Forage crops

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I'm not really a big fan of it to be honest, too much yield to be good for the land and it's natural carrying capacity down here.
Animals need to have space in my opinion, and some of the damage is just criminal really.
Hard to double crop beet and then get structure back with steel, that's for sure!! it is certainly falling out of favour and people are returning in their droves to HT brassica varieties for outwintering. I have about 80ha of brassica to drill this year around the place.
They had issues with the HT swedes killing cows but seem to have got past that now.
Clubroot and wild turnip are problems but not so much with the cleancrop HT varieties. That was the main swinger to beet for most farmers.
And the massive yields, but unfortunately if you have a 450kg beast allowed 2 square metres per day... she's only going to go one way when it gets wet!
Funny how farming goes in cycles.
But to answer your question, haven't heard of violet disease, but it definitely fouls the ground. Takes years in grass and much work (and N:confused:) to get it properly producing again. The beet ground I'm ripping up is properly fudged.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
We’re hardly on what I’d call free draining ground, but I min-till after beet, whether it’s lifted or grazed in situ, just as I do after wintering on brassicas. Always grow a decent crop of Spring Barley or Swedes after beet, so I can’t see how it’s damaging soil dpstructure that much.
I should say that I only graze sheep though, not cattle.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
We’re hardly on what I’d call free draining ground, but I min-till after beet, whether it’s lifted or grazed in situ, just as I do after wintering on brassicas. Always grow a decent crop of Spring Barley or Swedes after beet, so I can’t see how it’s damaging soil dpstructure that much.
I should say that I only graze sheep though, not cattle.
Yep I should add that to my post, I was talking dairy cattle overwintering, @neilo
The ex lamb ground is really handling it well, back in grass as of Tuesday (y)
 
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I don't think it is the beet per se that is hard, it's the animals you are putting on. Leaving beasts out in the wrong weather or on the wrong land, I reckon you could make a right mess regardless of what you grew there.

Beet and forage crops are good for cleaning the land up, but you don't want to be pulling the dirt about too often and putting them in too close together. You can get funky diseases and weed issues sometimes.

KP is right though, it is the grass that keeps land in good heart or at least it is here. You can grow nearly anything once because the soil structure is so good. But the grass is what got it that way.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't think it is the beet per se that is hard, it's the animals you are putting on. Leaving beasts out in the wrong weather or on the wrong land, I reckon you could make a right mess regardless of what you grew there.

Beet and forage crops are good for cleaning the land up, but you don't want to be pulling the dirt about too often and putting them in too close together. You can get funky diseases and weed issues sometimes.

KP is right though, it is the grass that keeps land in good heart or at least it is here. You can grow nearly anything once because the soil structure is so good. But the grass is what got it that way.
Too right, it is amazing just how fragile the soil can be - and how expensive it works out to get it wrong.
If you get it right though (y)(y) it is well worth doing it.
Hence - here we are seeing a gradual change from the old, 350 cows on turnips wintering, through the 1000 cows on beet wintering, to the 1200 cows in a ruddy great house wintering!!
 
Too right, it is amazing just how fragile the soil can be - and how expensive it works out to get it wrong.
If you get it right though (y)(y) it is well worth doing it.
Hence - here we are seeing a gradual change from the old, 350 cows on turnips wintering, through the 1000 cows on beet wintering, to the 1200 cows in a ruddy great house wintering!!

I know a lot of dairy boys Pete and I bet none of them would want to farm if it meant keeping a 1000 cows, in or out. Several milk buyers now are stipulating cows must be grazed outside or putting other physical constraints on farms. I can see maize cultivation being pushed out the door at some point because of the continuing bad press it gets.

The public don't want big intensive units. I had a few robot guys, but they had units that facilitated welfare that was beyond reproach. The rest of them have to house for the winter otherwise the damage they would cause would be incredible. You can shrink the housing period a bit with decent tracks and by being careful but it is very much only selected areas like those overlying limestone brash that drains ok, otherwise they have to come in. This incurs additional costs but in the main, the added output pays for it.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I know a lot of dairy boys Pete and I bet none of them would want to farm if it meant keeping a 1000 cows, in or out. Several milk buyers now are stipulating cows must be grazed outside or putting other physical constraints on farms. I can see maize cultivation being pushed out the door at some point because of the continuing bad press it gets.

