wanton dwarf
Member
The rotation bit is essential! Same field same time good for the stock, but no 4t crops of wheat grown like that!!!
Having done perminant Wheat for 50+ years in the same fields I can confirm you are incorrect
Hi, anyone ever grown animals and crops together?
- Thread starter Maxicl
- Start date
Having done perminant Wheat for 50+ years in the same fields I can confirm you are incorrect
I meant if you put some stock in their with your wheat it may impact yields somewhat!!1
Hi, I'm not sure if I'm quite representative of the people around me anyway, but also as you say neither am I in ag, but anyway to answer your question...
How did you think it worked? (Growing crops and animals together?)
I assumed some farmers would be pure livestock, and some pure plant based, with maybe a few small farm animals, and the minority mixed, due to the specialisation needed to do either job well. As well as that, I thought you sell a specific type of crop to a supermarket (like it's more of a 1 product contract, rather than a farm contract with a supermarket?).
My grandparents always had a compost pile for their allotment, and my other great grandmother sometimes collected cow pats for her allotment, or so I'm told.
So I'm a bit worried about the plant based move, as it might endanger growing animals, the alternative I read about seeming to be about rewilding, and having natural species thrive in a forest I suppose. Which isn't too bad, as well. But then that means less farms, perhaps a move towards vertical greenhouses, and less self grown food in the UK, or chemical based food. (which is also why I was wondering how sustainable ,i.e. can you sustain it, animal growing is, and how much it relies on food grown elsewhere. )
As well as that one thing I still can't stop mentioning is the cow burp/fart dilema with greenhouse gases. Assuming greenhouse gases do cause global warming, and some other such assumptions, one gets to some questionable topics, like reducing meat farming, or reducing the human population to have less 'cows' but same sort of lifestyle, which are both pretty important resolutions that may cause a while lot of other problems, and so we need to really consider the facts that lead the logic here with great care.
Interesting, sounds like you'd be very experienced with growing wheat by now.
doesnt really work see here what damage them barsteard 'phants have done 
@teslacoils may still be out in the US. So he maybe able to report first hand.
Apparently in Montana you can grow candy floss and dental floss in the same fields as spaghetti trees.
Apparently in Montana you can grow candy floss and dental floss in the same fields as spaghetti trees.
ollie989898
Member
Humans spend a lot of time and use a great deal of land farming certain crops which are environmentally deleterious for whatever reason. I will provide some examples of these unintended side-effects.
1. Rice. A lot of rice is cultivated using wetland/paddy techniques because it provides impressive yields per unit area from relatively low input requirements meaning it is a big deal in developing countries. However, this method of cultivation involves flooding large areas with water for many months at a time. This is a big emitter of greenhouse gases because flooding land means anaerobic decomposition occurs over many many thousands of hectares of land.
2. Some more specialist crops such as cotton or almonds are grown in areas where there is a local or regional shortage of water and so crops must be watered by irrigation. This is a big deal in terms of environmental damage long term because you're spending energy to move water and mismanaged irrigation can seriously mess with soil chemistry.
3. The persistence of growing crops in near monoculture is not helpful to some species because there is a lack of variety in habitat, nesting sites and food supplies. For example, if you grow nothing but apples, all the trees flower at a particular time of year after which there is no flowering fauna for bees and other insects to use as a food supply. This affects other parts of the ecosystem adversely.
4. The use of vast areas of land only growing one particular crop is a boon for pest organisms like European corn borer because it can proliferate across vast areas in numbers that won't be controlled by predators.
@delilah will hopefully be along before long. a fount of knowledge on this topic. As are others here to be honest...
The cows burping thing is called the carbon cycle. Grass sequesters carbon from the air, cows eat grass, some of that carbon is burped back into the air which is then absorbed by Grass.
As for vertical farming. Grass/crops get their energy from the sun, it is free. Vertical farming requires the massive consumption of electricity to provide the energy. Which is better?
