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

JohnGalway · Dec 1, 2020

Treg said:
Crikey there's definitely money in farming.
To me paying money like that to go on courses is still a input & it's still about selling you something, as in selling the idea to you & hopefully you go on more courses.
I'll stick to this thread as part of my self development

I've shelled out a fair few bob on courses over the past year or two I'll admit. There's things I'm interested in, like my soil for one. I thought I had a successional issue on my land, but after Nicole Masters course now I wonder have I got a fungal dominated soil with low biological activity

But, NM's course was just a foundational course naturally.

There is part of me that wonders what I might discover that could unlock some of the things I want to do. $5,000 in one lump for me is a bit like flying to Vegas and putting it on red though.

Samcowman · Dec 1, 2020

Started work on getting my grazing season results on a spreadsheet today. Very interesting when you tally up the whole seasons results this way even to just compare paddocks and splits in the paddocks.

Samcowman · Dec 1, 2020

I know I made a major mistake here in towmead 1 and 2 early in the season by only giving them a short recovery because I used that field for electric fence training. Which was a mistake in hindsight.

Humble Village Farmer · Dec 1, 2020

I haven't done a grazing plan yet. As KP says, the route is pretty much determined by the layout for me. It's possible to start somewhere different and maybe change the order but only to a certain extent. I often start in the same place because it's next to the shed for turnout and good for fence training.

onesiedale · Dec 1, 2020

Rod Dumbreck said:
I have one on a spreadsheet, and Mrs D keeps one on a chart! (Don't ask) Its easier than you would imagine, and for me the advantage is I can shuffle the fields in the order we are going to graze in, to help with visualising where to put fences up.

View attachment 924265

That looks like a cracking spreadsheet with plenty of tabs of information. Is it one you made up yourself, or have you bought a programme?

Crofter64 · Dec 1, 2020

Samcowman said:
View attachment 924315
I know I made a major mistake here in towmead 1 and 2 early in the season by only giving them a short recovery because I used that field for electric fence training. Which was a mistake in hindsight.

Why have SU Days / hectare and Animal days / hectare? The numbers are the same in each column.
I’ve made similar calculations but find I don’t look at them again afterwards. Don’t know how to make use of that info as I find each year is quite different in every way to previous ones.

som farmer · Dec 1, 2020

our plan, for the last 3 yrs, has been irrelevant, we have a grazing cycle, if grass has gone to far, we jump one paddock, we consider our selves lucky, if we do ! As a dairy, we have to make winter forage, no option, we grow a bulk crop, for bulk silage, and round bale, what we can, skin of our teeth, springs to mind !

Treg · Dec 1, 2020

JohnGalway said:
I've shelled out a fair few bob on courses over the past year or two I'll admit. There's things I'm interested in, like my soil for one. I thought I had a successional issue on my land, but after Nicole Masters course now I wonder have I got a fungal dominated soil with low biological activity But, NM's course was just a foundational course naturally.

There is part of me that wonders what I might discover that could unlock some of the things I want to do. $5,000 in one lump for me is a bit like flying to Vegas and putting it on red though.

Is there no one local to you that could help with mentoring?
Any free courses on soil available?
We had soils for profit about 10 yrs ago , a 1 day course + 1/2 day with a advisor on farm all for free , really good course .

bendigeidfran · Dec 1, 2020

Rob Garrett said:
Any tips on getting a grazing plan started? Never been that keen on the idea, but maybe that's a reflection of where my grazing management is at the moment i.e. potential for improvement!

Im the same as you regarding a grazing plan, i think i will give it a go next year.
You changed your grazing this year because the grass was left a bit to long maybe, did you wright it down somwere or just a mental note of it?

Samcowman · Dec 1, 2020

Crofter64 said:
Why have SU Days / hectare and Animal days / hectare? The numbers are the same in each column.
I’ve made similar calculations but find I don’t look at them again afterwards. Don’t know how to make use of that info as I find each year is quite different in every way to previous ones.

For this block they are but in the other blocks there are growing cattle which means they are different. You are right though for the sake of these results AD/H is unnecessary.
I agree a year in year comparison is variable due to weather. This is the first time I have done this so I don’t know how useful it will be.

JohnGalway · Dec 1, 2020

Treg said:
Is there no one local to you that could help with mentoring?
Any free courses on soil available?
We had soils for profit about 10 yrs ago , a 1 day course + 1/2 day with a advisor on farm all for free , really good course .

Not that I'm aware of tbh

Rob Garrett · Dec 1, 2020

bendigeidfran said:
Im the same as you regarding a grazing plan, i think i will give it a go next year.
You changed your grazing this year because the grass was left a bit to long maybe, did you wright it down somwere or just a mental note of it?

Mostly in my head at the moment plus coloured in field maps, think I am more of a visual learner, makes more sense on a map than a spreadsheet, but like the idea/flexibility of using the computer. Playing around with the deferred/long grass grazing this year only became part of "the plan" around August time!

Rob Garrett · Dec 1, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
There are probably far better people than myself to teach you the concepts. Basically your grazing plan is everything that your feed budget is not - it's planning your ideal migrations around your farm.

