Groundswell Show 2022

[Huno]

Groundswell 22 showed how many "others" want to influence your journey now and i dont mean other farmers but salespeople

 

[Huno]

Regen is about using the assets you do control to make your soils better and are limited to water..minerals..biology.. Carbon Dioxide and Sunlight..
These are the items that salespeople and gov currently control...

 

[Huno]

Regen is about using the assets you do control to make your soils better and are limited to water..minerals..biology.. Carbon Dioxide and Sunlight..
These are the items that salespeople and gov currently control...

Sorry dont Control but want too!!

 

[Huno]

The Conclusion therefore is that Groundswell is awesome because just like @martian who helped set it up.. It empowers farmers and landmanagers to try to think on their own without controlling influencers dictating too them.. Thank you Weston Park Farm....

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I've never had the chance to go yet but would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on growing root crops within a regen system in Perthshire.
I try to follow regen principles;
1) Keep soil covered as much as possible (does sowing wheat after spuds in november count?, any fields that we don't get into winter crop are either left as stubble, sown with a cover or if after spuds roughly cultivated across the slope and left)
2) Incorporate cover crops (my aim is that everything that is a spring crop gets something even if it is just rye broadcast and worked in)
3) Incorporate animals (I've started getting some covers grazed by a local sheep guy, but it's easier said than done, getting enough biomass to make it interesting for him with a september sowing date is the difficult bit)
4) grow a diverse range of crops (wheat, barley, rye, potatoes, carrots, does using legumes and radish etc in the cover crop count as diversity?)
5) Reduce soil disturbance( this is where the wheels fall of the wagon, with stoney soils separation is the only way and TBH because we have predominantly light soils we bed till very little, usual method is plough, deep cultivate, ridge, destone, plant). For cereals we plough and press then drill, this helps with weed control and burying ergot which is a big thing with rye.

To improve things I could;
Diversify crops by growing a legume for harvest (beans most likely but late harvest is a pain after we have spent the autumn at spuds)
Try sowing some vetch with rye this backend to provide some diversity and possibly some N, my idea is to not use an autumn herbicide and kill the vetch at the T1 timing maybe, would that work?
Direct drill some crops, this is a tricky one, the rotation doesn't lend itself to this really, I don't grow rape because of clubroot and oats don't seem to do well on the light land, we need straw for covering carrots but at least it means I'm keeping carbon and nutrients on the farm.

Any other thoughts.

Unless you can make root crops work without deep tillage (can be done but very hard to do well) then hard to see how it meets a regenerative mindset imho.

When we aim for plant diversity we really mean at the same time, not sequentially. Every time you add another species into the mix the resilience and biology improve. That's fairly easy for us grazing types but hard for arable as the systems we've evolved all depend on monoculture cropping.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I think, when humanity made the decision to live by cultivation and arable cropping, we made a strategic mistake, that is only now coming to a head as we are finally running out of resources, but I don't know how we can change that decision that was made I guess 10 000 years ago in places like Mesopotamia.

 

[Adeptandy]

I think, when humanity made the decision to live by cultivation and arable cropping, we made a strategic mistake, that is only now coming to a head as we are finally running out of resources, but I don't know how we can change that decision that was made I guess 10 000 years ago in places like Mesopotamia.

Being a lifelong arable farmer I long to be a mixed farmer since discovering DD/Regen, but age and lack of experience will see me stumble along towards retirement from ag without stock on farm

 

[Hindsight]

Regen is about making your own decisions about your soil. Organics and Industrial farming are about following the rules and prescriptions of others

Rather a fatous statement Huno. Waas it intended to demean and belittle, as that is what in the context it seemed.

 

[Huno]

Rather a fatous statement Huno. Waas it intended to demean and belittle, as that is what in the context it seemed.