That is fundamentally what farming is about. Harvesting the suns energy and converting it into forms of energy that humans can digest and live on in a healthy balanced diet.
wanton dwarf
Member
Hi, best thing you can do is have a read of this thread, it has been put together specifically to help with inquiring minds such as yours
.https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/agricultural-defence-resources-thread-part-1.385857/
Various investment bubbles come and go. The vertical farming investment bubble has inevitably popped now, as they all do. Higher energy prices were the simple pin. The plant based investment bubble has essentially popped now also.
The noise in the media bears no relation to actual sales results. Investment money has been stampeding for the exits for quite a while now. Just look at the share price graphs of companies like Beyond Meat and Oatly. The noise was always about companies seeing a profit opportunity. Those tempting profits never arrived.
The noise in the media bears no relation to actual sales results. Investment money has been stampeding for the exits for quite a while now. Just look at the share price graphs of companies like Beyond Meat and Oatly. The noise was always about companies seeing a profit opportunity. Those tempting profits never arrived.
Cows are clever. Are they so clever they can create matter? Create carbon. Or in truth did they get the carbon from somewhere?
Mixed farming ? darned new fangled ideas ,will never work.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Much better results
- Location
- Shropshire
Hi @Maxicl , you've already had some good answers on here but I thought I would add my little bit.
Ruminants have roamed this planet for millennia in some sort of shape or form, there are over 200 different species and conservatively there were thought to be as many buffalo/bison as we have domestic cattle now.
As others have mentioned they are part of a natural cycle, just like the water cycle if you will. If they were going to fry the earth it would have already happened, not just ramped up in the last couple of hundred years.
They are also nature's great up-cyclers, turning stuff we can't eat into nutrient dense products that we can.
You see a lot of mis- information banded about claiming how much land they need and how most crops are grown for livestock and should be fed to humans directly.
The truth is a lot of animal feed is derived from stuff that otherwise would be discarded after we as humans have extracted what we want from the plant.
Brewers grains, rapeseed meal, soya hulls are all examples of this but clever manipulation of numbers try to make it seem as if livestock feed is the primary market.
Finally I have several arable (plant based) farming friends who import thousands of tonnes of livestock manure onto their land each to keep their soils healthy.
This costs them money but they know it makes sense to look after their land.
Ruminants have roamed this planet for millennia in some sort of shape or form, there are over 200 different species and conservatively there were thought to be as many buffalo/bison as we have domestic cattle now.
As others have mentioned they are part of a natural cycle, just like the water cycle if you will. If they were going to fry the earth it would have already happened, not just ramped up in the last couple of hundred years.
They are also nature's great up-cyclers, turning stuff we can't eat into nutrient dense products that we can.
You see a lot of mis- information banded about claiming how much land they need and how most crops are grown for livestock and should be fed to humans directly.
The truth is a lot of animal feed is derived from stuff that otherwise would be discarded after we as humans have extracted what we want from the plant.
Brewers grains, rapeseed meal, soya hulls are all examples of this but clever manipulation of numbers try to make it seem as if livestock feed is the primary market.
Finally I have several arable (plant based) farming friends who import thousands of tonnes of livestock manure onto their land each to keep their soils healthy.
This costs them money but they know it makes sense to look after their land.
- Location
- Kent
The rotation bit is essential! Same field same time good for the stock, but no 4t crops of wheat grown like that!!!
It depends on the circumstances I believe it is rather common to over winter cattle on wheat in Colorado with little to no difference in yield though they do also grow a crop every other year to rebuild moisture levels in the soil.I meant if you put some stock in their with your wheat it may impact yields somewhat!!1
It should also be mentioned that when the anti livestock brigade are quoting figures they forget to mention the fact that the grass is sequestering carbon as that spoils the argument.
They also use an outdated method of calculating methane which makes livestock look a lot worse.
Check out GWP100 and GWP*.
- Location
- Co antrim
You can graze sheep over winter on autum sown barley and wheat