What would happen if...

but some would do, I think the green material into soils that need it is very valuable in ways we don't even understand

Steve Townsend thinks grazing is a good idea once your soils are healthy and good but maybe not in the early years, having now had a couple of years of seeing how much difference cover crops have made to my soil I'm beginning to agree, maybe a few more years then some livestock

Maybe 5% tops walks out the gate, probably less.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Maybe 5% tops walks out the gate, probably less.


I think there is more to what green material must offer to the soil that we can fully understand yet

the level of change I have seen over a relatively short period certainly defy the black and white science of it all IMO
 
Location
Cambridge
but some would do, I think the green material into soils that need it is very valuable in ways we don't even understand

Steve Townsend thinks grazing is a good idea once your soils are healthy and good but maybe not in the early years, having now had a couple of years of seeing how much difference cover crops have made to my soil I'm beginning to agree, maybe a few more years then some livestock
You certainly lose C with livestock - that's obvious as we all know that what comes out their back end has a lower C:N ratio than what goes in. However Steve is close-minded on the subject. Yes plant material is probably important in ways we don't understand, but so probably are the things we get from the animals. And with grazing you get the best of both worlds: undigested plant material as roots and above ground growth, then also manure & urine.

I'd say a decent CC is 5tDM/ha of above ground growth, a great one 10t/ha, with the same below ground. If we lose 50% of the above ground to grazing, that's 25% of the total DM, and 2.5-5tDM/ha. When we then consider that it takes 185t/ha of DM to increase SOM by 1%, is the small amount lost to grazing significant?

I don't know, but I'm not unhappy to have sheep here.
 
Location
Cambridge
I think there is more to what green material must offer to the soil that we can fully understand yet

the level of change I have seen over a relatively short period certainly defy the black and white science of it all IMO
Flawed logic - just because you've seen benefits doesn't mean they wouldn't have been even greater with grazing.

And correlation doesn't imply causation.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Flawed logic - just because you've seen benefits doesn't mean they wouldn't have been even greater with grazing.


I guess I will never know and probably couldn't quantify it even If we had tried both approaches alongside each other

I will graze in the future but I dont think im missing out on too much by not doing so right now, things seem to be heading nicely in the right direction as they are
 
Location
Cambridge
I guess I will never know and probably couldn't quantify it even If we had tried both approaches alongside each other

I will graze in the future but I dont think im missing out on too much by not doing so right now, things seem to be heading nicely in the right direction as they are
I'd agree that both are going to be good, especially on our type of land. I think heavier may need grazing, that's what @Simon C says anyway I think
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
You certainly lose C with livestock - that's obvious as we all know that what comes out their back end has a lower C:N ratio than what goes in. However Steve is close-minded on the subject. Yes plant material is probably important in ways we don't understand, but so probably are the things we get from the animals. And with grazing you get the best of both worlds: undigested plant material as roots and above ground growth, then also manure & urine.

I'd say a decent CC is 5tDM/ha of above ground growth, a great one 10t/ha, with the same below ground. If we lose 50% of the above ground to grazing, that's 25% of the total DM, and 2.5-5tDM/ha. When we then consider that it takes 185t/ha of DM to increase SOM by 1%, is the small amount lost to grazing significant?

I don't know, but I'm not unhappy to have sheep here.


Agree with all that, Im happy top have sheep and also happy not to have sheep - I don't think there is a right answer and its the cover crops that make the biggest difference not just what you then do with them after
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I'd agree that both are going to be good, especially on our type of land. I think heavier may need grazing, that's what @Simon C says anyway I think


yes I certainly think he rules are different on heavier land in that respect, my low CEC lighter soils love the OM it seems so thats what I feel I need to maximise right now personally
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
..................and I do have livestock, my farm is alive with worms :) they ultimately do the same job as the sheep but don't walk out the gate with any of my carbon ;)
 
Location
Cambridge
..................and I do have livestock, my farm is alive with worms :) they ultimately do the same job as the sheep but don't walk out the gate with any of my carbon ;)
Why don't you get some sheep, graze the covers, then plough them in - same effect, only much quicker. Might have to run them through a shredder first though.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Why don't you get some sheep, graze the covers, then plough them in - same effect, only much quicker. Might have to run them through a shredder first though.

I think there are possibly laws about broadcasting dead sheep as fertiliser ? plus the plough would oxidize carbon ! ;)

Big advantage of worms over sheep is they work away without human intervention and cultivate as well while they are at it - surely its the ultimate livestock system ?
 
if I could get them I would have them - I have some wheat thats way further forward than DKA's that would benefit, even a bit of OSR I wouldn't care if they got into

Not so sure about grazing covers now though, beginning to agree with Steve T that in the early years certainly they might be best left to go directly back into the soil and not let a proportion of them march out the gate to the butchers !

I don't get that it should be difficult. Put an ad in a welsh machinery ring publication. Only thing is fencing etc.
 

Daniel

Member
Maybe free range poultry are the answer, huge amount of worm casts, but difficult to move the shed round different fields though!

ImageUploadedByTFF1417707001.679840.jpg
ImageUploadedByTFF1417707015.946965.jpg
 

RBM

Member
Arable Farmer
I've been quite pleased with the effect that the sheep,have had grazing covers on our heavy bits so far.
 

Gilchro

Member
Location
Tayside
You certainly lose C with livestock - that's obvious as we all know that what comes out their back end has a lower C:N ratio than what goes in. However Steve is close-minded on the subject. Yes plant material is probably important in ways we don't understand, but so probably are the things we get from the animals. And with grazing you get the best of both worlds: undigested plant material as roots and above ground growth, then also manure & urine.

I'd say a decent CC is 5tDM/ha of above ground growth, a great one 10t/ha, with the same below ground. If we lose 50% of the above ground to grazing, that's 25% of the total DM, and 2.5-5tDM/ha. When we then consider that it takes 185t/ha of DM to increase SOM by 1%, is the small amount lost to grazing significant?

I don't know, but I'm not unhappy to have sheep here.

Not only that but in terms of the conversion of the cover in to meat, you are probably looking at 9 or 10kg of dry matter to make a kg of meat.

That being the case, the remaining 8 or 9 kg of dry matter must come out the back end of the animal, so you are probably losing somewhere in the region of 10 - 12% of the dry matter.

The excreted dry matter is also pre inoculated with bacteria from the animals gut so I would wonder if the improvement in digestibility of the dung over the green material would offer a greater level of benefit
 
Location
Cambridge
Not only that but in terms of the conversion of the cover in to meat, you are probably looking at 9 or 10kg of dry matter to make a kg of meat.

That being the case, the remaining 8 or 9 kg of dry matter must come out the back end of the animal, so you are probably losing somewhere in the region of 10 - 12% of the dry matter.

The excreted dry matter is also pre inoculated with bacteria from the animals gut so I would wonder if the improvement in digestibility of the dung over the green material would offer a greater level of benefit
Don't forget to take into account what we breath out - CO2. That C comes from the plants and isn't coming back (soon). I don't know how much C a sheep breathes out in a day, would be interesting to find out.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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