"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Yeah, I always grow too much of everything and end up feeding half of it to the neighbours and then the stock when the neighbours start making excuses 
Pretty sure @choochter grows carrots?
A lot of these things tend to come away quite well in pasture as the pasture provides good protection for the tops until they get going, but beet is pretty high in a lot of things
I have a plan to grow a bit of a big garden out the back by my manure heap and just use time controlled grazing on it too, cant be too hard to do, 2 furrows up and two back and then get sowing.
Or in corners of fields, not hard to put a poor man's gate across and put in some "food plots" but I want trees first off.
My landscape looks too much like a farm
Pretty sure @choochter grows carrots?
A lot of these things tend to come away quite well in pasture as the pasture provides good protection for the tops until they get going, but beet is pretty high in a lot of things
I have a plan to grow a bit of a big garden out the back by my manure heap and just use time controlled grazing on it too, cant be too hard to do, 2 furrows up and two back and then get sowing.
Or in corners of fields, not hard to put a poor man's gate across and put in some "food plots" but I want trees first off.
My landscape looks too much like a farm
Yeah what is Silverbeet Kp?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I don't know what you will call it !
Chard, maybe? Like spinach, but a beet, and the leaves have big solid white stems that separate off the crown like a normal beet top does.
It also regrows and seeds like a bugger so a good investment - probably another species for the "chicory alternatives" column.
Hope you know what I mean now, swiss chard according to googly
Chard, maybe? Like spinach, but a beet, and the leaves have big solid white stems that separate off the crown like a normal beet top does.
It also regrows and seeds like a bugger so a good investment - probably another species for the "chicory alternatives" column.
Hope you know what I mean now, swiss chard according to googly
Thanks for all the replies. Wet clay and this particular field is one of the worst which is probably why the ryegrass struggled a bit this spring and kinda rules out lucerne.
It already has a good amount of clover there so more clover isn't necessary. The Timothy and nz grass will grow a bit earlier than normal ryegrass so should help Dry the ground out earlier.
The sward is fairly open so whatever else is going in should stand a good chance.
So something with a good deep taproot to help drainage and will be good for finishing animals in a rotation.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
You could try tillage radish if you just want something fast - would be through the ground in 3 or 4 days and therefore take advantage of your dry spring?
Peas Lupins etc would be another good way to get some extra soil condition and stock gain.
Peas Lupins etc would be another good way to get some extra soil condition and stock gain.
- Location
- Quebec, Canada
Kiwi Pete- Don’t the pumpkin seeds ferment in their stomachs? A ram of mine went down once after eating some cucumbers. Vet saved him.
Dead Rabbits
Member
- Location
- 'Merica
In this group are the remnants of my small dairy enterprise - the steers etc so only 10 in total. One traditional hereford bull, several fully grown pure jersey steers, a jersey cull cow, several yearlings jersey-cross calves. Doing a job!
I’ve a group of 25 younger animals grazing better ground elsewhere and another, larger batch, due to arrive in the next few days (which I’m contract grazing for someone else), they’ll be in a third group.
Ideally I’d keep them in one large group but there is a combination of disease pressure (especially keeping the contract grazed ones separate) and distance - it’s a round trip of over 25 miles between the three blocks of land....
The price of being a new entrant, I guess
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
may go to that Somerton isn't far from here
Yeah, they weren't very original with a lot of the names here . . .
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I haven't had any issue with it but they have a fairly good dietary range, all the same.
I do know the seed has an oil in them that causes abortion in pigs
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Most of our place names are Scottish, if not Maori. It is quite interesting to note that although the early european settlers seemed very keen to escape the old country they were very much rooted in what they knew - hence all the stuff they imported to make it feel more like home.
Growing up I'd presumed that every single "weed" species came here but there are heaps of them that we just don't have - TFF has opened my eyes to all the diverse things that pop up in GB that never made it down here, fortunately in many respects as what has arrived does seriously well.
- Location
- Cornwall
Yep, that’s not a Lucerne friendly situation.
As Pete says, perhaps a forage brassica of some sort as a short term, quick to feed option and once it’s gone you’ll possibly still have to find something to fill the spaces it has left. Cocksfoots and/or fescues are a lot deeper rooting than rye-grasses etc, they’d be able to take advantage of soil opened up by the brassica tap root. They’re not to everyone’s taste but we use an awful lot of them out here even in the higher rainfall country.
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
a book review for holistic or regenerative thinkers
David Marsh discusses the wonderful new book ‘The Call of the Reed Warbler’ by Charles Massey. ‘Tension events’ in farmers lives have clearly been the primary catalyst for them embracing a new ‘holistic’ attitude to farming, and the birth of ‘the emergent mind’ is a step in the right direction for agriculture and landscape management.
David Marsh discusses the wonderful new book ‘The Call of the Reed Warbler’ by Charles Massey. ‘Tension events’ in farmers lives have clearly been the primary catalyst for them embracing a new ‘holistic’ attitude to farming, and the birth of ‘the emergent mind’ is a step in the right direction for agriculture and landscape management.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
So many familiar place names in NZ....
Alongside loads of Maori ones I had to look up how to pronounce
Quite a few familiar plants too but most of the trees are very non-UK.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Still not making too much mess here but it could easily go that way.
Still roughly eating half and pushing half in.
Gets quite gluey on top after a run of frosts but that doesn't hold us up for long.
Roughly 34 days of regrowth and on a 50 day round or so, the odd bale and the cover crops have helped eek it out and we should sit on about a 50-60 day round now through winter with sheep
Think the beef schedule will come up in June if not I will keep the angus until spring and just say bye to these bulls- liking their peas for brunch.
Left the tractor out last night and had to light a fire under it to get it started
along with jumpering it off the ute --Must put the winter battery in it
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
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No like for snow
i f**king hate that stuff
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Just be a quick blast hopefullyNo like for snow
Bit early all the same, it is meant to come in August and drive up the early lamb price
I just hope we keep our electricity and no damage - wind warnings down here are not to be taken lightly, at all.
I doubt if snow will come to much here but could be different inland.
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
You wanna come here thenNo like for snow
Mind you, I've seen more snow & suffered colder temps here than I did in 3 yrs of living in the U.K. ( mostly Sth England )
Id melt if i came over thereYou wanna come here then
Mind you, I've seen more snow & suffered colder temps here than I did in 3 yrs of living in the U.K. ( mostly Sth England )