Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Posted on monday so ill get some results soon and post when I do.
3 year herbal ley break crop
- Thread starter dontknowanything
- Start date
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Here is the tissue test soil test to follow.
SilliamWhale
Member
Saw the video last night Tim. Very good, enjoyed it.
Wasn't too impressed with the sheepdog though - sitting on the quad whilst the quad did the work!
Wasn't too impressed with the sheepdog though - sitting on the quad whilst the quad did the work!
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
That one isn't ours the new one is really good what a difference a good dog makes.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Got a question for the experts
There are some patches with quite a lot of rape, also there are a couple of big bits of charlock which is flowering.
Should I go and top it, which would be easy as they are all now much taller than the grass, or should I be brave and leave them?
There are some patches with quite a lot of rape, also there are a couple of big bits of charlock which is flowering.
Should I go and top it, which would be easy as they are all now much taller than the grass, or should I be brave and leave them?
Baling Hay
Member
Can you not graze it?
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Yes, but I won't have got around it all by the time it would be setting seed I think. I want to leave it a few more weeks for the grass as well
Baling Hay
Member
If the ground is dry enough and you are sure you wouldn't damage the new sward then I would be tempted to top them, should be able to go quite fast with very little load on the topper I would think.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Yes it would be a quickish job. At a minimum I could do the big charlock bits and leave the rape
- Location
- Romsey, Hampshire
I would get on and top it.
RushesToo
Member
- Location
- Fingringhoe
I would do half and leave the other half and learn something from it.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
I've chickened out and am sitting on the topper
plenty of blackgrass in here too!
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Finally getting time to do some fencing. First go with HT wire. I'm happy as it will hold a full 400m reel halfway between 20m spaces posts, and only sag about 5cm
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Looking good. How are you laying out the fence? Are you going just around the outside of the field or are you splitting it up the middle too? I ve split the field on two and kept the mid fence a bit slacker so I can drive over it with the gator with a fence pusher-downer-thingy it works well.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
the field is effectively square, and 18ha. I'm having 5 HT wires permanently up in the middle, splitting the field into 6 rectangles. There is a 5m gap at each end of these wires for the cows to go through. I plan to have 6 semi permanent water troughs, each one under the permanent HT wires, so it is useable from either side.
Does that make sense to you?
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Yep makes perfect sense are you going to run the 18 ha block one its own or will it be part of a bigger grazing area? We've got some cattle on the farm now I've taken some on tack for the summer to see how it works before buying any. So far its going well got a training area set up ot takes them about 24 hrs to respect the electric fence then I walk them out to the rest of the mob got 121 Angus cross every things at the moment they are really tame so far. Will end up with 150. About to start lambing in a couple of weeks so it's all go here.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
It will be one block - I only have about 30 cattle at the moment. Looking to get some more in as I am under stocked.
I have also had a slight change in philosophy, and will probably go and spread some P&K tomorrow. Although there is most likely plenty of total p&K in the soil, I am not comfortable with mining it.
- Location
- Mid Northants
Tim, i came past your farm yesterday , my sister in law lives at Sherbourne St John, are you mob grazing your sheep, bit of a hedge row farmer I'm afraid but Lunch was calling, and we had driven 2 hours so i couldn't really stop and have a proper look,
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Interesting I hosted a walk a few weeks ago and we were talking about mycorizal fungi not really functioning very well with too much avaliable phosphate about. First time I've heard it similar to the clover bacteria not fixing much n if there's too much n about. Until I heard that I was planning on using sludge in the arable part of the rotation a couple of times in the 4 years to provide enough for the grazing section. The leaf tests I've done so far seem fine for p and k on the grass but in need of magnesium and selenium. But as we're understocked the animals aren't showing many signs of stress. They scaned really well and we've used little mag and cal for staggers. To use a holistic management term its not our weak link at the moment.
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Sadly not at the moment those are all set stocked for lambing they'll be in 5 groups of around 300 afterwards moving more regularly. I'll get there but I'm not going to rock the boat too much this first year. It seems the biggest reservation to putting all 1700 ewes plus thier 3000 odd lambs in one group is for the times when they need processing. The worry is that in such a big group too many lambs would die in the handling pen. A bit annoying cause we'll only treat them a handful of times and have to run them in smaller groups all the time just for thoes few occasions. It would be so easy just to move one lot of sheep instead of 5