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

som farmer said:

cut off 1 sidewall, drill tight hole, to push pipe in, and concrete on a hard base, sounds dead easy, whether it is that simple, time will tell ! Some use postcrete, or readycrete, ram in the centre tightly, and fill trough with water. I have located some large tyres, out the quarries, free, so if it works, with a trial using cement, will do several, and get couple of cube readymix, trial and error. Some of these tyres will hold up to 800 gallons water. We are on our own supply.

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som farmer said:

with big troughs costing £350 approx, even if you bolt on a plate, still way cheaper. Those 'instructions' on the net, just use a rammed stone base, sit the tyre on, tamp the concrete well under the 'inner' rim, and that's it. Only seen one example of putting a layer of concrete, actually in the tyre as well. We are trying to find the best way to cut the side wall off, that looks the difficult bit.

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som farmer said:

We are trying to find the best way to cut the side wall off, that looks the difficult bit.

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som farmer said:

with big troughs costing £350 approx, even if you bolt on a plate, still way cheaper. Those 'instructions' on the net, just use a rammed stone base, sit the tyre on, tamp the concrete well under the 'inner' rim, and that's it. Only seen one example of putting a layer of concrete, actually in the tyre as well. We are trying to find the best way to cut the side wall off, that looks the difficult bit.

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Kiwi Pete said:

There are a lot of facets to "regenerative" ag, one of the reasons I never seek to define what "it" is

it simply MUST increase landscape function, though, many are so focussed on soil Carbon that they aren't getting the results they want. And it is reasonably futile, is it possible to draw down carbons as fast as they pump it out, I don't think it is.
We must address the stability and water problems first, even in wet parts of the world, there seems to be a mental blockage that "it only applies to arid areas" which is utterly backwards

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Poorbuthappy said:

Chainsaw works but I had an old one that I wasn't afraid to abuse.
Reciprocating saw I think has also been suggested.

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onesiedale said:

Quarry 20 minutes from us got a excited when I said I wanted 6 tyres to make into water tanks. I could have them free! However, company policy said I couldn't collect off site with tractor and trailer. Had to use approved haulier AND approved crane to load. Quote to get 6 free tyres to farm - £600!
Feck that!
Trouble with quarries and their 'waste' is it costs them nothing to dump it. The tryes will remain there for ever.

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Kiwi Pete said:

Just be wary of what comes out of the tyres, some pretty nasty stuff in them, I personally wouldn't use tyre troughs on a dairy farm in case those toxins pass through the cow into the tank.
Not such a problem in a massive beef herd, perhaps?

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Kiwi Pete said:

Yes; stability, infiltration, cycling... groundcover drives all of theseView attachment 939553
it's therefore slightly "wrong" to just focus on a strength (like pumping sugar into the soil via photosynthesis to sequester Carbon) if there is a more limiting factor in the business or landscape.

If marketing or networking is more beneficial, why grow more grass to feed more cows to give away at COP. Or breed more lambs, produce more milk or whatever

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Kiwi Pete said:

I got into @Kevtherev's big pile of used postholes again today. Haven't quite seen the far end of the tunnel yet.... but working towards it is goodView attachment 939567View attachment 939568

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Kiwi Pete said:

As an ex fencer, son of a fencer, there is something quite "eerie" about taking down another man's construction... right down to knowing which end they started from, and which way they went when attaching the netting.
Good old fence though, probably erected in 1951 as far as we can tell from old photographs, so 70 years here and hopefully another 50 at my mate's place.

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Henarar said:

It will be interesting to see how the old fence lines stand out in years to come

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