Peat & Moss soils

Devil's advocate · Jan 20, 2020

I really envy the farmers with deep stone free soils.

But tell me all about peat?

I always thought Moss was the best & Peat the 2nd best soil if well drained of course. Am I wrong to think the Lancs alluvial moss soils are superior to the peat found on the fens in Lincs?

Does it need loads of lime?

Is it expensive to buy?

Thinking arable peat not the bogs on the moor.

Wilberforce · Jan 20, 2020

The peat should be great, but in reality.... Grade 3 Adventurers peat here. Who ever named it had a sense of irony. Fresh flush of redshank every few weeks in the spring, although don't need much N. Will grow serious grass, maize. Cereals so so. Slatted mouldboard plough a must although direct drilling works well on the black stuff.
This is the best input on peat, sadly needs to be done every generation.

Flat 10 · Jan 20, 2020

Lots of the really peaty fields round here have become mixed with the heavy clay underneath as its oxidised. But the black is good stuff for growing root crops but the weeds have to be seen to be believed and you have to manganese it every day to keep cereals alive. Ours doesn't need liming due to chalk watershed. Can be a PITA to plough, roll or drill. Beet and similar crops can be blown away, requiring a nurse crop of barley. Really good looking crops of wheat rarely yield as well as they look. Fields with patches in are really annoying. personally think its a waste of time with out and irrigation licence and growing pots, onions etc

farmerm · Jan 20, 2020

Surely when ELMS is introduced with payments for farmers sequestering N it will be made illegal to cultivate soils with high OM... no point farmers been paid to sequestering CO2 on one field only to release it freely elsewhere!

glasshouse · Jan 20, 2020

farmerm said:
Surely when ELMS is introduced with payments for farmers sequestering N it will be made illegal to cultivate soils with high OM... no point farmers been paid to sequestering CO2 on one field only to release it freely elsewhere!

FFS

Hindsight · Jan 20, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
I really envy the farmers with deep stone free soils.

But tell me all about peat?

I always thought Moss was the best & Peat the 2nd best soil if well drained of course. Am I wrong to think the Lancs alluvial moss soils are superior to the peat found on the fens in Lincs?

Does it need loads of lime?

Is it expensive to buy?

Thinking arable peat not the bogs on the moor.

Kidds · Jan 20, 2020

Wilberforce said:
sadly needs to be done every generation

Interesting comment.
Our patch of peat was drained, cropped marvellously with fruit and veg and is now a reed bed again. All in 30 years

Cowmangav · Jan 21, 2020

Peat shrinkage rates of 1.0 to 2.5 cm Annually in the paper above , puts sea level rises in perspective.

Devil's advocate · Jan 21, 2020

Helpful in depth article, covering both sides of the conservation versus agriculture debate,

I'd not heard of the Lyth valley in Cumbria, although I did know the big carrot growers were looking to rent land in Cumbria. I have harvested swedes on red soils in the valley floors of the Lake District & was suprised at the qualty of the soils. Carrots for local consumption were growing in the field plus some very impressive flat pole cabbage, all on 28 inch ridges.

Also interesting that the Somerset levels are grade one peat but used mostly for grassland production.

Devil's advocate · Jan 21, 2020

Kidds said:
Interesting comment.
Our patch of peat was drained, cropped marvellously with fruit and veg and is now a reed bed again. All in 30 years

On purpose or because of silted up rivers, dykes etc?

Or are reeds used for thatching in your area?

Phil P · Jan 21, 2020

Our moss is drained every 5 yards, still never leave home without a chain though!?

Lowland1 · Jan 21, 2020

Phil P said:
Our moss is drained every 5 yards, still never leave home without a chain though!?View attachment 854489

View attachment 854490

Interestingly our peat fen land is not drained and as such is not shrinking as fast as our neighbours who have all put in drainage over the last 10 years or so. The reason is that they are farming more land with bigger tackle that weighs heavier and sinks easily whilst we are pottering around with smaller lighter kit and can afford to wait a bit. Dyson farms across the fen from us and its really interesting to see the mess a quadtrac can cause the centre's of the fields are now a couple of feet lower than the headlands and dykesides

Devil's advocate · Jan 21, 2020

Phil P said:
Our moss is drained every 5 yards, still never leave home without a chain though!?View attachment 854489

View attachment 854490

Errr not so easy to farm

Does it yeild very well?

