Gabe Brown, Allen Williams and Shane New in UK

[martian]

The Understanding Ag team are over in the UK next month for an event up North organised by RAM and 3LM (the UK Savory Hub). They have a spare day (Saturday, October 15th) so they're coming here to the Groundswell farm to run an all day workshop for 300 attendees. This is by way of a heads up to stick it in your diaries if you fancy a fascinating day. We are still sorting a few details, but tickets should go on sale in the next week or so...I wouldn't hang about if you're keen to come because I don't think it'll take long to sell out.

I imagine it'll be fairly livestock orientated knowing the speakers, but they're all regenerative farming superstars. I'm very excited...

 

[martian]

Tickets going on sale for this tomorrow, (Thursday 15th Sept) at 10 am.

Groundswell

“I’ve got tickets to Groundswell on 26th and 27th June, see you there?” @groundswellaguk

groundswell.yourticketpurchase.com

They will be talking about the 6 principles of Regen ag, the 3 rules and the 4 ecosystem services as well as dwelling on soil, cover crops and grazing. Tickets are £95 including lunch...there will be a bar

 

[martian]

Sold out now, thanks

 

[Dead Rabbits]

@martian Would you know which UK government body is Gabe Brown and understanding ag in talks with? I wonder what’s ahead?

 

[martian]

@martian Would you know which UK government body is Gabe Brown and understanding ag in talks with? I wonder what’s ahead?

I'm afraid I don't.

 

[Fred]

@martian Would you know which UK government body is Gabe Brown and understanding ag in talks with? I wonder what’s ahead?

I hope theyre not , you cannot bring North Dakota practices to the UK , bloody ridiculous just because hes written a book , which is very good , Its time DEFRA got out of their ivory tower and got onto farms

 

[martian]

There are a handful of tickets for Saturday's event that are now available due to rejigging layout...DM me if you want one.

 

[Samcowman]

Looking forward to it. What are you cooking for lunch @martian

 

[martian]

Looking forward to it. What are you cooking for lunch @martian

Hog roast and a vegetarian option. I stopped paying attention after the hog roast bit

 

[Samcowman]

Hog roast and a vegetarian option. I stopped paying attention after the hog roast bit

Is the vegetarian bit the bread roll the pig goes in?

 

[martian]

Half a handful of tickets left...should be able to buy direct from here:
https://groundswell.yourticketpurchase.com/

 

[Inky]

@martian, what's the timings for tomorrow?

 

[Samcowman]

9.30 for 10

 

[sjt01]

Thanks to @martian and team for a great day.

As always, I come away from any Groundswell event with my head buzzing with ideas. Here are my initial thoughts from yesterday:

Regenerative grazing practices for milking cows.

At present we are paddock grazing, plate metering and grazing from about 3000 kg/ha down to 1700 kg/ha. We are told this is the best strategy for regrowth of ryegrass leys.

This is leaving the grass quite short, with virtually no soil armour. With short leaves above ground, the grass plant will utilise the biomass in its roots to generate enough leaf to photosynthesise and start to re-grow. This will effectively reduce the depth of rooting substantially, and until there is a significant increase in photosynthesis, there will be little or no root exudate to feed the soil microbes.

If the soil microbes are not fed by the root exudates, they will break down the soil aggregates that they have created using glomalin, and use that material as food until it is exhausted when they will shut down and form spores.

The result of breakdown of soil aggregates and loss of soil armour will exacerbate the effects of drought and heat, which is something we really want to avoid.

We are attempting to put a more diverse mix into our existing grazing platform, but with perennials and the likes of chicory, the plate metering is unlikely to be very useful. With only 21 paddocks available, which we normally split into half for a morning paddock and allow them all for the evening, so they have access to the water tank, we are limited to 21 days regrowth. This is all the land available within walking distance for the cows. The paddocks are about 1.1 ha each, and the grazing herd is about 100 animals of around 550 kg each.

How can we manage this land to give us a similar amount of grazing to our low diversity ryegrass leys, while protecting the soil? As the low diversity ryegrass gives us good early season grazing but then tails off, we would expect a more level growth profile from the multispecies ley, but still need to maintain production. Our priority for the future of the herd must be drought resilience, in a low rainfall area of the country with an average of less than 600 mm per annum.

If we cannot get the yield, and as our irrigation ability is limited, we may have to rethink our whole dairy operation. At present we milk between 100 and 110 cows twice daily. If we cut back numbers, then we cannot justify employing two dairy staff, and we really need two at present to allow for days off and holidays. An alternative might be to go for once a day milking, when it could be much easier to get relief milking, or even to go to once a day, with calf at foot.

