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

Guleesh

Guleesh

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Livestock Farmer
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Isle of Skye
hendrebc said:
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North Yorkshire Weather Updates

The scarred landscape of this dry weather is clear to see from today's extraordinary satellite image. Yes a percentage is from grain harvest & cut fields ect. but most of it is dry grass....
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Looks pretty grim when you see it like that
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LOL seems about right, can't see Skye for clouds.
 
Treg

Treg

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Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
crashbox said:
Does it disappear?
Or does it just condense and double in dry matter?
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Yes it's passed the point of just being dry grass and has withered . Went to Tesco's yesterday evening and was tempted to take a picture of the neighbours farm looks ploughed colour the grass has just burnt off , he's just above the beach so very sandy soil, I decided not to take picture as unfair , on the way back looking from across the valley, my farm looked the same :(
Any North facing land locally is fairing better still looking green and just a valley more in land and the land looks very different.
 
holwellcourtfarm

holwellcourtfarm

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Livestock Farmer
Location
Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Tuesday I came home from north Essex along the A120. One area of large arable fields had been deep cultivated after the combine. This is on heavy clay and in the driest August since '76. How they'll get the clods to pieces to make a seedbed I have no idea (well, I do, they'll throw huge amounts of fossil fuel at it). It'll take a LOT of rain before the next crop will grow in that land now.

We really need to re-learn how to conserve moisture in our farming operations in the UK.
 
Treg

Treg

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Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
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First picture, field on a bump now been grazed.
Second picture, 30 day recovery.
Third picture, cows walking in for daily fill of silage.
Fourth picture 70 day recovery.
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Farmer Roy

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
holwellcourtfarm said:
Tuesday I came home from north Essex along the A120. One area of large arable fields had been deep cultivated after the combine. This is on heavy clay and in the driest August since '76. How they'll get the clods to pieces to make a seedbed I have no idea (well, I do, they'll throw huge amounts of fossil fuel at it). It'll take a LOT of rain before the next crop will grow in that land now.

We really need to re-learn how to conserve moisture in our farming operations in the UK.
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from my casual observations on TFF, they have absolute NO idea . . .
 
S

som farmer

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Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Henarar said:
Put the ewes in here a few days ago, it looks a mess but its amazing how much green is still in the bottom of it, allsorts of plants in there toView attachment 1055666
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ground cover.
that's the difference, where we have the ground cover, ie maize and corn, it is better, well, til now. And thinking back to when we grew forage rape for summer grazing, it worked, because ground cover was established early. Used to be surprised by how well the rape grew, time has shown the reason.

What we need to re-learn, is the basics of soil health again, because l am certain that is the solution to resilience. If we are going to have a change to drier summers, we need to farm for them, not just hope its a one off. And therein lies the enigma, will next summer be a wet, or dry one, we simply haven't got a clue.

The lack of that knowledge, really doesn't help. So, what do we need to do ? I'm not sure anyone knows the real answer, its a complicated web of interlocking actions, which we don't fully understand, every new bit of information that is released, just confirms it all needs to be in balance. But is that balance before human interference, when we were both predators, or prey, or a balance created by man, over 1,000's of years.

Perhaps nature had adapted to us, over that time, and its possible it might be adapting to conditions today, but it takes time to do so. Or we could be killing off the the planet.
I don't really think that fossil fuels are the best of things for nature, however, how can we wean people off there use ? There isn't, as yet, any realistic alternative, their use has become so interwoven in society, that it doesn't seem possible to see any alternatives.

And all the time, those with a vested interest in fossil fuels, consistently and effectively, pass on an unfair amount of blame, onto ag. Which means we have the idiotic situation, where people want to 'ban' or 'restrict', the very thing that keeps them alive, and has the chance of reducing carbon in the atmosphere.

So, where does that leave us, somewhere between good and bad. But, if some of us try and work with nature, we might just find, our farms become better places to live and work on, in respect of, fertility, resilience and satisfaction.

But we are decades away from solving the carbon problem.
 
Kiwi Pete

Kiwi Pete

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Livestock Farmer
Location
Owaka, New Zealand
S

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Kiwi Pete said:
Having my own version of that ^^ is what first made me reconsider my "slow" rotation, some years we're never slow enough?
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what we carefully built up as we progressed through the summer, was pretty well killed off by the sun, some of our grass, carefully preserved, is gone, we would have been better to have fed it off.
It all comes down to what happens to it, when it finally rains. One can only hope that by the methods we used, it will recover quickly. I have no problem leaving more residual, and extending the rest period, that works. It is perhaps better to use that residual, as a buffer against the 'not growing' period, if necessary, like now, or a 'reserve'. As a reserve here, this summer, its meant grass has lasted a lot longer. But its also shown, that long rest period, would have failed here, in respect of standing fodder, this year.
 