The public don't want big intensive units. I had a few robot guys, but they had units that facilitated welfare that was beyond reproach. The rest of them have to house for the winter otherwise the damage they would cause would be incredible. You can shrink the housing period a bit with decent tracks and by being careful but it is very much only selected areas like those overlying limestone brash that drains ok, otherwise they have to come in. This incurs additional costs but in the main, the added output pays for it.
The series of events that has led us to where we are over here (firstly, window dressing the meat industry and then abruptly pulling the rug out) led to almost instant scrambling to put a dairy cow in every acre possible. Madness.
Some upside down Spain it is not!
Unfortunately again, some really dodgy operators give the good ones bad press, by foolish outwintering practices on what I'm led to believe- Brits would call severe hill country.
Sheep and beef men, now 'on the back tit' are providing wintering for the winter cashflow... it really is only going to end up in a pickle jar.
Farming is turning into a political hot potato, and the farmer's ally is set to lose this time, will be interesting to say the very least.
At least I'm ok, light animals and a roof over the heavy ones in winter - but ffs look after your soils! In the years ahead of us, well who knows, but don't go creating holes to dig yourselves out of, is the best advice I can give my mates in the UK.
Greed, has got NZ farming to where it's going to be put.

Our public has never been more isolated from farming, and our future has never really looked more precarious (esp the dairy and cropping, irrigated areas)
 

Jim75

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Easter ross
So far so good. Just moved them onto it this week after being anxious we’d be short. I’d rather have a wee bit left or draft some ewe Hoggs in later on. Only 6 escapees so far and none today with no training (touching wood). Going to draft singles off In a couple weeks and keep them tight.
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cattleman123

Member
Location
devon
So far so good. Just moved them onto it this week after being anxious we’d be short. I’d rather have a wee bit left or draft some ewe Hoggs in later on. Only 6 escapees so far and none today with no training (touching wood). Going to draft singles off In a couple weeks and keep them tight.
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Very impressive ..see you are using 3 strands, would 2 be enough or would they go through it
 
We’re hardly on what I’d call free draining ground, but I min-till after beet, whether it’s lifted or grazed in situ, just as I do after wintering on brassicas. Always grow a decent crop of Spring Barley or Swedes after beet, so I can’t see how it’s damaging soil dpstructure that much.
I should say that I only graze sheep though, not cattle.

Is that with the Sim tech Neil?

How do you find it, with what fodder crops & spring barley. Grass reseeds of course. Does it work well on ploughed land & how big a tractor? Seems a superb drill to me.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Is that with the Sim tech Neil?

How do you find it, with what fodder crops & spring barley. Grass reseeds of course. Does it work well on ploughed land & how big a tractor? Seems a superb drill to me.

I have been using it for drilling cereals DD and into cultivated ground (roll first if too loose), swedes DD and cultivated (stale seedbed), stubble turnips DD into cereal stubble, ‘bird seed’ covers DD and grass seed into cultivated ground and overseeding into existing swards. Beet has always been drilled with a precision drill, but only to leave the option open for lifting if not needed for grazing. I’ll likely drill a grazing beet field with it in the Spring though, if only to try it.

I only have one tractor, a JD 6920, so it goes on that. It doesn’t need that much HP topull it, but you need a bit of weight to be the boss of a fair lump of drill IMO. It is well built, which obviously makes for weight sticking out the back.

For what I want, it’s a superb drill and incredibly flexible. I’ve just bought a new one the same, and didn’t even consider any others tbh.(y) A lot of money for what is effectively a Spring tine with a seed box on though.....
 

cattleman123

Member
Location
devon
Just grazing my Keeper kale...500ish hogs in there 2 weeks garazed around 4/5 acres so far...surprised that they love chewing the stalks..mind you there are plenty of em...going to be an interesting experiment how they do on it...starting the other field next week with another 200.will try and post some piccys next week...they will be very stalkey
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
They look very clean. Ours at the moment .............don’t :cry::cry::cry: thankfully been a slightly better week and a bit of frost.

They’ve actually cleaned up since they’ve been on the roots. They got quite dirty in December, when they were ripping off some old pp parkland with hay in a cradle feeder to supplement. It was round the feeder that they got mucky.
No bales since they’ve been on roots, and they’ve cleaned themselves up despite being far muddier under foot.;)

Our scanner usually comments on how clean they are for sheep on roots, but the difference to most is just no ring feeders.
 

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

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