Small tracked tractor?

Lowland1 said:
Interestingly our peat fen land is not drained and as such is not shrinking as fast as our neighbours who have all put in drainage over the last 10 years or so. The reason is that they are farming more land with bigger tackle that weighs heavier and sinks easily whilst we are pottering around with smaller lighter kit and can afford to wait a bit. Dyson farms across the fen from us and its really interesting to see the mess a quadtrac can cause the centre's of the fields are now a couple of feet lower than the headlands and dykesides

Phil P · Jan 21, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
Errr not so easy to farm

Does it yeild very well?

Small tracked tractor?

General we only spring crop 70% of our moss as you just won’t travel when you need to in a winter crop, especially in a year like this!
However we can grow 3t/ac + spring barley on there pretty consistently, even in a season like 2017.
The moss is one of the main reasons we have a tracked combine.

Hindsight · Jan 21, 2020

Wilberforce said:
The peat should be great, but in reality.... Grade 3 Adventurers peat here. Who ever named it had a sense of irony. Fresh flush of redshank every few weeks in the spring, although don't need much N. Will grow serious grass, maize. Cereals so so. Slatted mouldboard plough a must although direct drilling works well on the black stuff.
This is the best input on peat, sadly needs to be done every generation.
View attachment 854383

Hi, you do possibly know but the that particular soil series is appropriately named after the Adventurers who originally drained the Fens from the 1600's onward. Wiki has a page reference - see link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventurers_(land_drainage)

And here is a link to the soil scientists classification of Adventurers

https://www.landis.org.uk/services/soilsguide/mapunit.cfm?mu=102402

Best wishes,

Lowland1 · Jan 21, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
Errr not so easy to farm

Does it yeild very well?

Small tracked tractor?

Hindsight said:
Hi, you do possibly know but the that particular soil series is appropriately named after the Adventurers who originally drained the Fens from the 1600's onward. Wiki has a page reference - see link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventurers_(land_drainage)

And here is a link to the soil scientists classification of Adventurers

https://www.landis.org.uk/services/soilsguide/mapunit.cfm?mu=102402

Best wishes,

Ours will grow very good potatoes and beet and more recently corn if well limed for a long time nobody grew wheat cos of the low ph but in the 80's we started putting on 20 tonne plus an acre of sludge lime which helped. We always ran little crawlers especially for rolling in the dry as the soil just pushed in front and took some pulling.
With regard to Adventurers Fen was n't that where Alan Bloom wrote about in his book.

Kiwi Pete · Jan 21, 2020

Moss soil is fantastic stuff, often best left well alone. As @Phil P said, don't leave home without a chain

I can certainly find the stuff in my little truck, may as well roller-skate on it, it is no fun on a slope as it almost seems to make the surrounding soil soft by proximity

Kidds · Jan 21, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
On purpose or because of silted up rivers, dykes etc?

Or are reeds used for thatching in your area?

Not on purpose, the fine particles of the peat block the holes in the pipes. I think the pipes move too causing sumps that block. In my limited experience the drains do need redoing each generation, it was interesting to hear someone else say the same.
On my little bit we had a crop of strawberries, they did well which says their feet weren’t wet at the time. The crop of reeds currently there are not by design, the drains have failed and there is standing water all year now. I topped it about 3 years ago but you’d need a boat now.
Peat over running sand and lots of very productive springs.

Flat 10 · Jan 22, 2020

Kidds said:
Not on purpose, the fine particles of the peat block the holes in the pipes. I think the pipes move too causing sumps that block. In my limited experience the drains do need redoing each generation, it was interesting to hear someone else say the same.
On my little bit we had a crop of strawberries, they did well which says their feet weren’t wet at the time. The crop of reeds currently there are not by design, the drains have failed and there is standing water all year now. I topped it about 3 years ago but you’d need a boat now.
Peat over running sand and lots of very productive springs.

Don’t you wrap the pipes?

Flat 10 · Jan 22, 2020

Phil P said:
General we only spring crop 70% of our moss as you just won’t travel when you need to in a winter crop, especially in a year like this!
However we can grow 3t/ac + spring barley on there pretty consistently, even in a season like 2017.
The moss is one of the main reasons we have a tracked combine.

I just don’t understand this. Barley, especially spring is the last crop I would grow on black land. I know you call it moss but it looks no different in that photo where you were drilling

Peat & Moss soils

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