
The main tractor is normally replaced after five years or 6,000 hours. The current Massey Ferguson 6S135 is scheduled for replacement next year, while a Massey Ferguson 5455 bought in 2021 for £28,000, with 3,500 hours, has since reached 7,800 hours. The farm also operates a Case IH 75C. Knowles said the two loader tractors currently provide sufficient flexibility, although a telehandler is among the possible future purchases.
Among the equipment, Knowles singled out a 2,250-gallon Slurry Guzzler for its simple design. The machine was bought in 2014 for £17,000, but is no longer manufactured. A 11,000-litre Conor tanker with a trailing shoe has experienced sensor faults, including one involving the boom’s working position. A McHale bale-splitting attachment bought when the farm moved to fully round-baled silage in 2018 cost £1,300 and has seen little use because its knife does not cut reliably in all bale conditions.
The latest major purchase was a McConnel PA5555 hedgecutter, bought for £22,500 last year. Its Orbiter head allows trimming within the tractor’s width, which is suited to the narrow Cornish lanes. Other equipment includes a 3.8-tonne Sany SY35U excavator, a Trimble GPS guidance system, Kuhn and McHale implements, and shared machinery such as a Hardi sprayer and Krone tedder. The farm’s planned purchases include a livestock trailer, likely to be a 14ft triple-axle model with a removable body, and possibly a six-rotor tedder.
