Discuss

[Kiwi Pete]

Go on...... you feel differently, share away

I've got a whole thread running on the subject of holistically planned grazing, I guess my points of contention are:
1. Why worry about what's at the base of the sward if you're only grazing the top third per grazing? They'd eat it in November, if the soil hadn't by then
2. Small plants can never do for you what big plants can - the either get a chance to reproduce or you have to turn a key to do so
3. Where's the business resiliency going to be if you keep virtually no cover on the ground, as demonstrated last summer, and likely the one ahead, if you have 1500 or 2200 residual going into summer then you're only one grazing away from a drought- why not be 5 grazings away?

The "quality" of a pasture plant is in its top third, regardless of size, for peak "energy flow" overgrazing is limiting, thus costs Ag billions in lost productivity each year via the need buy in energy from off-farm, because the solar panel is smaller than it could be... and it's energy that's the expensive bit, why not just store more of it on your land, by being at the other end of the rapid growth phase?

Line your own pockets

 

[Friesianfan]

View attachment 775542

From Oliver seeds Twitter feed

-5 litres?

 

[Beef farmer]

-5 litres?

Only able to gather 4kgdm.

 

[The Agrarian]

Interesting points.

I take your point entirely about the solar panel. And it would certainly be useful to maximise the time the sward has with a productive canopy. However, the canopy is finite. Once the fourth leaf is growing, the first one is beginning to senesce. Therefore maximum growth potential slows and tails off as the canopy closes.

In terms of productivity, I don't see a benefit in carrying a very high cover, and grazing down to a higher base - because the hardened stem and decaying leaf is not where you tend to see fast, quality, and quantity of regrowth from, when compared to clean stubble. So I think there's a trade off between grazing clean and having an immediate lush bounce, vs maintaining some solar absorption but losing quality.

Also, high covers will inevitably lead to more rejection than when cleaned up, and presumably lower utilisation of what you have grown is not desirable. One of the reasons for this is the reduction in quality of the sward as it gets heavier. I don't accept that the quality is the same in the top third of the sward, regardless of weight of cover.

Regarding reproduction potential from large plants. This has a little bit of mileage, but my gut on this is that the earliest heading plants will set seed first, therefore the next generation in the sward will be skewed, through natural selection, to earlier heading. This would be the opposite of what I'd actually want in the sward. Repeat a few times and I can imagine a sward that heads as fast as you look at it.

The focus of your plan seems to be geared toward coping with dry weather, and I understand the point you make about pushing higher covers in front of you, for use in a dry spell. But I ask again where wet weather comes into this, if at all? Ungrazed sward bases will actually rot and turn slimy here in our average summer.

 

[Henarar]

The focus of your plan seems to be geared toward coping with dry weather, and I understand the point you make about pushing higher covers in front of you, for use in a dry spell. But I ask again where wet weather comes into this, if at all? Ungrazed sward bases will actually rot and turn slimy here in our average summer.

he makes some good points @Kiwi Pete what do you do about rotting grass ?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

he makes some good points @Kiwi Pete what do you do about rotting grass ?

Let it rot, improve the water cycling of your soil, exactly the same as what I'm doing, infiltration is pretty critical to all of us?
Runoff easily takes the nutrients away and gives ag a bad name, by contrast improving infiltration (leading back to the herbal leys, from which I've strayed) is exactly the type of reason they are pushing the herbal leys?
The difference being that one will last basically forever, by being a regenerative approach, because of the forage abundance it can be allowed to reproduce

Their approach is shorter term, if grazed wrongly then could be gone in a few years and then require reseeding, which has some cost to the environment and the farmer.

Changing management simply means you wouldn't get the sub and your costs go down, but likely the biodiversity (because they care about that, will likely increase as well

One way pays a sub, the other way is a sub in itself

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Interesting points.

I take your point entirely about the solar panel. And it would certainly be useful to maximise the time the sward has with a productive canopy. However, the canopy is finite. Once the fourth leaf is growing, the first one is beginning to senesce. Therefore maximum growth potential slows and tails off as the canopy closes.

In terms of productivity, I don't see a benefit in carrying a very high cover, and grazing down to a higher base - because the hardened stem and decaying leaf is not where you tend to see fast, quality, and quantity of regrowth from, when compared to clean stubble. So I think there's a trade off between grazing clean and having an immediate lush bounce, vs maintaining some solar absorption but losing quality.

Also, high covers will inevitably lead to more rejection than when cleaned up, and presumably lower utilisation of what you have grown is not desirable. One of the reasons for this is the reduction in quality of the sward as it gets heavier. I don't accept that the quality is the same in the top third of the sward, regardless of weight of cover.

Regarding reproduction potential from large plants. This has a little bit of mileage, but my gut on this is that the earliest heading plants will set seed first, therefore the next generation in the sward will be skewed, through natural selection, to earlier heading. This would be the opposite of what I'd actually want in the sward. Repeat a few times and I can imagine a sward that heads as fast as you look at it.

The focus of your plan seems to be geared toward coping with dry weather, and I understand the point you make about pushing higher covers in front of you, for use in a dry spell. But I ask again where wet weather comes into this, if at all? Ungrazed sward bases will actually rot and turn slimy here in our average summer.

That's not how I would look at it.

