"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Well done @holwellcourtfarm you came across well. Its a shame that you hadn't been able to be in the studio with them. Unfortunately I got the feeling that you were out of the loop on some of their 'earlier' conversations.
How chuffed you must be to be placed up alongside Michael Eavis as a leading light of Regen Ag. ?
If only they knew the full story about his fully housed, high input dairy cows - maybe you could find yourself hosting the Hertfordshire Real Glastonbury Festival. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
Thanks

Constructive feedback is always good :LOL:

The hour long web meeting I followed it with was even more interesting. I may have mentioned that I'm now part of the 25 strong CIWEM natural Capital advisory panel and this was my first meeting, a special one called to consider the impact of the general election result. Much of the discussion was around the manifesto tree planting commitments and a draft paper we considered on advice to DEFRA on policy for tree planting. I'm the only "practitioner" on the committee, they are mostly consultants. Several have been involved in pitching trials to DEFRA for NELMS.

I made the point strongly that trees are not always even the best option for carbon capture on land, let alone when you add in food security to the assessment. I was well received and will be part of their group working up a position paper recommending how tree planting sites are assessed and planned. I made a big point of adding Silvopasture and Agroforesrty into the mix alongside pure woodland.

Now I just need to find a way to get paid for all this advocacy. :rolleyes:
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Thanks

Constructive feedback is always good :LOL:

The hour long web meeting I followed it with was even more interesting. I may have mentioned that I'm now part of the 25 strong CIWEM natural Capital advisory panel and this was my first meeting, a special one called to consider the impact of the general election result. Much of the discussion was around the manifesto tree planting commitments and a draft paper we considered on advice to DEFRA on policy for tree planting. I'm the only "practitioner" on the committee, they are mostly consultants. Several have been involved in pitching trials to DEFRA for NELMS.

I made the point strongly that trees are not always even the best option for carbon capture on land, let alone when you add in food security to the assessment. I was well received and will be part of their group working up a position paper recommending how tree planting sites are assessed and planned. I made a big point of adding Silvopasture and Agroforesrty into the mix alongside pure woodland.

Now I just need to find a way to get paid for all this advocacy. :rolleyes:

Someone cited a paper on another thread which actually showed carbon sequestration/storage penalty when planting trees into permanent pasture, and even into temporary pasture to a certain extent I think. Best results came from planting trees into long term arable of course, but is that the best use of potentially high quality land from a food security perspective? Sounds like you’ll have fun on your advocacy freebie!
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Can the Brits define the terms permanent pasture and temporary pasture and list what species one would expect to see in them.

While fairly self explanatory terms I would be interested in hearing the more detailed differences.
That's a whole minefield in itself here. :rolleyes:

It used to be relatively well understood as:
Permanent pasture has been in grass long term. generally it has a mix of traditional grasses and some herb content. Given the UK variability the actual species mix could vary hugely. Our permanent pasture contains, amongst other things, Annual Meadow Grass, Foxtail species, Bent species, Cocksfoot, Clovers and Yarrow.
Temporary grass has been reseeded regularly and is dominated by ryegrasses.

Then the EU/UK authorities decided to mess things up by decreeing that once a field had been in grass for 5 consecutive years it was classed as permanent pasture, regardless of the species content or whether it had been reseeded or overseeded in that time. It could only then be taken out of pasture after an ecological impact assessment had been conducted and, should the total area of pasture in the member state drop below an undeclared threshold the land manager could be forced to return it to pasture.
 
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Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
I like the idea behind this..
Thank you @Regen Cornwall for introducing me to it, hadn't heard of it until you said.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
I like the idea behind this..
Thank you @Regen Cornwall for introducing me to it, hadn't heard of it until you said.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I like the idea behind this..
Thank you @Regen Cornwall for introducing me to it, hadn't heard of it until you said.
It's a fantastic organisation. So much useful info in one place and not trying to sell you anything. (y)
 
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CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
I like the idea behind this..
Thank you @Regen Cornwall for introducing me to it, hadn't heard of it until you said.
Loads of great info available from those guys. They did some really good talks at Groundswell this year.
 

Rob Garrett

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Derbyshire UK
I like the idea behind this..
Thank you @Regen Cornwall for introducing me to it, hadn't heard of it until you said.
Nice one Treg, some good stuff on there, thank you.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
20200114_211150.jpg

Bit of a different set-up to the other direct drills I've used.

Just as well it isn't swinging on the linkage! I'd need to pour concrete into my bucket to keep the nose down, 2600kg for a 3 metre drill (empty) is quite a bit.

