A COUNTY Durham farmer is through to the finals of a national silage competition.

George Nixon and his family farm 150 acres at High Broates Farm, near Bowes.

The farm stands 900ft above sea level, but the Nixon family has beaten 5,000 other entries to reach the final round of the Genus Powerstart Silage Challenge 2001.

Mr Nixon and his son, Graham, run 100 Holstein cows and aim to make about 1,200 tonnes of grass silage for the herd.

They take three cuts a year - the first two for the cows and the third for the heifers.

"We use contractors and the first cut was on June 10 this time," said Mr Nixon, "We prefer to be a week earlier than that normally but it was a later spring than normal.

Last year, for the first time, they treated 1000 tonnes of their grass with Powerstart. "We used a live system before but tried Powerstart and it seems to be a lot better, the cows really liked it and milked the best they ever have," said Mr Nixon, who has been making silage for more than 50 years.

The winning silage was high in energy with very low ammonia, making it highly palatable.

Yields went up from 19 litres to 25 litres per cow and the milk proteins rose from 3.3pc to 3.4pc.

But it wasn't only the cows that liked the silage. "We had to put a wire fence across the face of the clamp to keep out the wintered sheep which hung around waiting to raid it," said Mr Nixon.

A break-down of the winning silage gave an analysis of 26.9 dry matter; 12.1 ME; 75.6 D value; 12 crude protein; 2 ammonia; 3.8pH; 80 lactic acid and a 7.2:1 acid ratio.

Graham Nixon received the northern regional winners cup at a Genus meeting at the Kings Arms Hotel, Kirby Stephen, on Tuesday. Guest speaker Philip Latham, who spoke about fertility in the dairy cow, presented the trophy.