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Crichton Royal Farm
Crichton Royal Farm has an area of 252 ha. and rises from near sea level to about 75m.
The land was bought by the Crichton Royal psychiatric hospital between 1884 and 1894, to provide food for the hospital and work for its patients. The farm has always been at the forefront of innovation: a milking machine was installed in 1907 and, in 1925, a silo was built for silage, well before these were common in Scotland.
In 1975 the ownership of the farm was transferred from Dumfries and Galloway Health Board to the Scottish Office (now Scottish Executive) and SAC took over the tenancy.
The Acrehead Dairy Unit was built in 1979 and, in 2002, the Crichton Dairy Unit was upgraded when all the SAC dairy research was consolidated at Dumfries. Crichton is also an innovation site for LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming).
Future Dairy Farming Systems Podcasts
In May 2012 SAC’s Dairy Research Centre at Crichton Royal Farm welcomed 130 visitors through its gates.
The aim of the day was to bring dairy farmers up to date with the latest research work going on at Crichton, funded by the Scottish Government and by DairyCo.
As they travelled round a tour of subject stations on the farm, visitors heard about different ways to feed high yielding dairy cows, both indoors and when grazing, the use of slurry as a fertiliser, problems with soil compaction and calving management.
The associated pages contain more information, including podcast interviews with some of the speakers.
Research at Crichton
The main aim of the Dairy Research Centre is to develop, implement and provide information from sustainable breeding and management systems for dairy cattle.