Kiwi Pete

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Owaka, New Zealand
som farmer said:
One can only hope that by the methods we used, it will recover quickly
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som farmer said:
long rest period, would have failed here
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How long is long, though? Won't it rain at some point in the future?

Sure, it might not rain in meaningful amounts for 12 weeks, so if thats "long rest' to you, then I can see how you'd arrive at that conclusion.

But if you were thinking a 65 week rest period was "longer" vs a "shorter recovery" of 40 weeks, I cannot see how you'd fail to have feed in front of you, even if it went on fire in the period in between or it was crushed by hail, nailed by wallabies, or underwater for 2 months.

I'd say that if you have concerns about drought, look to see how long your drought actually is in weeks. Then multiply it by 9, divide by 7, and that's your summer rotation guideline
 
S

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Kiwi Pete said:
How long is long, though? Won't it rain at some point in the future?

Sure, it might not rain in meaningful amounts for 12 weeks, so if thats "long rest' to you, then I can see how you'd arrive at that conclusion.

But if you were thinking a 65 week rest period was "longer" vs a "shorter recovery" of 40 weeks, I cannot see how you'd fail to have feed in front of you, even if it went on fire in the period in between or it was crushed by hail, nailed by wallabies, or underwater for 2 months.

I'd say that if you have concerns about drought, look to see how long your drought actually is in weeks. Then multiply it by 9, divide by 7, and that's your summer rotation guideline
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we haven't been doing to badly up till now, yes are rest periods could be longer, we don't have enough acres to get to 60 days plus. We haven't had enough rain since last year, we miss a lot.
And no really useful rain since apr, just enough to freshen things up.
My point, we had built up a nice amount of cover, sacrificing quality, as the summer went on, to give us a bite. That grass, has simply burnt away, and some of it, could have been mown.
If treated as a 'reserve' as well as a 'recovery' period, we should have fed it, because it simply isn't there now, and is being replaced with silage.

Given that we are going to start drying off next week, that grass could have carried us through till now, with less buffer. The milking portion will dramatically drop down, and dry cows don't need the nutritional, or amounts, that milkers do.

Didn't have my phone, but moving the fence today, there was a single cocksfoot plant, amongst the the brown other stuff, with light green leaf's 8/10 ins high. Quite a contrast, and a lesson, on what that grass will do. There wasn't any sown in that field.
 
Blaithin

Blaithin

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Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
Why is it better to keep to a longer rest period and let forages die off and shrivel up vs grazing them before they get to that point?

Comes down to plant quality vs plant health.

As a grass gets drought stressed it will go into protection mode. It may look dead to us, but it is not dead. It is taking its energy into its roots and going dormant. So yeah, less energy in the leaves if you graze after that point. Think of it’s roots like a seed, has all the energy it needs to sprout when conditions are met. The more energy it has, the better it can sprout, for longer, in less than prime conditions.

Now if you graze it so you are grazing better quality, then you’re also taking away some of the plants root mass just before/during when it’s going to try and jam as much energy and nutrition into its roots as possible. You are shrinking its nutritional storage. It doesn’t matter if you’ve mashed it down and left good cover; if you’ve cut its root mass in half, then you’ve cut its nutrition resources in half. Now your seed is half the size it could have been, it has less resources to support its growth when it finally starts growing. It will be smaller, less vigorous, more dependent on being supplied its requirements.

Cover protects the soil but protection isn’t all plants need.

UK farmers strike me as very similar to cows. Both think that lush, green, forage is the best and it’s hard to convince them that dormant forage can be just as good. While this can be dependent on plant species, it’s definitely not a universe truth.

Its actually amusing to me because farmers east of me, used to grazing dry land areas, are convinced cattle grazed in the West Country perform like sh!t. They feel the rain there produces grass up to your eyeballs but the grass is mostly water with little nutritional value. To them lush and green is crappy, give them short and dry and crunchy.

It’s my personal preference that once I know a stressor is approaching the grass that will lead to dormancy, I would rather not graze it until it’s fully dormant. This is the time to more heavily supplement the animals so that the grass can take as much as it needs for itself. Once it’s dormant then the cattle can graze it and if I feel it’s quality isn’t supporting their condition well enough, they will continue to get some form of supplementation.

Pete always talks about leaving the solar panels so the plants can get going. It took me probably years to figure out what that meant because it’s irrelevant here. That approach only works if the plants keep solar panels. Once the solar panels are gone, you need to be focusing on root mass. Root mass to support regrowth from dormancy is not something many of you seem to take into consideration. You stop at leaves.
 
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Kiwi Pete

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Owaka, New Zealand
Blaithin said:
Why is it better to keep to a longer rest period and let forages die off and shrivel up vs grazing them before they get to that point?

Comes down to plant quality vs plant health.

