- Location
- somerset
in todays world everything has to have a 'name', and the ag press are calling it that. That doesn't mean that its right to call it that though, but what else should you entitle it as ? On our patch, we look at it from a perspective of working with the soil, to improve our production. The really 'stupid' bit, is it actually costs very little, and actually can increase production, so how can the trade make money, from preaching a system that can increase production, improve soil, absorb carbon, and is far more resilient than their last 'scientific fad' ? However, those points will impede the process expanding through the industry, who is going to believe/trust you can get more from less, with the free ad on green credentials.Don’t know if the term regen farming has a future tbh, one I have a dislike for the name and second it’s lack of definition so it can evolve as “it” “we” learns allows anyone and everyone to claim to be regen......starting to see a lot of it here. And all of it seems to come at a cost oddly.
Our 'big' problem here, has been dry summers, killing of the ryegrass in the leys, because of the farms physical position, we miss a lot of rain, and catch a lot of wind, they don't make good bedfellows. In a decent season, we can produce huge quantities of grass, but those summers, have temporary halted, and have hit our pockets, to hard. We have had 4/5 year leys, gone after 2, or need serious overseeding, that is not sustainable. We need a grass system that works, which means stronger/resilient grazing plants, and those plants need the right 'root growth' to do that, which means better soil structure, that allows better moisture retention, and better root systems. Yield has become secondary to survival. The leys we have, do not 'thicken' out, so you can see bare ground between the plants, the difference in old or p/p where ground cover is total, is obvious. So, how much can a well managed long term grass field produce, that is what we aim to find out, because, for us, that just might be the answer.