THE Trigg family farm, near Ballarat, already lays claim to being the only combined dairying and potato operation in the region.
Now it has added another string to its bow.
The farm has just become the first in the region with a free-stall barn and next year it will introduce the region's first robotic milking system.
The barn can house up to 500 cows and has been a big investment for the AJ Trigg & Sons business, but farmer Tony Trigg enjoys living on the edge when it comes to innovation.
"Farmers enjoy trying new things," Mr Trigg said.
"The milk price at the moment has given us a bit of confidence to do something a bit different."
The 160x42 metre barn and a pasture rotation system that gets the best out of the land for both enterprises will be on show when the Grassland Society of Southern Australia hosts a tour of the farm on June 18.
The tour is part of the Grassland Society's annual conference in Ballarat from June 17-19.
A fifth generation farmer, Mr Trigg said potatoes and cows might be an unusual mix but had proven to be a good combination with paddocks being rotated between potatoes and dairy pastures.
"They work well together," he said.
"We grow seed potatoes and have a five or six year rotation. We generally go to Italian Ryegrass for three years, then maybe drill in another Italian for another three years and then go back into spuds," he said.
"If we have a spare pivot or spare water we might put in an annual ryegrass and take it off as silage in spring and then sow Lucerne.
The farm has had good results sowing Italian Ryegrass into Lucerne stands after about three years, and also plans to introduce some cereal and canola-based crops to the mix.
"We sow the pastures back into it and get a good fresh pasture every five years," Mr Trigg said.
"With the drier winter they are predicting we might just sow Italians next year."
Until this year the farm has used pasture-based grazing but since the addition of the free stall barn has changed to a cut and carry system.
All fodder will be cut in spring and stored in silage pits.
Mr Trigg manages the potato part of the family business which also involves his father John, two uncles Rob and Ron and a cousin Mark, a dairy manager, David Lee, and three full-time staff Pete McAdam, Elisha Hunt and Daniel Ryan.
The 800ha farm has been steadily growing over the years and currently milks about 350 cows.
That number is expected to grow to 500 over the next year with the new barn and upcoming eight robotic milkers.
The farm is also changing its calving pattern, moving from a January and August split system to year-round calving.
The barn has been introduced due to difficulty in finding people to milk year-round, cold winters and a desire to protect paddocks to grow more feed.
"The cold weather in the winter knocks the cows and then the heat in summer does the same," Mr Trigg said.
"We also wanted to protect the paddocks. Wet winters with cows pugging up the paddocks makes a hell of a mess and you spend a lot of money re-sowing.
"You can grow up to 20 per cent more dry matter if you keep the stock off the paddocks."
The Triggs travelled to Europe and South America to inspect similar barn systems.
"It's the way of the future I think. It's something relatively new in Australia."
While there are less than 20 dairy farms in the Ballarat region, Mr Trigg says it is an ideal area for the industry. "The cows perform very well and there are very fertile soils around here," he said.
"Spuds are the main industry. If McCains weren't here you might see a few more dairies popping up."
'What's driving your pasture business' is the theme for the Grassland Society annual conference this June.
