A significant result

Clive · Aug 2, 2015

Feldspar said:
I could be quite rude about that position, but instead I'm going outside to peer at the soil outside and hope that understanding somehow materialises.

while your doing that I will waste hours searching the internet for a 100% guarantee that something will work

your time sat staring at soil will probably be more successful, in the mean time those brave enough to trust their own judgment are leaving the rest behind

RushesToo · Aug 2, 2015

Handbags down!

My take on this. There is progress from scientific endeavour - which tends to be incremental due to funding methods. There is progress from good farmers that are exceptional observers and "dispruptive" in their methods.

Sometimes the scientists discover something and develop it and sometimes the good farmers discover something and it retrospectively gets studied. It can be very productive when both these happen in partnership.

What will never get funded is the local knowledge you have of the individual circumstances that you farm in. You will do certain things knowingly and others because you know it is right.

There is never one right answer but there is usually a direction to go in that is better than previous - and this may be corrupted by subsidies that make you do things that you would rather not, or by bad weather, unusual ground, particular machinery or a number of other unique features.

The best that you can wish is that you have made yourself knowledgeable enough about the source and trustworthiness of data, have someone that you rely on to consult with and are fully aware of your appetite for risk.

RTK Farmer · Aug 2, 2015

Just going back to basics, didn't people plough because they hadn't got a coulter that would seed into residue (muck) so needed to bury it and have some tilth.

Feldspar · Aug 2, 2015

Clive said:
while your doing that I will waste hours searching the internet for a 100% guarantee that something will work

your time sat staring at soil will probably be more successful, in the mean time those brave enough to trust their own judgment are leaving the rest behind

Basically the rational way to proceed in farming is by an informal version of a Bayesian updating method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference) which allows iterative decision making to be made based upon limited but evolving evidence combined with continually updating prior beliefs. In short, that absolutely does not mean doing nothing / not changing until you have 100% certainty - that would be an absurdly irrational thing to do.

This give a rough idea of application of the above in agricultural research, specifically variety trials in the below link. It basically works just as you would like, but takes in research and lay observations in a way outlined by @RushesToo :

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.17.7154&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Research does not proceed in the simplistic way that you think it does, at least not always. It's just that the more sophisticated methods are beyond the comprehension of nearly all of the farming populace. The belief that existence is the limit of one's own understanding is the problem here.

marco · Aug 2, 2015

you need to watch this, skip to 1.10

Feldspar · Aug 3, 2015

marco said:
you need to watch this, skip to 1.10

to an extent, but of course when you go to the doctor and he / she says you have affliction A and you should take medicine M, you obviously don't believe him / her because they didn't invent the medicine personally and do the trials themselves and so you go out into the forest and start eating random leaves in the hope of finding a cure because no expert anywhere was ever right!

RushesToo · Aug 3, 2015

@marco Love the video. I do trust the peer review process, I don't need to read the data, though I sometimes do when I feel the need. I find that when I check the data it does tend to reinforce my belief in peer review and it being a solid way to build an argument. Everything else tends to be rather like the video.

You will be unsurprised that it hasn't changed my approach nor my views too much.

Feldspar said:
....
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.17.7154&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Research does not proceed in the simplistic way that you think it does, at least not always. It's just that the more sophisticated methods are beyond the comprehension of nearly all of the farming populace. The belief that existence is the limit of one's own understanding is the problem here.

I would guess that this paper is produced from the pen of a man that would never be able to farm. He would be paralysed by not understanding enough of what needed to be done and taking that leap of "faith" which could be interpreted as knowledge and experience, and a willingness to trust the synthesis of these to lead to change that he has actioned.

Feldspar · Aug 3, 2015

RushesToo said:
@marco
I would guess that this paper is produced from the pen of a man that would never be able to farm. He would be paralysed by not understanding enough of what needed to be done and taking that leap of "faith" which could be interpreted as knowledge and experience, and a willingness to trust the synthesis of these to lead to change that he has actioned.

Maybe so, but it doesn't mean that what he has to say is totally worthless as has been suggested previously. Just because a basketball coach can't shoot hoops personally as well as their star players doesn't mean has nothing of value to add.

dontknowanything · Aug 3, 2015

marco said:
you need to watch this, skip to 1.10

Very good!

Although only the very simple minded wouldn't see some gaping flaws in the argument.

As for the rest of this thread...bed time.

Clive · Aug 3, 2015

Feldspar said:
Basically the rational way to proceed in farming is by an informal version of a Bayesian updating method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference) which allows iterative decision making to be made based upon limited but evolving evidence combined with continually updating prior beliefs. In short, that absolutely does not mean doing nothing / not changing until you have 100% certainty - that would be an absurdly irrational thing to do.

This give a rough idea of application of the above in agricultural research, specifically variety trials in the below link. It basically works just as you would like, but takes in research and lay observations in a way outlined by @RushesToo :

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.17.7154&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Research does not proceed in the simplistic way that you think it does, at least not always. It's just that the more sophisticated methods are beyond the comprehension of nearly all of the farming populace. The belief that existence is the limit of one's own understanding is the problem here.

....... Or you could just get on with it !

Seriously Janes I really don't think I have ever read such rubbish - we are farming not working in labs

Feldspar · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
....... Or you could just get on with it !

Seriously Janes I really don't think I have ever read such rubbish - we are farming not working in labs

OK, I admit that post was going a bit far!

But that paper is actually quite interesting from an academic standpoint. It looks at the soil variability across a normal variety trial site and how you correct for that. Interestingly the in field variation is normally as big an effect as the differences between varieties.

