Herbal Ley survival?

[som farmer]

if the 2 herbs, 2 grasses, 2 clovers, is a recommendation, dead easy, chicory and plantain, red/white clover, and couple of grasses.

its the 'if' l would like to find out, for certain.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Might go for a graze/cut ley withWC/ RC and some chicory next Autumn.

Don't put to much grass in , we go with just over 8 kg of High Energy Tertaploid Ryegrass
But we don't claim anything

 

[steveR]

if the 2 herbs, 2 grasses, 2 clovers, is a recommendation, dead easy, chicory and plantain, red/white clover, and couple of grasses.

its the 'if' l would like to find out, for certain.

Which grasses????? Something that will produce a bit of ground cover please

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Which grasses????? Something that will produce a bit of ground cover please

Sold thousands of acres of this to wet upland farms and lowland livestock
They come back for more every year
Semi Herbal Long-Term Ley

3.00 kg TODDINGTON Late Perennial Ryegrass

2.25 kg EVOCATIVE Late Perennial Ryegrass

2.20 kg ASTON KING Perennial Ryegrass

2.00 kg ASPECT Late Perennial Ryegrass

1.5 kg HURRICANE Late Perennial Ryegrass

0.50 kg WINNETOU Timothy

1.kg White Clover Blend

1 kg Red Clover

0.35 kg Choice Chicory

0.25 kg Tonic Plantain

14 kg Acre

 

[neilo]

Which grasses????? Something that will produce a bit of ground cover please

Surely anything with ‘a bit of ground cover’ will be the opposite of what you want if you want the herbs to survive?

Always going to be a balancing act imo.

 

[DrWazzock]

I look at our IRG and see it motoring away and it looks like a Ferrari compared to all the other stuff we grow. Timothy has hardly woken up, even standard ryegrass leys are slow to get going but the IRG powers away. And we want to turn our back on all this and dick about with a few poorer grasses and a load of short lived weeds. Well OK we are going to try 8 acres of herbal ley as I’m open minded and will give anything a try but really? Why go back 100 years?

 

[Sheepfog]

Our approach to herbal leys is to pick a standard grass mix as normal (late PRG, Timothy, white clover etc), important to cut the rate back.

Then add in the other grasses (cocksfoot, fescues etc) and herbs/legumes focussing on red clover, plantain and more white clover.

This way we still have productive grasses if/when the herbs run out of steam.

 

[DrWazzock]

It’s a bit like native breeds and all that. Just as much if not more effort than improved breeds for half the output. It really doesn’t float my boat as a farmer though granted they are better in some circumstances.
What next? Looking for the one egg a week laid by a Light Sussex in the hay stack. Even I’m old enough to remember all that malarkey and it certainly wasn’t a get rich quick scheme. It kept us in poverty at subsistence level and so would all these “schemes” if it wasn’t for the taxpayer bail out. Makes you wonder we are heading. More benign is good. But let’s not forget what we are trying to do : earn a living.

 

[neilo]

I look at our IRG and see it motoring away and it looks like a Ferrari compared to all the other stuff we grow. Timothy has hardly woken up, even standard ryegrass leys are slow to get going but the IRG powers away. And we want to turn our back on all this and dick about with a few poorer grasses and a load of short lived weeds. Well OK we are going to try 8 acres of herbal ley as I’m open minded and will give anything a try but really? Why go back 100 years?

IRG, with it’s upright growth habit, always looks impressive in the Spring (before it bolts to head), but it damned soon disappears when you turn stock in, or wilt it in a swath IME.

IRG is also a very hungry crop, needing water and N, without both it does nothing. The biggest saving in the RC/plantain leys I’ve put in here have been from getting similar output, but from far lower inputs.

 

[som farmer]

Which grasses????? Something that will produce a bit of ground cover please

annual meadow grass

we use a lot of cocksfoot and fesques, easy on the prg and festoliums, But we dry out, and all prg does is send up seed heads. Timothy in the lower damper ground.

plenty of clover, that seems to fill in well. And they out yield prg, in a dry spell. But all our dry/herbal mixes, seem to be denser swards than the prg, certainly look like lasting longer.

we only 'tried' them because of very low growth, in a dry spell, they meet with our approval !

l don't think there's as bigger difference between them, and a prg, yield wise, in a growy year, as people make out, its more about mindset and management, than gossip.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I was walking one of my "herbal leys" yesterday, and it looks as if the herb constituent has given up the ghost, bar a bit of white clover. The wet winter with the heavy clay lying wet for weeks on end is not conducive to the ley's survival I find. The easier land has seen a better success long term I will admit but see below...

The thing about these mixtures that annoys me after 4 years, is how poor the grasses that are included actually are! They are so threadbare, even on the leys that have managed to keep going, and that has been the case from the moment the mix emerged.