Spraying contractor is coming on Saturday, I was going to use a light (250ml/ha) rate of glypho + 1 litre/ha of liquid humate but I'm going to attempt something similar with salt + vinegar + humate, see if we can't do 'a chemical top' and scald the slugs at the same time.
They suggest 90g of glypho per hectare for chemical topping (250ml of G360) so we're going to use 120g of salt, a litre of vinegar, a litre of my sea brew and 1.5l liquid humate

Really quite keen to see if it works, even if it just makes the tough grass taste nicer it will be a 'sort of success' but I'm always confident.

Chap at Southern Humates gave me 20 litres free of charge as he's also keen to watch someone guinea-pig things.....
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
View attachment 853370
Bit of a different set-up to the other direct drills I've used.

Just as well it isn't swinging on the linkage! I'd need to pour concrete into my bucket to keep the nose down, 2600kg for a 3 metre drill (empty) is quite a bit.

Spraying contractor is coming on Saturday, I was going to use a light (250ml/ha) rate of glypho + 1 litre/ha of liquid humate but I'm going to attempt something similar with salt + vinegar + humate, see if we can't do 'a chemical top' and scald the slugs at the same time.
They suggest 90g of glypho per hectare for chemical topping (250ml of G360) so we're going to use 120g of salt, a litre of vinegar, a litre of my sea brew and 1.5l liquid humate

Really quite keen to see if it works, even if it just makes the tough grass taste nicer it will be a 'sort of success' but I'm always confident.

Chap at Southern Humates gave me 20 litres free of charge as he's also keen to watch someone guinea-pig things.....
What's the benefit of the vinegar KP?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
View attachment 853370
Bit of a different set-up to the other direct drills I've used.

Just as well it isn't swinging on the linkage! I'd need to pour concrete into my bucket to keep the nose down, 2600kg for a 3 metre drill (empty) is quite a bit.

Spraying contractor is coming on Saturday, I was going to use a light (250ml/ha) rate of glypho + 1 litre/ha of liquid humate but I'm going to attempt something similar with salt + vinegar + humate, see if we can't do 'a chemical top' and scald the slugs at the same time.
They suggest 90g of glypho per hectare for chemical topping (250ml of G360) so we're going to use 120g of salt, a litre of vinegar, a litre of my sea brew and 1.5l liquid humate

Really quite keen to see if it works, even if it just makes the tough grass taste nicer it will be a 'sort of success' but I'm always confident.

Chap at Southern Humates gave me 20 litres free of charge as he's also keen to watch someone guinea-pig things.....
The 3M Moore uni-drill I borrowed last year needed my full front weight setup as well to be even remotely safe on the road.

These direct drills ain't half heavy!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
What's the benefit of the vinegar KP?
Just to scorch things a little - acetic acid
I made a fair bit of homebrew ACV a few years ago and we ran about 120 litres thru a mate's still to concentrate it up - it's the secret ingredient in my gorse spray ;)

No secret now..... however just to give the thistles a bit of a burn, I am putting an extra bit on, I had a play with various things in these paddocks last year and salt definitely seems to cause cell burst in lignified plant material

So we help the salt into the plant and not into the soil by:
1 aiming for 100+ groundcover (y)
20200115_180733.jpg

Leaving plenty of green and brown grass with the woolly strippers, to soak it up
20200115_181526.jpg
20200115_181238.jpg

Then we'll aid uptake into the leaf/stem by tank-mixing humates and seaweed/fish goop that the plants want. I'm really keen to see what happens with the humate as I've not used it before.

It tastes like salty coal juice, I took 100mm in a cup.

Shame it'll sizzle the plants tops, however it shouldn't even get to the root as we are only giving it a whiff of salty acid, so the grass will still regenerate before too long - just stall it a month (hence the goodies for the soil)

The clover, being relatively stripped out by the lambs, should be left fairly intact and regen faster than the thistles/grasses, which I expect will just crumple down onto the surface after another run-over with the sheeps as I drill it.

That's the perfect plan, now let's see what goes wrong.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
The 3M Moore uni-drill I borrowed last year needed my full front weight setup as well to be even remotely safe on the road.

These direct drills ain't half heavy!

they don’t need to be . . .

it’s only because everyone has fûcked their land with compaction by constantly driving all over it with tractors & fertilisers & grazing / cutting too short

if you need sheer weight to force planter units into the ground, then that is telling you something . . .
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
they don’t need to be . . .

it’s only because everyone has fûcked their land with compaction by constantly driving all over it with tractors & fertilisers & grazing / cutting too short

if you need sheer weight to force planter units into the ground, then that is telling you something . . .
Pretty much, as you'd have seen from my pic this drill has a heck of a heavy cast-iron press wheel, really keen to use a disc drill with proper closing wheels than a tine drill followed by any kind of roller

Will be easy enough to open, but probably quite difficult to close the slot I'd say.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

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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