As a grass gets drought stressed it will go into protection mode. It may look dead to us, but it is not dead. It is taking its energy into its roots and going dormant. So yeah, less energy in the leaves if you graze after that point. Think of it’s roots like a seed, has all the energy it needs to sprout when conditions are met. The more energy it has, the better it can sprout, for longer, in less than prime conditions.

Now if you graze it so you are grazing better quality, then you’re also taking away some of the plants root mass just before/during when it’s going to try and jam as much energy and nutrition into its roots as possible. You are shrinking its nutritional storage. It doesn’t matter if you’ve mashed it down and left good cover; if you’ve cut its root mass in half, then you’ve cut its nutrition resources in half. Now your seed is half the size it could have been, it has less resources to support its growth when it finally starts growing. It will be smaller, less vigorous, more dependent on being supplied its requirements.

Cover protects the soil but protection isn’t all plants need.

UK farmers strike me as very similar to cows. Both think that lush, green, forage is the best and it’s hard to convince them that dormant forage can be just as good. While this can be dependent on plant species, it’s definitely not a universe truth.

Its actually amusing to me because farmers east of me, used to grazing dry land areas, are convinced cattle grazed in the West Country perform like sh!t. They feel the rain there produces grass up to your eyeballs but the grass is mostly water with little nutritional value. To them lush and green is crappy, give them short and dry and crunchy.

It’s my personal preference that once I know a stressor is approaching the grass that will lead to dormancy, I would rather not graze it until it’s fully dormant. This is the time to more heavily supplement the animals so that the grass can take as much as it needs for itself. Once it’s dormant then the cattle can graze it and if I feel it’s quality isn’t supporting their condition well enough, they will continue to get some form of supplementation.

Pete always talks about leaving the solar panels so the plants can get going. It took me probably years to figure out what that meant because it’s irrelevant here. That approach only works if the plants keep solar panels. Once the solar panels are gone, you need to be focusing on root mass. Root mass to support regrowth from dormancy is not something many of you seem to take into consideration. You stop at leaves.
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It may shrivel and die, but given time it then has the opportunity to regenerate.

If not given time, then the opportunity to regenerate is limited, if not precluded by the decision that leaving some of the grass ungrazed somehow 'avoids the need to wait' until plants are fully recovered before grazing them again.
I really only see that resulting in problems.

(Or, in the case of many of your species, fully dormant).

Either way I agree that success within high intensity grazing lies with root mass, necromass and biology, not above-ground biomass.... however the grazing practices lose relevance once the timing of grazing is taken care of.

It might (for us) mean that we supplement the cattle more at a suitable time of the growing season than doing it late in winter when the cover's gone and everything is loaded against it (eg hay gets wet outside, so maybe we feed hay when it's dry?? or concentrates if that's the way. Maybe if summer-sown crops for winter create a risk then we could look at winter-drilled crops for summer, or other "outside the norm" ways of shuffling a deficit around.
 
holwellcourtfarm

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Blaithin said:
.Pete always talks about leaving the solar panels so the plants can get going. It took me probably years to figure out what that meant because it’s irrelevant here. That approach only works if the plants keep solar panels. Once the solar panels are gone, you need to be focusing on root mass. Root mass to support regrowth from dormancy is not something many of you seem to take into consideration. You stop at leaves.
Click to expand...
I was thinking exactly that as I read @som farmer
 
Blaithin

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
Kiwi Pete said:
It may shrivel and die, but given time it then has the opportunity to regenerate.

If not given time, then the opportunity to regenerate is limited, if not precluded by the decision that leaving some of the grass ungrazed somehow 'avoids the need to wait' until plants are fully recovered before grazing them again.
I really only see that resulting in problems.

(Or, in the case of many of your species, fully dormant).

Either way I agree that success within high intensity grazing lies with root mass, necromass and biology, not above-ground biomass.... however the grazing practices lose relevance once the timing of grazing is taken care of.

It might (for us) mean that we supplement the cattle more at a suitable time of the growing season than doing it late in winter when the cover's gone and everything is loaded against it (eg hay gets wet outside, so maybe we feed hay when it's dry?? or concentrates if that's the way. Maybe if summer-sown crops for winter create a risk then we could look at winter-drilled crops for summer, or other "outside the norm" ways of shuffling a deficit around.
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Residue is one of the easiest things for us to work on. We can see it and the human mind works better comprehending things we can see. But the goal of residue is to protect what’s under ground.

We can visualize residue. We can dig underneath it and visualize it helping retain moisture as a mulch. What we can’t visualize is how it’s helping what’s happening beneath the surface.

The goal of grazing should be protecting the underground processes and roots. That can be a leap of faith at times as you can’t see it and sometimes it does take an extended period of time to reap the rewards of the plan.

Residue is only one small portion of the plan, and the easy portion. Learning other aspects and trying to remember to implement them when you can’t see them is the hard part.

A plant can live a period of time without leaves but many will struggle much more without roots. Protect and promote the roots at all costs.
 

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