University Farm is a 400 hectare (4 km²) commercial research farm attached to the Sutton Bonington Campus of the University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It lies across the parishes of Sutton Bonington

Sutton Bonington

Sutton Bonington is a village and civil parish lying along the valley of the River Soar in the Borough of Rushcliffe, south west Nottinghamshire, England. The University of Nottingham has a site just to the north of the village: Sutton Bonington Campus....

 and Kingston on Soar

Kingston on Soar

Kingston on Soar is a village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, England. It has a population of 239, as of the 2001 census.It has 4 centres of population: the Village, Kingston Hall, New Kingston and Kingston Fields....

.

Facilities

The farm exists to provide high quality facilities, resources and opportunities for research with crops and animals. It also has a key educational role by providing an environment for effective tuition of students in biosciences, and veterinary science. The farm is run commercially to be self-financing whilst still fulfilling its role as a teaching and research resource. The farm manager is currently William Donger. The farm is a mixed farm, with an emphasis on dairy and arable production.

Livestock

The dairy herd consists of 180 cows, which are milked using a robot milking system (part of a recent 2 million-pound investment in the dairy). The farm also has 350 breeding ewes, and maintains beef, pig and poultry research units.

Arable land

320 hectares are devoted to arable crops including cereals, oilseed, and sugar beet, 20 hectares of which have been converted to organic production. The further 80 hectares of land is used for an intensively managed rotation of grass, fodder crops and maize for silage.

External links

• University Farm
• Video of the dairy farm