- Location
- somerset
agreed, it's unusual, but then, so are the NZers
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Because the status quo used to be where all the $$$$$$$ came from.
Now we just print more, tell China to be nicer, and be kind to one another. The only thing worth spending money improving is "welfare" because we will be rounded up into the cities and won't need roads once we're in
I need a drink
- Location
- somerset
NZ still spirits, have a big one, it's cheap enough !!!
Yep I see, I thought you meant that there was lots of grassland pre humans getting to involvedNo. Most of the land was either alpine plants, desert type - or wet forest with closed canopy - or tussock/scrub
very little grass or even room for grass (due to shade from dense rainforests) meant that the niche didn't really exist until fire was brought here maybe 800 years ago. In real time, that's not enough time for things to evolve
Rapid landscape transformation in South Island, New Zealand, following initial Polynesian settlement
Humans have altered natural patterns of fire for millennia, but the impact of human-set fires is thought to have been slight in wet closed-canopy forests. In the South Island of New Zealand, Polynesians (Māori), who arrived 700–800 calibrated years (cal y) ago, and then Europeans, who settled...www.pnas.org
Just seemed so blatant in that video, you have lost the country x amount here is a big fine.
If thats all there is to it its unbelievable, well not but you know what I mean
farmgineer
Member
To lighten the mood a bit, here's a picture using my new upload skills 
- Location
- Isle of Skye
From a quick look it appears to be less than here, now that really is an unfair advantage....
- Location
- Cei newydd
Does anybody sell it in the uk, just asking for a friend.
- Location
- somerset
you can go a lot lower than that, l cant see the soil, we take it right down to the roots, every plant is at the same level, it's the better ones that grow fastest, or that's the theory, but the backfence is crucial. Having been quite keen on this, we have taken on some pp, no ploughing, or electric fencing, must admit the cattle there, look sleek, happy but fat.
- Location
- somerset
money always talks, and quite obviously someone is upset,
on the other hand, 'they' might be correct. From my distant youth, most farmers had a bottle of 'something' that was the magic potion, here we had 2, vetalenta, smelt fantastic, poured dozens of the stuff down cows, and a cleansing drench, vet usually came out, later, to sort the 'stubborn' ones out. In all honesty, it was a waste of money, those that improved, probably would have anyway. But farmers believed in them, a relic of the pre a/biotic days, and the medieval period. They took a long time to disappear, if they actually have, in truth they haven't, they are still sold in large amounts, probiotics, seaweed, calf paste , cider vinegar etc, farmers buy them, and swear by them still. But there is no large scale tests done, to say yea or nae. And this could be either, yea or nae, but plenty of farmers believe in it, and would swear by it.
We live in an age where superstition, should have no place, but it does, and people play on that. I honestly don't know anything about this product, it could be fantastic, or utter rubbish, but it's what you believe, is the true test, if it works for you, great.
- Location
- Isle of Skye
If you go out testing your fields with a voltmeter, I mean your friends field, then make sure the electric fence is switched off first.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's the Commerce Commission for you. You should look into the electricity market here !!
That whole scenario was a "life changing" one for me at the time, because it bought home a few truths about how the world works - quite different to how it appears to work, to the people who watch the 6 oclock news .
I'm not exactly a "conspiracy theorist" because I won't let someone else's theory ruin a good conspiracy.... but I do my own digging a lot more than before that saga unfolded
Many "regular" farmers here still consider him to be a crook and anything without "active ingredients" to be snake oil, it's how they've been taught to think.
"Oh, if you have this weed then it must be high this and low that" type of crap, not because that field had stock in it for 95 days of the year or anything obvious!
I just sit on the outer branches and look at the trunk rotting from the inside, out... and wish we didn't have children
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's one of the problems with science, what science do you use to see things?
If chemistry isn't ringing any bells, then the chemist has to say it contains nothing worthwhile - because that's what they see.
It's reasonably plain to see that something like a tree will use electricity to run the pump, otherwise it isn't going to lift its sap 100 feet when the spring rolls around.
Or, that there is electrical charge keeping that one big puffy cloud in the sky in one cloud or otherwise it would follow the other scientific rules and move from areas of high conc. to areas of lower conc.
Or, how do you explain surface tension of a water droplet if you only use chemistry?
"why do raindrops skid around on the sea surface before they fall in, Mr Science degree?"
When you can look outside of the reductionist "is it biology, chemistry, physics....or what?" then you notice that there is a lot of "or what" all around us all the time, and notice that few are actually looking to find out.
Water is really quite neat stuff and yet quite a few never really look too close at what we don't yet understand about it
Electricity is the same
Life is the same - what's different between living wood and dead wood?
There is immense pressure to disbelieve that soil is a living organism, and that's really what caused a lot of trouble for Ewan Campbell and his company.
It causes me a loss of inner peace everytime I start my truck to spread industrial waste products on the soil, so you can see why the fert outfits got uncomfy
- Location
- somerset
or what = magic !! or snake oil
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Precisely. If the name of the game is "helping farmers make more profit" then most products are snake oil. If it weren't for the products then farmers would be much smarter
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
28% for companies. Sliding scale for individuals, hence most of our profits go directly to the minor shareholders in the business as dividends
- Location
- somerset
we obviously need educating.
In reality, modern farming has given us easy solutions, sprays, fert anti biotics, a/b's are coming to an end, basically through over use, in both humans and animals, perhaps i should have said just animals ! Great, they have served a purpose, for a short term fix, it is only now, that we are beginning to see the long term effects, and perhaps they are not quite what was expected, and l expect use will be curtailed, not only in a/b, but N and sprays.
That leaves a problem, we no longer know the 'old' cures, the best way to solve a problem, that farmers for millennia, had to solve, or eat, if they couldn't, and why snake oil salesmen still make a living, a hangover from those days, when superstition played a huge role. Going forward, we will have to learn new ways, as well as re-learn some of the old ways, there will be one big advantage for the 'new' experts, witches are no longer burnt at the stake !!!
I am of an age where we had to be 'more aware' of signs of 'something' wrong with stock, it was the old boys teaching us then. But those lessons have never been forgotten, drives my son mad sometimes, when l spot a problem in the early stage ! However those lessons haven't been passed on, there was no need, modern science could easily sought it, a mistake, perhaps ?
In reality, modern farming has given us easy solutions, sprays, fert anti biotics, a/b's are coming to an end, basically through over use, in both humans and animals, perhaps i should have said just animals ! Great, they have served a purpose, for a short term fix, it is only now, that we are beginning to see the long term effects, and perhaps they are not quite what was expected, and l expect use will be curtailed, not only in a/b, but N and sprays.
That leaves a problem, we no longer know the 'old' cures, the best way to solve a problem, that farmers for millennia, had to solve, or eat, if they couldn't, and why snake oil salesmen still make a living, a hangover from those days, when superstition played a huge role. Going forward, we will have to learn new ways, as well as re-learn some of the old ways, there will be one big advantage for the 'new' experts, witches are no longer burnt at the stake !!!
I am of an age where we had to be 'more aware' of signs of 'something' wrong with stock, it was the old boys teaching us then. But those lessons have never been forgotten, drives my son mad sometimes, when l spot a problem in the early stage ! However those lessons haven't been passed on, there was no need, modern science could easily sought it, a mistake, perhaps ?
For some reason I thought NZ would be much better than here but looking at that its just as bad or worse