Work out and jot down a flow chart for a start, is how I tackled it.
Some paddocks and gateways are much better used in one direction, we have several of those where you're farting against thunder to get stock to go out the gate and a certain way - so change that into a positive by ironing those kinks first. You want to work with nature!

Ours has developed from a beginning as a record of our grazing to a plan for our grazing - because I want to learn everything the hard way I just got the charts online and got the pencils out; filled in where the stock had been for a couple of months and then I could "get that visual on it"
The visual still says we graze too often but we're easing it out slowly, no point having it look like a jungle until we can manage a jungle properly!

Other than that, you can see each paddock on ours is grazed about a month to 7 weeks apart through the year, which demonstrates just how mild it is here - and how our floating stocking rate matches things up a little more.

The plan ahead is that we'll slow to about 60 then 80 then 120 days between grazings, but it looks alot like I will need to buy some cattle as opposed to finding any grazing in the short-term. If we get some cheap enough, then we can afford to flick them on if grazing suddenly looks likely.
A small profit is still better than incurring the cost of harvesting grass to keep it growing, in the meantime we'll just let the grass come up a bit

Like the flow chart idea to start with, the feed budgeting is maybe another level!

Poorbuthappy · Dec 1, 2020

Treg said:
Is there no one local to you that could help with mentoring?
Any free courses on soil available?
We had soils for profit about 10 yrs ago , a 1 day course + 1/2 day with a advisor on farm all for free , really good course .

Who was that run by?
I have a lad here on placement a day a week (wants to go into ecology). There is a small budget for training (around £500 I think) which was intended to be based on soils/ soil testing, but not sure where to look for such training.

Which also begs the wider question - are there any simple soil tests we can do on farm for him to monitor progress?

Samcowman · Dec 1, 2020

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Heads up for another webinar

Rod Dumbreck · Dec 2, 2020

onesiedale said:
That looks like a cracking spreadsheet with plenty of tabs of information. Is it one you made up yourself, or have you bought a programme?

I just started with a list of fields and their acreages, kept adding things that might be useful. I changed to a Mac, so its not Excel but Numbers, so looks a little different to Excel.
Once you get used to the idea that the cells are so small and find how to Zoom in and out so you can see the sort of picture you want, and things like copying the 30 grey cells and pasting where you have just left grazing, so you can see the rest period.

We have only just started this year, but where we have done daily moves, we think we can see an improvements. Long way to go before it looks like Petes!

Fenwick · Dec 2, 2020

JohnGalway said:
I just started listening to the "In Search Of Soil" podcast with Diego Footer, episode one is with Dr Elaine Ingham and it's bloody interesting. Dr Ingham is a name I've often heard but I didn't know much about her so I even listened to the podcast twice today as I was driving and working.

There is mention of a course in the podcast, so I said I'd look it up while I was sitting on a rock taking a break from fencing. Well I nearly fell off my rock, $5,000 for the course! I've no doubt she knows what she's talking about but that's out of sight for most people.

5k? wow!

GC74 · Dec 2, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
Yes, I put quite a bit of chicory and various clovers in there. Plantain is just wild from being broadcast and let to go to seed in the paddock next door, and shipped in via animals.
I drilled about 2kg/ha chicory from memory, because it will be in the middle of my techno lanes I wanted it to have a bit of different stuff for them to spread along.
But yes, it's quite a hearty paddock this one now, the new grass is about level with the bottom of the Ranger's door and the old grass in the fenceline is about 2 inches!

How hard are you to find in the big smoke of Owaka? might be due for a tiki tour!

Kiwi Pete · Dec 2, 2020

Rob Garrett said:
Like the flow chart idea to start with, the feed budgeting is maybe another level!

Well, you know which order works for you, so there's a good start. Basically we just have a small grazing chart so that I have a visual on the recovery periods my fields are getting, (we've a good lane system if we need to get stock from here to there but I try to avoid that where possible) so in effect we're still "rotationally grazing" but to a plan.
We do mix things up because our various fields are quite unique, and because the grazing is always a bit different.
Sometimes we pick on a field and give it a good hard hit and let it rest; other times we skim the top and get back in there faster - but when it's on a chart you can see it, so that's less to think about.

There's more commitment to choice when you are choosing an area to graze well/properly as opposed to finding some grass to feed your stock, that's the benefit that I see now I have come to terms with the fact that grazing is a stress.
When I was under the illusion that I was doing plants a favour by grazing them all the time, it was a different consideration. Now I have eyes that tell me that low-density grazing hurts the paddock, I put a lot more thought to where we go next.
For example we have about 10ha ready to graze with cattle, the "but, where" is very important as we want to be on the right grazing speed, running high density it means we are moving slowly.
Those 10ha will take 40 days to graze so we are thinking 40-80 days ahead, this is where the plan sets us free

Kiwi Pete · Dec 2, 2020

GC74 said:
How hard are you to find in the big smoke of Owaka? might be due for a tiki tour!

Really easy, if you find the township then you have found us- the south streets are our north boundary. Look for Calder St on the map

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

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