OK, just off to combine some wheat. Think that counts as getting on with it.

Clive · Aug 3, 2015

Feldspar said:
OK, I admit that post was going a bit far!

But that paper is actually quite interesting from an academic standpoint. It looks at the soil variability across a normal variety trial site and how you correct for that. Interestingly the in field variation is normally as big an effect as the differences between varieties.

OK, just off to combine some wheat. Think that counts as getting on with it.

does it not concern you (when i'm sure you do actually have a strong gut feel and have observed apparent success) that your loosing out while waiting for that proven bit of scientific evidence that says it all works ?

I could have bought a small farm almost on the difference of the last 4 years

Feldspar · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
does it not concern you (when i'm sure you do actually have a strong gut feel and have observed apparent success) that your loosing out while waiting for that proven bit of scientific evidence that says it all works ?

I could have bought a small farm almost on the difference of the last 4 years

I am not responsible for the overall choice of farming system. That is beyond my pay grade at present. For the time being it is absolutely the right thing to do read as much as possible because arguments cannot be won on the back of trials that we have never done or things that might take 5 years to happen. I'm happy to watch, learn and wait until my time comes.

dontknowanything · Aug 3, 2015

Feldspar said:
It is the error in the two means of the two fields that's important. You would use a two tailed T test to check properly if the differences in the yield averages between the two fields is significant. You say that, in one of the three years you've given results for, the no-till field actually yielded 5% more than min-till field. That means that the no-till field (even when it's not no-till) doing better than the min-till field is not that remarkable. It possible that no-till has as a matter of fact dropped your yields by 4% compared to if you had min-tilled this year and you wouldn't know it from this trial.

I was not around in 2007, but I bet the reason the min tilled field yielded less was because "something" happened. For example, in 2012 we grew peas on both the fields, and the no till field yielded way more. However, this was because pigeons ate much of the other crop, and so the yield was reduced by a factor not directly related to the soil's quality.

Feldspar said:
I do wonder, especially given your stance on CS and their trials, at the implication at the end of the first post that this result is the one that causes a complete cessation in cultivations.

The difference between myself and CS is that I am not using this result to try and justify a triple-priced piece of machinery. I've said repeatedly that my results are very rough and would not stand up to any sort of scientific rigour. This is most certainly not what will make me stop cultivating. I would almost certainly have done so anyway, unless I saw a marked yield penalty. The fact that the opposite occurred will make me sleep that little bit better at night.

Feldspar said:
I thought you had said that the DDed beet was not looking that great, and the maize has unresolved issues with it, but maybe my memory fails me?

We are not growing beet next year, so that problem is eliminated. Maize is an ongoing trial, it may turn out to be un-growable without cultivations in this country. But that is for the future to tell.

Feldspar said:
Ultimately I think the best way to say it is not that you're going to no-till because there is no difference between that and min-till yields in general, it's because you can't detect a difference between the two and so accepting the inescapable nature of this state of ignorance you side with whatever method has the most other non-quantifiable benefits like possible soil improvements, better lifestyle, wider environmental benefits etc.

That's fair enough, but if you are worrying about this difference in wording perhaps your energies may be better directed to something more productive...

Feldspar said:
I'm not being annoying just for the fun of it.

Pull the other one

dontknowanything · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
I could have bought a small farm almost on the difference of the last 4 years

If that's the case then within a decade all of the big farmers will be using a no-till conservation-ag type system as they can totally out compete the rest.

I would bet good money that will not happen.

Clive · Aug 3, 2015

dontknowanything said:
If that's the case then within a decade all of the big farmers will be using a no-till conservation-ag type system as they can totally out compete the rest.

.

only if they have the ability to and management to make it work - its not a simple machine change system and most really BIG farmers I know would fail misirably

if it becomes wide spread the advantage will dissipate I guess other than if your not doing it you won't be profitable

dontknowanything · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
only if they have the ability to and management to make it work - its not a simple machine change system and most really BIG farmers I know would fail misirably

if it becomes wide spread the advantage will dissipate I guess other than if your not doing it you won't be profitable

That's not my point.

I'm saying that the people using the system will become the big farmers. That's a total given if you make enough extra money every four years to buy a new farm.

Clive · Aug 3, 2015

dontknowanything said:
That's not my point.

I'm saying that the people using the system will become the big farmers. That's a total given if you make enough extra money every four years to buy a new farm.

I don't think they will personally, I think they will just become more profitable ones, not every farmer is obsessed with scale and not all see it as a good thing

I also think the increase need for management limits the scale to an extent so skill would become a limiting factor for someone scaling in a big way

The Ruminant · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
only if they have the ability to and management to make it work - its not a simple machine change system and most really BIG farmers I know would fail misirably

if it becomes wide spread the advantage will dissipate I guess other than if your not doing it you won't be profitable

Which is why I often scratch my head at the way we all share our best ideas, when this simply helps my direct competitors (all of you out there!)

I remember hosting a farm walk a few years ago to look at the mob grazing I was doing and saying that in four years' time if I've gone very quiet on the subject it would either be because it had failed miserably or it was extremely successful.

I rarely mention it these days.....

dontknowanything · Aug 3, 2015

Clive said:
I don't think they will personally, I think they will just become more profitable ones, not every farmer is obsessed with scale and not all see it as a good thing

I also think the increase need for management limits the scale to an extent so skill would become a limiting factor for someone scaling in a big way

Ah right, so human nature will change?

I don't think so!

A significant result

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