How much????

[idle git]

Have to say it scares me about the talk of £1000 per ton of fert on the combinable thread
Way way way out of my comfort zone and it worries me that the folk who make the stuff will think "hell yeah here we go"

Your thoughts gentlemen

 

[czechmate]

Have to say it scares me about the talk of £1000 per ton of fert on the combinable thread
Way way way out of my comfort zone and it worries me that the folk who make the stuff will think "hell yeah here we go"

Your thoughts gentlemen

Do you watch any news?

 

[idle git]

Do you watch any news?

Yup. But doesn't mean you have to buy it, better to fallow for a year maybe

 

[czechmate]

Yup. But doesn't mean you have to buy it, better to fallow for a year maybe

Doesn’t have to be sh!t or bust, there are lines up the middle. I am certainly going up the low side of middle but then I am mixed...

 

[idle git]

Doesn’t have to be sh!t or bust, there are lines up the middle. I am certainly going up the low side of middle but then I am mixed...

In that I agree and we would be classified as a typical mixed family farm, over the past few years the pundits have been trying to put the lid on the coffin on the "traditional mixed family farm"

Who knows it might be corporate farming that might be digging a hole

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Yup. But doesn't mean you have to buy it, better to fallow for a year maybe

Rubbish, just use less fert, or none and accept a lower yield at lower cost and less risk.

 

[idle git]

Rubbish, just use less fert, or none and accept a lower yield at lower cost and less risk.

I had 15 years experience of growing crops for a neighbour who believed that less was more, he eventually gave up and rented his land out, personally I would of given up after about 5 or 6 after he had raped his land and it had no more to give

Quick combining tho

 

[Still Farming]

Leave it there.
Green activists and re wilding fraternity have won.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I had 15 years experience of growing crops for a neighbour who believed that less was more, he eventually gave up and rented his land out, personally I would of given up after about 5 or 6 after he had raped his land and it had no more to give

Quick combining tho

I bow to your experience, but I think a different approach must be possible. It's a one way street to only take from the land without giving back, but you have to ask, is 100kg of nitram really putting much back in the grand scheme of things?

After 60 odd years of thinking everything we need must come from a sales rep, there's a growing school of thought that it's not always in our best interest to do what they say and even less in the interest of healthy soil.

I'll give you an example of something to convince me that we don't "need" fertiliser:

A few years ago, a neighbour wanted to calibrate his spinner on some of my grassland in the spring as he only had crops on his own farm. Fine, I thought, a bit of free fertiliser. So he tested his spreader and the grass in that area turned greener than the rest. (We had stopped fertilising our grass by then.) Towards the end of spring/early summer, that patch of grass went yellow and stopped growing as fast as the rest of the field and for the rest of the season was less productive. I've never spread n on grassland since.

 

[idle git]

I bow to your experience, but I think a different approach must be possible. It's a one way street to only take from the land without giving back, but you have to ask, is 100kg of nitram really putting much back in the grand scheme of things?

After 60 odd years of thinking everything we need must come from a sales rep, there's a growing school of thought that it's not always in our best interest to do what they say and even less in the interest of healthy soil.

I'll give you an example of something to convince me that we don't "need" fertiliser:

A few years ago, a neighbour wanted to calibrate his spinner on some of my grassland in the spring as he only had crops on his own farm. Fine, I thought, a bit of free fertiliser. So he tested his spreader and the grass in that area turned greener than the rest. (We had stopped fertilising our grass by then.) Towards the end of spring/early summer, that patch of grass went yellow and stopped growing as fast as the rest of the field and for the rest of the season was less productive. I've never spread n on grassland since.

We have about 120 acres of permanent pasture of which about 100 is never mown. Nearly all of this will receive no fert and it does well for us, in that I agree with you 100%,,,,,,,,, but to start mowing and removing forage then sooner or later it has to be replaced.
For us we return the fym from around 300head of cattle back into the arable land as we can use it more efficiently but in some ways the grassland gets robbed of some of its fertility. Maybe its a case of rob Peter to pay Paul

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

We have about 120 acres of permanent pasture of which about 100 is never mown. Nearly all of this will receive no fert and it does well for us, in that I agree with you 100%,,,,,,,,, but to start mowing and removing forage then sooner or later it has to be replaced.
For us we return the fym from around 300head of cattle back into the arable land as we can use it more efficiently but in some ways the grassland gets robbed of some of its fertility. Maybe its a case of rob Peter to pay Paul

Yes, I agree that it's a difficult one, when so much biomass leaves the farm in the form of crop or stock. An ecosystem would continually recycle the same nutrients and only a small proportion would leach out. Instead it seems we chuck as much as possible into the sea.

 

[SilliamWhale]

In that I agree and we would be classified as a typical mixed family farm, over the past few years the pundits have been trying to put the lid on the coffin on the "traditional mixed family farm"

Who knows it might be corporate farming that might be digging a hole

If you are a mixed family farm maybe you are in a better position than an all arable unit that rents?

 

[Bokey]

I had 15 years experience of growing crops for a neighbour who believed that less was more, he eventually gave up and rented his land out, personally I would of given up after about 5 or 6 after he had raped his land and it had no more to give

Quick combining tho

Are nitrogen fixing cover crops the answer?