Not at all.. sorry you took it so personally... it was only sharing what i have learnt in the last 7yrs... if it hits the odd nerve then maybe it is worth thinking about a little more deeply

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Being a lifelong arable farmer I long to be a mixed farmer since discovering DD/Regen, but age and lack of experience will see me stumble along towards retirement from ag without stock on farm

isn't there a @CopperBeech around you who you could sort of team up with? I guess the costs of fencing is one factor, I think the government gives grants for all sorts of crap, why don't they support something like no fence technology?

 

[Huno]

Rather a fatous statement Huno. Waas it intended to demean and belittle, as that is what in the context it seemed.

Thats not designed to be inflammatory as i was both Organic and an Industrial farmer and would return to either or both if that was the only options available.. Regen embraces the best of all methodology for your system without major influence

 

[Adeptandy]

isn't there a @CopperBeech around you who you could sort of team up with? I guess the costs of fencing is one factor, I think the government gives grants for all sorts of crap, why don't they support something like no fence technology?

Not sure, but happy to have a conversation with anyone local ish

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Rather a fatous statement Huno. Waas it intended to demean and belittle, as that is what in the context it seemed.

I was thinking he just put what I have said before in slightly different words, regen is more a philosophy of land management, where as organic (which I am) is all about following an arbitrary set of rules created to adhere to an EU scheme.

 

[Hindsight]

Not at all.. sorry you took it so personally... it was only sharing what i have learnt in the last 7yrs... if it hits the odd nerve then maybe it is worth thinking about a little more deeply

No I didn't take it personally at all. After all I am but a hanger on in the Agricultural world. I just watch others. Given the rules of regen Agriculture, referenced in post 305 for example, I just bemusedly thought it a bit rich to then rail against other systems. The two 'systems' I see where there are 'strict' rules on cultivation and land use are Organics and Regen. Cheers

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Not sure, but happy to have a conversation with anyone local ish

I found this report fascinating

https://www.nuffieldscholar.org/sites/default/files/reports/2014_UK_David-Walston_Above-And-Below-The-Ground-Building-Resilient-Productive-And-Profitable-Soils.pdf

 

[Hindsight]

I was thinking he just put what I have said before in slightly different words, regen is more a philosophy of land management, where as organic (which I am) is all about following an arbitrary set of rules created to adhere to an EU scheme.

Aren't you following the musings of Lady Balfour? I thought she created the initial rules and wrote her book 'The Living Soil' which drives your and organic farms to this date. Subsequently these 'rules' were codified into an EU Directive for the sake of market clarity and regulation, to ensure a level playing field within the Single Economic Market? Don't think the EU dreamt up the organic rules? Maybe the codification of Regen awaits!!

And is organic not an environmental philosophy. Certainly that is my impression when listening to Patrick Holden et al hold court.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Aren't you following the musings of Lady Balfour? I thought she created the initial rules and wrote her book 'The Living Soil' which drives your and organic farms to this date. Subsequently these 'rules' were codified into an EU Directive for the sake of market clarity and regulation, to ensure a level playing field within the Single Economic Market? Don't think the EU dreamt up the organic rules? Maybe the codification of Regen awaits!!

And is organic not an environmental philosophy. Certainly that is my impression when listening to Patrick Holden et al hold court.

it is, but....but...I am not convinced ploughing every 6 or so years is any more regenerative than a regenerative farmer using direct drilling and judicious quantities of chemicals. Certainly there are things in conventional agriculture I disagree with (pre harvest roundup, roundup ready seeds, spectam to all lambs at birth for watery mouth, cattle in all year and fed by zero grazing, apple trees sprayed with antibiotics etc etc), but I think it is possible to be organic and not very regenerative.

 

[steveR]

There was a nice looking water trough across in the mob grazing paddock

Blast... that would have done as a wash off....

 

[CopperBeech]

Being a lifelong arable farmer I long to be a mixed farmer since discovering DD/Regen, but age and lack of experience will see me stumble along towards retirement from ag without stock on farm

I think I’d know folk in your area with stock. I think

 

[tr250]

Blast... that would have done as a wash off....

Must admit it was that hot when I was down there I fancied jumping In myself