Lifting pH without lime?

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
I dug a hole in the peat on the hill with the tractor bucket the other day, 1-2’ of black peat, then the most beautiful looking brown earth underneath, I wondered how long ago it was when that was the top soil, and what had changed for the peat to form, major climate shift or something?

Probably the remains of what grew there before. Organic peat soil is just that. Broken down organic matter.
 

Old apprentice

Member
Arable Farmer
I dug a hole in the peat on the hill with the tractor bucket the other day, 1-2’ of black peat, then the most beautiful looking brown earth underneath, I wondered how long ago it was when that was the top soil, and what had changed for the peat to form, major climate shift or something?


Just think if you could plough that soil into top 6 ins make good land grazing or what ever.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Settlement by man? cutting down trees, grazing livestock? peat supposedly grows 1mm a years so 2' is only 600 years worth.
Hmmm not so sure, are you saying peat is a degraded landscape? Can’t help but think it’s been like that for thousands of years, if it wasn’t for the grazing it would be growing even quicker.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Definitely not, compost is fertile!

It's how peat is made though fertile or not. Other soils are more sedimentary in nature. Some are just mashed up rock so more sand or silicur in nature. The soil below that you found may have been created through glacial action of deposited through glacial action. The peaty soil then may have been created through the breakdown of organic matter that came after the glacier receded.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I can show you a field thats not been touched for 45 years . Its now tall scrub willow and brambles, before that it was rough grazing, before that it would have been corn and grass , the fields below it were burnt on village fires
But remember, not touching a field for 45 years is human interference. If we went back to before humans were here, the ground would have been grazed by Bison, Aurochs, Deer, grubbed up by pigs, and the above would have been moved on by Wolves, etc, so really a type of natural "mob grazing", so set stocking rough grazing or "rewilding" by doing nothing are both us managing land ~ all be it both especially the latter not very efficiently.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Hmmm not so sure, are you saying peat is a degraded landscape? Can’t help but think it’s been like that for thousands of years, if it wasn’t for the grazing it would be growing even quicker.

Peat below the tree line, yes, I believe a lot of it it is a degraded landscape, there's old roots to be found under it. not at all on the tops of the hills though, where the peat is very pure right down to the rock, solely from moss growth.

It's not hard to turn fertile healthy ground to moss, It must have been vary easy in the past with every little population boom leading to potential overgrazing. Continual grazing would maintain the moss but prevent anything else growing.

Looking at some of the lower lying un-grazed hills and crofts, heather and moss are the first things to recolonise, but it only takes a few years more for the scrubby trees to take hold.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I dug a hole in the peat on the hill with the tractor bucket the other day, 1-2’ of black peat, then the most beautiful looking brown earth underneath, I wondered how long ago it was when that was the top soil, and what had changed for the peat to form, major climate shift or something?
I saw a TV documentary, in Ireland I think , where they were in a peat bog and mapping out prehistoric fields and walling that was all buried under a peat bog, Ceide Fields I think it was called, so obviously after the area was walled with stones, it turned to peat that covered everything, walls included.


 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
I saw a TV documentary, in Ireland I think , where they were in a peat bog and mapping out prehistoric fields and walling that was all buried under a peat bog, Ceide Fields I think it was called, so obviously after the area was walled with stones, it turned to peat that covered everything, walls included.


Am I making it up or did I hear that the callanish stones in Lewis were buried in 5’ of peat when they were ‘discovered’, or was it stone henge?
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
The way I see it, is that over the last few 1000 years, whilst the deserts were being created by animals overgrazing nearer the equator, our peaty wet desert was being created here by overgrazing. Iceland is a great example of rapid desertification by overgrazing, we just happen to have enough humidity to have moss grow and create peat rather then have everything turn to dust.

Remember that much of the fertile land now found on mainland UK and much of Europe was under dense woodland until very recently - in the grand scheme of things. The coastal regions and islands were settled much much earlier.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
The way I see it, is that over the last few 1000 years, whilst the deserts were being created by animals overgrazing nearer the equator, our peaty wet desert was being created here by overgrazing. Iceland is a great example of rapid desertification by overgrazing, we just happen to have enough humidity to have moss grow and create peat rather then have everything turn to dust.

Remember that much of the fertile land now found on mainland UK and much of Europe was under dense woodland until very recently - in the grand scheme of things. The coastal regions and islands were settled much much earlier.
How does grazing promote peat growth?
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
The way I see it, is that over the last few 1000 years, whilst the deserts were being created by animals overgrazing nearer the equator, our peaty wet desert was being created here by overgrazing. Iceland is a great example of rapid desertification by overgrazing, we just happen to have enough humidity to have moss grow and create peat rather then have everything turn to dust.

Remember that much of the fertile land now found on mainland UK and much of Europe was under dense woodland until very recently - in the grand scheme of things. The coastal regions and islands were settled much much earlier.

Enclosing fields and continuous grazing will lead to a form of desertification yes. But mob, rotational or occasional grazing will actually increase biodiversity and root mass by maintaining land in a vegetative state. The best thing that could happen to hill land is if the powers that be allows mass subdivision and stock are high density grazed for short periods with a very long (poss 12 month) rest period. The trouble we've had is its gone from high stocking rate lower density to low stocking rate low density continuous grazing. What's needed is low to medium stocking rate but high density.

The lovely earth beneath the peat will be filled with trace elements and nutrients. The key is generating a very deep root mass to access it and bring those nutrients to the surface. Thus creating a continual cycle. Thus reducing the effects of nutrient leaching.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
The way I see it, is that over the last few 1000 years, whilst the deserts were being created by animals overgrazing nearer the equator, our peaty wet desert was being created here by overgrazing. Iceland is a great example of rapid desertification by overgrazing, we just happen to have enough humidity to have moss grow and create peat rather then have everything turn to dust.

Remember that much of the fertile land now found on mainland UK and much of Europe was under dense woodland until very recently - in the grand scheme of things. The coastal regions and islands were settled much much earlier.
having listened to Alan Savory at Groundswell, set stocking leads to overgrazing as the animals eat the good stuff and as soon as it grows a bit, eat it again etc until it dies out, then they work on the next good stuff so in the end, set stocking becomes all the rubbish, where as rotational grazing selects for the competitive good plants. So in rotational grazing we are taking the part of the predators moving the herd on, and cattle are the Aurochs. Of course I am not sure how we could rotationally graze the commons in the hills with paddocks and electric fencing. I have heard they are starting to rotationally graze the hills in NZ.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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