All grass with straw for muck deals OR all cereals!

[Ceri]

Relax boss , the wise men of the forum@Doctor Wazzock and @7610 super q have spoken no need to panic do what you you enjoy and quit worrying about money and subs .
In fact if we all sat back and produced less we would have more !!! Strange but true .
Around here back in the seventies there was a father and son team who never bothered getting excited and yet always seemed to have enough to get by.
Once while a local big operator was going flat out planting spuds in the next field our pair were asleep in the tractors one at each end of the field.
Their spuds still got dug and sold and do you know what today The big farmer and the easy going pair are all farming the same acreage ...... In the local graveyard
So quit worrying life and farming will go on with or without subs , always has and always will. Worse case somebody will feed you !!!

Never a truer word spoken...... Alot of people take themselves way to seriously.... Especially those with plate metres telling me how much grass they're gonna grow nxt March.....

 

[ollie989898]

although the indices may be high it isnt always availiable to the crop especially initially , we put DAP on the maize even though the p index is 3 or 4 if you miss/block a row the difference is dramatic - this maybe due to the amount of fresh muck underneath though .

That is maize- a wussy plant at the best of times and it needs to find the phosphate it can very early in it's life. You will still be saving vast amounts of money though because the amount of phosphate you put on with starter/DAP is actually very modest. Just enough to get the plant going. If you had to go and find 200 units of potash and 150 of nitrogen you would be spending big money- none of my clients ever did this and their crops were always just the same as anyone else's.

 

[ollie989898]

Imported muck ,imported weeds , sometimes !

You have a peculiar fixation with weeds.

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

Does anyone thinking about or doing straw for muck deals, ever consider what the animals the straw is bedding eat all day ?
Cattle fed on silage only will be worth far less than Cattle on silage plus hard compound feed,
As most will know buying a better and feeding more compound cake , not only does the stock do well, but is a saving on ferry, and I would consider this if doing a deal,
That is why chicken muck is like rocket fuel, due to fed on compounds only
Or does most think all muck is the same,

 

[DRC]

Imported muck ,imported weeds , sometimes !

Only have our own straw back here, plus slurry

 

[DRC]

Does anyone thinking about or doing straw for muck deals, ever consider what the animals the straw is bedding eat all day ?
Cattle fed on silage only will be worth far less than Cattle on silage plus hard compound feed,
As most will know buying a better and feeding more compound cake , not only does the stock do well, but is a saving on ferry, and I would consider this if doing a deal,
That is why chicken muck is like rocket fuel, due to fed on compounds only
Or does most think all muck is the same,

Pig muck is far better than cattle box muck, which can be very strawy

 

[DRC]

That'll be a decent saving then, any idea roughly how much per acre the dungs saving u on fert?

Good question and one I keep meaning to sit down and work out. This last year the straw would’ve been worth a lot of money to sell, then add in cost of spreading and/ or carting it out to fields. Often it’s double handled as I have to tip in field before re loading into spreaders. I think there’s more than just the obvious nutrients in the muck though, plus the organic matter.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Only have our own straw back here, plus slurry

Slurry could be full of weeds though ,

 

[ollie989898]

Does anyone thinking about or doing straw for muck deals, ever consider what the animals the straw is bedding eat all day ?
Cattle fed on silage only will be worth far less than Cattle on silage plus hard compound feed,
As most will know buying a better and feeding more compound cake , not only does the stock do well, but is a saving on ferry, and I would consider this if doing a deal,
That is why chicken muck is like rocket fuel, due to fed on compounds only
Or does most think all muck is the same,

They are all different of course. Pig and poultry muck can be very very 'hot' and full of readily available nutrients. That said, straw is worth a lot of money and it is probably worth more than many manures would be worth as fertiliser.

 

[Optimus]

Does anyone thinking about or doing straw for muck deals, ever consider what the animals the straw is bedding eat all day ?
Cattle fed on silage only will be worth far less than Cattle on silage plus hard compound feed,
As most will know buying a better and feeding more compound cake , not only does the stock do well, but is a saving on ferry, and I would consider this if doing a deal,
That is why chicken muck is like rocket fuel, due to fed on compounds only
Or does most think all muck is the same,

Put all my dung from the scape passage on our silage ground.a high % will be raw dung.makes a massive difference to the grass growth in the spring.