Re. utilisation, this can be as high as 90% or as low as 30% - where does the "wasted feed" go, and what could it then do?

Re. earlier heading, by not stressing but conserving the plant, both senescence and elongation will happen much more gradually throughout the growing season vs "hammering it" in the spring forces the plant to take action as it thinks (rightly) that you are intending to kill or harm it, which you are

And re. the wet weather, most of the deep rooting herbs fail to persist with wet feet, or at least remain in diminished capacity, as your usual conditions and management will largely dictate the seasonal composition of the sward year by year.
We get most of our wet in the winter, sometimes as much as half our annual rainfall over 3-4 months, again the water cycle is of utmost importance to drive the soil biota and roots downward - rather than farming the top 6 inches, 16 gives your business much more resilience, and we're finding roots to over 50 inches when digging soil pits.

 

[The Agrarian]

I often said it's a problem we have that our sward rarely has to go looking for water. So rooting stays focused in the top few inches.

We are still benefitting from the dry weather of last summer here, as land has been carrying much better than usual at this time of year (notwithstanding the 130mm of rain we've had already since the beginning of the month). It's entirely possible that a combination of forced deeper rooting, and a little fracturing, has opened up some natural drainage that wasn't previously there. If so, that's a passive process though - not by design. Unfortunately for us, the last time we got such an astonishing spell of weather was 1995. We see waterlogging most summers at some point.

 

[Kevtherev]

Herbal leys carry a premium over standard mixes they aren’t for everyone.
Well managed grass and white clover take some beating at the end of the day.
I wouldn’t want to put herbal leys on wet heavy land.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Root rot, Kev?
It's wet enough here at times for chicory, as you'll know a foot on it in the rain seems to really hurt it, even while vegetative

What someone such as @The Agrarian maybe better to try, IMO, is to add either strips or trial paddocks with some of these herbs and other species, to see how they handle his local conditions - as these mixes are on the high side in price if they aren't going to last.
I've had huge success with plantain productivity here and so I'm oversowing fields with it presently, so some trial and error could be worthwhile before making a commitment?

 

[Kevtherev]

Yes see what works on each individual farm Pete before committing.
Roots will rot being in water for 6 months of the year.
Herbal leys I prefer to be on lighter free draining land as opposed to wet heavy clay.

 

[I thats it]

Root rot, Kev?
It's wet enough here at times for chicory, as you'll know a foot on it in the rain seems to really hurt it, even while vegetative

What someone such as @The Agrarian maybe better to try, IMO, is to add either strips or trial paddocks with some of these herbs and other species, to see how they handle his local conditions - as these mixes are on the high side in price if they aren't going to last.
I've had huge success with plantain productivity here and so I'm oversowing fields with it presently, so some trial and error could be worthwhile before making a commitment?

how would you suggest establishing a herbal lay in a place with a fairly high amount of rainfall?

 

[Henarar]

how would you suggest establishing a herbal lay in a place with a fairly high amount of rainfall?

I sold a dyna drive to a TFF member the other day for doing that

 

[bigw]

I'm pretty sure a herbal ley would either drown or get battered to death by grazing geese here. I could see the benefit if we had a drier land and a warmer climate.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

how would you suggest establishing a herbal lay in a place with a fairly high amount of rainfall?

Do you want to pamper it, or test its worth to you?
That's a bit of a loaded question, sorry, I guess my own paradigm means I see things that can't compete as inferior to the successful plants in the sward

Definitely DD, as most of the species are open/upright in growth habit they lack the groundcover necessary for weed suppression in most local-to-me situations. (grass farms)
If you have a cereal rotation though, then maybe you have less of a seedbank in your soil and this opens up cultivation as an option, or undersowing with a cereal.
Personally I'd DD at a half rate in two directions or use an airseeder that broadcasts, to give the best coverage.

The hard seed varieties are fine to oversow.

 

[Henarar]

Given time you will end up with the sward your land/weather/climate and management produces

 

[bigw]

Given time you will end up with the sward your land/weather/climate and management produces

We would just land up with docks, buttercups and rashes!

 

[I thats it]

Do you want to pamper it, or test its worth to you?
That's a bit of a loaded question, sorry, I guess my own paradigm means I see things that can't compete as inferior to the successful plants in the sward

Definitely DD, as most of the species are open/upright in growth habit they lack the groundcover necessary for weed suppression in most local-to-me situations. (grass farms)
If you have a cereal rotation though, then maybe you have less of a seedbank in your soil and this opens up cultivation as an option, or undersowing with a cereal.
Personally I'd DD at a half rate in two directions or use an airseeder that broadcasts, to give the best coverage.

The hard seed varieties are fine to oversow.

we've mainly ancient old grass that if you kept stock out all year would never get above about 6 inch height. It's heavy clay and the sward is that matted and dense I don't think you'd get through it to find soil with a scratch seeder

 

[Henarar]

We would just land up with docks, buttercups and rashes!

which one on my list is to blame for that ?

 

[Henarar]

we've mainly ancient old grass that if you kept stock out all year would never get above about 6 inch height. It's heavy clay and the sward is that matted and dense I don't think you'd get through it to find soil with a scratch seeder

your lucky then you have the grass that grows best, if you change your management though the grass will change