I might look at replacing a 5ha block, but what with...?

My Welsh mate put in his "herbal ley" using med term grasses and added some clover, plantain and chicory. This way, after 18-24 months, he still has decent grazing, but on establishment, it hits the mark for the grant....

I have found that using them for mowing seems to work with some light grazing with sheep either side. Cattle did not work, but again, the heavy land was an issue.

Just put cocksfoot and clover in, they'll handle overgrazing like true champions

 

[Sheepfog]

IRG, with it’s upright growth habit, always looks impressive in the Spring (before it bolts to head), but it damned soon disappears when you turn stock in, or wilt it in a swath IME.

IRG is also a very hungry crop, needing water and N, without both it does nothing. The biggest saving in the RC/plantain leys I’ve put in here have been from getting similar output, but from far lower inputs.

What seed mixes with RC and plantain have you put in?

 

[som farmer]

Just put cocksfoot and clover in, they'll handle overgrazing like true champions

got to have some herbs, clovers and other grasses, then they pay you £141 acre bung

 

[neilo]

What seed mixes with RC and plantain have you put in?

Last year I put a Wynnstay red clover mix in, then added a bit of Boston plantain & WC.

Hybrid ryegrasses rather than IRG or festuloliums. I put in a TV mix with IRG/Westerwolds four years ago and the grasses were like straw after the first year, whenever the clover was ready to cut. Not so much of an issue with grazing only perhaps, as the high fibre would be wanted?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

got to have some herbs, clovers and other grasses, then they pay you £141 acre bung

Be a pretty poor job if you couldn't make a better return with more carrying capacity though wouldn't it?

 

[som farmer]

Be a pretty poor job if you couldn't make a better return with more carrying capacity though wouldn't it?

the idea is to have both.

we get production from them, but on the land we pay £100 acre, £141 income before the actual farming income, looks quite attractive. In fairness, some of the 'old' grasses we ditched in favour of rye grasses, have been 'improved', since then. While the suggested mixes, include grasses long forgotten, but there is no statutory mix. Cocksfoot, timothy, and fesques, with a proportion of prg and festololiums, should satisfy the requirements.

we have been farming them for a few years now, and hopefully got half an idea of managing them! although not sure how some of the herbs on the wetter ground will recover after this fecking wet winter, time will tell.

the advantages of them, if the claims are true, better soil health, no N, and medicinal benefits, they will be a near magical solution. My own view, they might be true, but only after a prolonged time, and we are not there yet.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Just to add a bit of clover to the discussion, we rarely sell a mix from the seed catalogue, every one of you farmers has his own system challenges and soil types , Friday I was on Chalk Hills near Newhaven , next week I'm visiting a farm in South Wales that's on a flood plain , clearly both farms a mile apart in their requiments for seed
Standard mixes are history

 

[som farmer]

Just to add a bit of clover to the discussion, we rarely sell a mix from the seed catalogue, every one of you farmers has his own system challenges and soil types , Friday I was on Chalk Hills near Newhaven , next week I'm visiting a farm in South Wales that's on a flood plain , clearly both farms a mile apart in their requiments for seed
Standard mixes are history

but still commonly used.

 

[gatepost]

Our approach to herbal leys is to pick a standard grass mix as normal (late PRG, Timothy, white clover etc), important to cut the rate back.

Then add in the other grasses (cocksfoot, fescues etc) and herbs/legumes focussing on red clover, plantain and more white clover.

This way we still have productive grasses if/when the herbs run out of steam.

Likewise

 

[Kiwi Pete]

the idea is to have both.

we get production from them, but on the land we pay £100 acre, £141 income before the actual farming income, looks quite attractive. In fairness, some of the 'old' grasses we ditched in favour of rye grasses, have been 'improved', since then. While the suggested mixes, include grasses long forgotten, but there is no statutory mix. Cocksfoot, timothy, and fesques, with a proportion of prg and festololiums, should satisfy the requirements.

we have been farming them for a few years now, and hopefully got half an idea of managing them! although not sure how some of the herbs on the wetter ground will recover after this fecking wet winter, time will tell.

the advantages of them, if the claims are true, better soil health, no N, and medicinal benefits, they will be a near magical solution. My own view, they might be true, but only after a prolonged time, and we are not there yet.

Yeah, I get that.

All I can see is the landlord going "ooh, pretty flowers, maybe I should increase the rent then as my man will be raking it in" and then the SFI pot of gold running out about the same time the pastures do.

If you want better soil health it's basic: reduce/cut how much you feed from the top, and change the management until you see an increase in the number of big perennial grasses.

*By big I mean plants greater than 8 or 9cm across the base, if you chopped the tops off, and recovered to the extent they look like ungrazed plants.