 

[simonk88]

Straw for muck deals here, night and day where it has been spread. Improving heavy low lying clay so can now shallow (50mm) cultivate or just direct drill. Improving light Wold so can maintain crop growth in dry seasons. Grass leys back in arable which is sold to muck for straw farmers as silage. Sheep grazing cover crops that are used on all spring crop land and also catch crop between autumn crops. Drilling windows have got wider with better soil conditions, establishment is now easier on finer better structured soil. We are swapping 12,000-14,000t cattle FYM per year, plus our own muck and layers litter too.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Speaking of the value of muck, how does it compare to digestate?
Had a phone call out of the blue a while back from an AD plant, they were looking for cattle muck to swap for digestate, was busy so didn’t have time to probe for any detail but I have to wonder what was in it for them, what was in it for me?

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

I would say there will be nowt in digestate, they will of taken every bit of goodness out of it, and no compound feed been near it, so far as fertiliser nothing zero, OM will be a little bit, but again nothing to write home about,
There must of been a lot more in your muck to make it worthwhile thinking about it

 

[Tarw Coch]

I would say there will be nowt in digestate, they will of taken every bit of goodness out of it, and no compound feed been near it, so far as fertiliser nothing zero, OM will be a little bit, but again nothing to write home about,
There must of been a lot more in your muck to make it worthwhile thinking about it

No experience of digestate but quite a few people seem to rave about how fantastic it is, absolute rocket fuel.
Must admit I’m a tad cynical myself but thought I’d ask anyway

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Could someone advice me on the value of cow slurry , from well fead dairy cows with very little water , per 1000 gallons against the value of firtilizer

 

[jh.]

No experience of digestate but quite a few people seem to rave about how fantastic it is, absolute rocket fuel.
Must admit I’m a tad cynical myself but thought I’d ask anyway

Sounds a bit like livestock folk wanting to swap dung for straw lol .

I don't suppose there have been any test papers on arable soils, so no grass in rotation for OM and available nutrients for cereals chopped every year , against baling for say 4 years with only dung once in the 4 , against baled and dunged every year?.

If it's baled every year but dunged every year or 2 , then I would expect to see the dung help but if only dunged every 4 or 5 years I don't think it looks as attractive to arable folk going by what I've seen on my own place .

Folk should always do what they feel is right and suits their own business but what I'm getting at is I think it's wrong to assume livestock guys can go 100% grass and expect to get straw from arable folk swapped easily .

IME the livestock guys want to muck out and get it done asap , so if the arable side has to put on extra tractors and men to get sheds empty quick enough at around 40 quid each a hour it soon adds up . Add in say 2 spreaders and handler at another 100 plus a hour and the chopper just starts looking better value and having the accuracy to put the nutrients where they are needed , rather than blanket spread .

 

[DRC]

I would say there will be nowt in digestate, they will of taken every bit of goodness out of it, and no compound feed been near it, so far as fertiliser nothing zero, OM will be a little bit, but again nothing to write home about,
There must of been a lot more in your muck to make it worthwhile thinking about it

I’d disagree with that. It’s good stuff. Had some here before a crop of beet last spring. You can still see where it was tipped in the following wheat crop . Also had some for our veg/ poly tunnel and it’s like rocket fuel.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I'm reading 18 -6 -30 per 1000 gallons of slurry . I suppose best way is to get it tested

 

[Sharpy]

Speaking of the value of muck, how does it compare to digestate?
Had a phone call out of the blue a while back from an AD plant, they were looking for cattle muck to swap for digestate, was busy so didn’t have time to probe for any detail but I have to wonder what was in it for them, what was in it for me?

What was in it for them was a massive amount of bacteria etc in your slurry that run the digester.

 

[simonk88]

Digestate is fantastic for crops, growing wheat with only 80kg/ha bagged N and the rest digestate, they are 11t/ha crops.
We build muck heaps, like a silage clamp, with a 360, compact it down, it makes a compost in relatively few months. We would get loaded at the livestock farm but run anything up to 5 trailers to keep digger busy, expectation is 700t/day moved and stacked. Most places we go hire a 360 to load trailers with, much faster and less damage to yard floors, plus if we spent a long time sat in their yard while they messed about, we wouldn't go back. It works out after spreading cheaper than buying nutrients in a bag and the effects last longer.