 

[Samcowman]

Good to meet you yesterday.
Would it be possible to just hold them back to get your covers higher even to 3500- 4000 which will give you more available fees per paddock and be able to allocate them less area per grazing. Even if you just do this with the one paddock in a safe to fail trial. As you say though ryegrass is limited so a more diverse posture will give you a range of heading so there will always be quality there along with some lignified material to help balance.
I have found just letting it grow taller and planning for a longer rotation with the diverse leys and keep the stock density right so there’s nothing left standing and everything they don’t eat is laid down.

 

[sjt01]

Good to meet you yesterday.
Would it be possible to just hold them back to get your covers higher even to 3500- 4000 which will give you more available fees per paddock and be able to allocate them less area per grazing. Even if you just do this with the one paddock in a safe to fail trial. As you say though ryegrass is limited so a more diverse posture will give you a range of heading so there will always be quality there along with some lignified material to help balance.
I have found just letting it grow taller and planning for a longer rotation with the diverse leys and keep the stock density right so there’s nothing left standing and everything they don’t eat is laid down.

We will have to experiment, but that sounds like an excellent starting point.

 

[Samcowman]

We will have to experiment, but that sounds like an excellent starting point.

I have found ryegrass dominant let’s are really tricky when letting them grow longer because they all want to reproduce at the same time. For a trial I would try a diverse area which is already established.

 

[Huno]

Thanks to @martian and team for a great day.

As always, I come away from any Groundswell event with my head buzzing with ideas. Here are my initial thoughts from yesterday:

Regenerative grazing practices for milking cows.

At present we are paddock grazing, plate metering and grazing from about 3000 kg/ha down to 1700 kg/ha. We are told this is the best strategy for regrowth of ryegrass leys.

This is leaving the grass quite short, with virtually no soil armour. With short leaves above ground, the grass plant will utilise the biomass in its roots to generate enough leaf to photosynthesise and start to re-grow. This will effectively reduce the depth of rooting substantially, and until there is a significant increase in photosynthesis, there will be little or no root exudate to feed the soil microbes.

If the soil microbes are not fed by the root exudates, they will break down the soil aggregates that they have created using glomalin, and use that material as food until it is exhausted when they will shut down and form spores.

The result of breakdown of soil aggregates and loss of soil armour will exacerbate the effects of drought and heat, which is something we really want to avoid.

We are attempting to put a more diverse mix into our existing grazing platform, but with perennials and the likes of chicory, the plate metering is unlikely to be very useful. With only 21 paddocks available, which we normally split into half for a morning paddock and allow them all for the evening, so they have access to the water tank, we are limited to 21 days regrowth. This is all the land available within walking distance for the cows. The paddocks are about 1.1 ha each, and the grazing herd is about 100 animals of around 550 kg each.

How can we manage this land to give us a similar amount of grazing to our low diversity ryegrass leys, while protecting the soil? As the low diversity ryegrass gives us good early season grazing but then tails off, we would expect a more level growth profile from the multispecies ley, but still need to maintain production. Our priority for the future of the herd must be drought resilience, in a low rainfall area of the country with an average of less than 600 mm per annum.

If we cannot get the yield, and as our irrigation ability is limited, we may have to rethink our whole dairy operation. At present we milk between 100 and 110 cows twice daily. If we cut back numbers, then we cannot justify employing two dairy staff, and we really need two at present to allow for days off and holidays. An alternative might be to go for once a day milking, when it could be much easier to get relief milking, or even to go to once a day, with calf at foot.

It all comes down to soil compaction by the bovine hoof.. if anyone can solve that dilemma then they are very wize...

 

[Jonny B88]

I have found ryegrass dominant let’s are really tricky when letting them grow longer because they all want to reproduce at the same time. For a trial I would try a diverse area which is already established.

I have found a nice positive side of no nitrogen application is the increase in clover in prg/clover leys. You then end up with a large mass of ryegrass and clover which I’m finding do the cows quite well. Also the longer the rest period the better the grass seems to be i think I’m finding. Quite the opposite to standard thought.

 

[Jonny B88]

It all comes down to soil compaction by the bovine hoof.. if anyone can solve that dilemma then they are very wize...

Not claiming to have solved it as such by any means. But longer covers definitely help in this regard. Both from the bulk of biomass above ground helping hold cattle up, and the root mass under ground being that bit bigger and stronger is the biggest strength.