Growing organic/low fert forage

[crashbox]

Just an over the hedge view.
First 2 years there appears to be a big drop in production. One chap told me he needed 2x the acreage for same production in that period
Seems to take about 4 years to get going
Organic production seems to be far better in high rainfall areas. & hard going in under 30" / year rainfall

Quite happy to be proved wrong

We are under 30 inches, and I agree, good organic production needs good soils, same as conventional.

I'm not interested in pursuing organic per se, just fascinated how some people claim to beat conventional production without all the inputs...

I'll share a link to the YouTube that got me thinking about all this.

 

[crashbox]

Link to Gabe Brown vid (someone else on TFF shared it, which is how I found it...)

Image below shows NPK content of his soils far outstripping those of his more conventional neighbours.

 

[awkward]

Link to Gabe Brown vid (someone else on TFF shared it, which is how I found it...)

Image below shows NPK content of his soils far outstripping those of his more conventional neighbours.

View attachment 1001976

David Brant is a guy that predates Gabe, in fact he would have been an inspiration, he is also near Bismark. Both achieve good output but both use fertiliser aswell,

 

[glasshouse]

Turnips

 

[Dead Rabbits]

David Brant is a guy that predates Gabe, in fact he would have been an inspiration, he is also near Bismark. Both achieve good output but both use fertiliser aswell,

David is in Ohio on and has been at it awhile but does not have any cattle. I’m unsure what his fert use is these days. A point of interest with his soil is him getting some of his soils reclassified as he had changed their properties that much over the years.

Gabe brown is up in N Dakota and I believe he has not used commercial fertilizer for somewhere around ten years.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We are under 30 inches, and I agree, good organic production needs good soils, same as conventional.

I'm not interested in pursuing organic per se, just fascinated how some people claim to beat conventional production without all the inputs...

I'll share a link to the YouTube that got me thinking about all this.

Beating conventional production is difficult because it's conventional to spend your profit to overproduce

beating conventional profit is much easier

 

[Nsoiled]

Just an over the hedge view.
First 2 years there appears to be a big drop in production. One chap told me he needed 2x the acreage for same production in that period
Seems to take about 4 years to get going
Organic production seems to be far better in high rainfall areas. & hard going in under 30" / year rainfall

Quite happy to be proved wrong

If you just go cold turkey and make no other changes, then yes you will see a measurable drop in production.
Example I shared earlier this is not the case.
They've spent a decent period weaning themselves off granular materials
Otherwise, foliar is a viable strategy for substitution

 

[Nsoiled]

If you just go cold turkey and make no other changes, then yes you will see a measurable drop in production.
Example I shared earlier this is not the case.
They've spent a decent period weaning themselves off granular materials
Otherwise, foliar is a viable strategy for substitution

Foliar feed for grassland

Innovation Broker: Tony Little (ADAS)

businesswales.gov.wales

 

[crashbox]

If you just go cold turkey and make no other changes, then yes you will see a measurable drop in production.
Example I shared earlier this is not the case.
They've spent a decent period weaning themselves off granular materials
Otherwise, foliar is a viable strategy for substitution

So the next obvious question... what's the best way to transition away from synthetic fert?

Last year I went half rate on new herbal ley silage reseed, pleased with yield/quality over 2 cuts, then mob stocked 3rd cut with heifers instead of mowing.

Do I drop fert again, or keep at 50%? I would like to think there is some research out there on this but can find nothing concrete yet...

 

[crashbox]

So the next obvious question... what's the best way to transition away from synthetic fert?

Last year I went half rate on new herbal ley silage reseed, pleased with yield/quality over 2 cuts, then mob stocked 3rd cut with heifers instead of mowing.

Do I drop fert again, or keep at 50%? I would like to think there is some research out there on this but can find nothing concrete yet...

*and keep yields similar (I need enough to feed my cows, there's no premium for "reduced fertiliser use"!)

 

[Nsoiled]

So the next obvious question... what's the best way to transition away from synthetic fert?

Last year I went half rate on new herbal ley silage reseed, pleased with yield/quality over 2 cuts, then mob stocked 3rd cut with heifers instead of mowing.

Do I drop fert again, or keep at 50%? I would like to think there is some research out there on this but can find nothing concrete yet...

I did a whole webinar on nitrogen last month
There's many, many options
Split field trials are a good way to roll out new practises

Kicking the Nitrogen Habit.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[awkward]

Ya your right , David is Ohio,

 

[awkward]

I did a whole webinar on nitrogen last month
There's many, many options
Split field trials are a good way to roll out new practises

Kicking the Nitrogen Habit.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

How important would boron be , would gypsum be a preferred product to keserite.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So the next obvious question... what's the best way to transition away from synthetic fert?

