J F Temple & Son Ltd farm approximately 230 hectares of land in and around Wighton. The main enterprise is dairy, with approximately 130 cows, and a similar number of young stock. The dairy herd is almost pure pedigree Brown Swiss.
About a third of the milk is used for cheesemaking, the rest sold wholesale to Arla. Arable crops are barley (for seed and feeding cows), maize and beet for cows and digester, and beans and lucerne for cow feed.
J F Temple & Son are currently using methane from their biogas plant for generating up to 170 kW of electricity for the grid and their own use, and heating for grain drying, cheesemaking, dairy hot water, farm house and office and three nearby farm cottages. The biogas is produced from cattle manure, whey from cheese, fodder beet and maize silage.
J F Temple & Son have replaced a van and an 18,000 miles/year diesel car with two fully electric cars, have a John Deere electric Gator buggy and an electric ride-on mower. They are using strip tillage for maize to reduce energy use and improve soil conservation. They export to the grid as electricity more than twice the amount of energy they buy as diesel fuel.
The digestate from the biogas applied with a trailing shoe tanker is a most valuable fertiliser. They have recently equipped four staff houses with PV panels and two with biomass boilers.