Last year I went half rate on new herbal ley silage reseed, pleased with yield/quality over 2 cuts, then mob stocked 3rd cut with heifers instead of mowing.

Do I drop fert again, or keep at 50%? I would like to think there is some research out there on this but can find nothing concrete yet...

Increase the size of your solar panel - aim to store more grass on the land, reduce the area allocated to grazing as small as practically possible.
Shift slowly towards less silage and crops, more perennial pastures, with more good weeds in 'em

maybe not quite like this

but this is what we're doing at the moment with heifers and bulls, it's good fun, I thought I'd put it here as a possibility

our vision here is that the more we have in front, the more we can put back as a type of sheet-compost:

and try to use herd effect to smush it all together - grass stems, saliva, poo, pee - and leave the regen to pop up . It is super-droughtproof, and importantly it improves cycling quickly and feeds the fungi

I am pretty sure you could run a dairy on this type of management... + bit of sulphur, lime, and whatever you do for minerals. We just do dairy mineral through a dosatron but we aren't selling milk

 

[crashbox]

Increase the size of your solar panel - aim to store more grass on the land, reduce the area allocated to grazing as small as practically possible.
Shift slowly towards less silage and crops, more perennial pastures, with more good weeds in 'em

maybe not quite like thisView attachment 1002038
but this is what we're doing at the moment with heifers and bulls, it's good fun, I thought I'd put it here as a possibility

our vision here is that the more we have in front, the more we can put back as a type of sheet-compost:View attachment 1002040View attachment 1002041
and try to use herd effect to smush it all together - grass stems, saliva, poo, pee - and leave the regen to pop up . It is super-droughtproof, and importantly it improves cycling quickly and feeds the fungi

I am pretty sure you could run a dairy on this type of management... + bit of sulphur, lime, and whatever you do for minerals. We just do dairy mineral through a dosatron but we aren't selling milk

But is there any milk in that system? And assuming there is not...
Can we achieve much by, for example, letting a paddock set seed and mob graze it with dry cows or youngstock once a year, to kick start soil biology?

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Had to dig back 5 or six years for these. Ended up deciding that we had takes things a bit too extreme to milk off of. The first picture is actually at my current job and the others from my previous.

Talking with them now they usually don’t let things get that far advanced before grazing, particularly in the spring. They never use fertilizer. Haven’t for 15 years or so.

 

[Nsoiled]

But is there any milk in that system? And assuming there is not...
Can we achieve much by, for example, letting a paddock set seed and mob graze it with dry cows or youngstock once a year, to kick start soil biology?

Def not year 1, without additional transition aids.
Gotta watch milk yields closely.
Use your other stock classes to deliver improvements in landscape function (followers, crosses, young stock, dry cows).
Otherwise, looking at broad spectrum foliar nutrition is indicated to maintain milk yields on taller covers (in the future).

 

[Nsoiled]

Humics are essential

Bioactive carbon improves nitrogen fertiliser efficiency and ecological sustainability - Scientific Reports

Agriculture’s most pressing challenge is raising global food production while minimising environmental degradation. Nutrient deficiencies, principally nitrogen (N), limit production requiring future increases in fertiliser use and risk to proximal non-agricultural ecosystems. We investigated...

www.nature.com

 

[N.Yorks.]

I'm a conventional dairy farmer... but like lots of us, have been looking at ways of growing enough forage with less/no synthetic fertiliser. Due to both economic and environmental considerations. For example herbal grazing leys and red clover silage leys.

So Gabe Brown reckons he can grow more grass/cereals/maize/etc. With no synthetic fert than his neighbours do with fert, essentially by no-till, cover cropping and mob grazing.

What are peoples' experiences of how much forage you can really grow organically?

For anyone who has made the switch, what was the yield drop (e.g. in grass growth) going from conventional to organic? What did you have to do differently, apart from no spray and fert?

TIA

Check out Sanfoin ( legume):
https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/news-events/news/the-benefits-of-growing-sainfoin/

This gives the basics:
https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/articles/349/sainfoin-sowing-and-growing

 

[crashbox]

Check out Sanfoin ( legume):
https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/news-events/news/the-benefits-of-growing-sainfoin/

This gives the basics:
https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/articles/349/sainfoin-sowing-and-growing

Yep tried sowing in my herbal leys, no take at all, turns out that like lucerne it prefers more alkaline conditions...