- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
dt995
Member
- Location
- Carmarthenshire
I have heard the same, and it's called leachate.
https://wormcompostinghq.com/what-is-worm-leachate
https://unclejimswormfarm.com/how-are-worm-tea-and-worm-leachate-different/
https://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/using-worm-bin-leachate/
https://www.rootsimple.com/2014/09/worm-compost-leachate-good-or-bad/
I drain it off and throw it on the muckheap. I feel fairly confident that'll buffer any badness in it and extract any goodness.
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
https://thisnzlife.co.nz/6-pasture-plants-will-make-drought/
Thought you might like this link @Osca
Despite well intended advice that Timothy may be a drought tolerant speciesView attachment 704136
You may wish to Google the NZ Grassland Association publications too, most of them are in PDF format and I am too idiotic to post links to them - it's above my pay grade.
I will let the experts discuss the pros and cons on the other thread, it really boils down to grazing management as @Treg mentioned.
Chewings fescue was developed for the purposes you describe, it is still apparent here some years, and others not so much - the joys of diversity really.
I really don't think much of the advice you've received from View attachment 704140
such is life .
err, I came to the conclusion a while ago that 'dry', 'drought' & 'drought tolerant' mean different things to different people . . .
I wont say anymore
but then a read a post asking about seeding rates for wheat
it blew my tiny mind
the plant populations ( especially on 'light' land that presumably doesn't have high PAW )
- no wonder its a 'drought' if it doesn't rain every 5 days not to mention the requirements for constant fungicide applications with such a thick canopy & the resultant micro climate it produces
ffs
this thread is about the only 1 here that has ANY relevance to ANYTHING I do
the cropping & machinery ones are just a waste of time
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- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
what badness ?
every home gardener in Australia just drains it out the bottom of a worm farm & chucks it on their tomatoes & lettuces . . .
wtf IS worm tea? NEVER heard of it here - its ALWAYS worm wee drained from the worm farm . . .
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Oh yeah.... it stinks alright
I warn interested visitors to keep their distance especially while it is still bubbling.
I recommend giving it a good stir, with preferably an untreated timber batten or similar, as it breaks down in the liquid parts will float up and go dry, it is reasonably important to keep the mixture aerated to create a good environment for bacteria etc to multiply
Otherwise the ammonia losses can be quite significant, I found the hoverflies bred in my drums hence the move to 1000 litre tanks and compressed air agitation.
Kelp is different from land plants in what it supplies to grazing animals.
Things like B12 and Iodine supplementation become less necessary, lots of calcium magnesium etc make it quite a tonic for growing and lactating stock. It likely won't be a cure-all in many systems but is a great start, and all the amino acids really give soil biology a good boost at the end of summer, to help process the extra litter and reduce the amount of oxidation - that's the theory behind the late application.
The natural gibberellins also seem to stretch the grass a little, so there is a little bit of benefit to increasing the leaf area to maximise solar capture as the sun gets lower in the sky
I think you can tell I'm a fan, obviously it is much different to most other things you could be importing into your biome, falling somewhere between a collection of animal health products and fertilisers.
As such it is a mechanism to reduce the need for other inputs to replace losses, in my type of pastoral system.
There have been some wonderful sales pitches made about it, my main reservation is that the product may not live up to that hype, how could it?
As an aside, they reckon it reduces methane outputs from ruminants simply by encouraging more diverse flora in the gut.
If you make it yourself, chances are the price is right
Weren't a lot of these things imports here, so I spose we could have a moan as wellI assume that to be the case, yes. Earthworms, arthropods etc
Most of the native animals here are birds, flightless ones ruled the landscape before the gits showed up with cats and rats and mice.... and rabbits, because "it wasn't like home" without rabbits... and hares, and some deer would look good too.
Then they all bred
So they brought over stoats and ferrets
varroa mites decimated our bees.... really a painful history to tell.
So - that pretty much undid evolution, and put most of the NZ native species to the endangered or extinct list
It takes less than 40 years to wreck a promising new country, if you don't think about the bigger picture
(Small wonder I have little time for these arrogant wänkers that spout away on the forum, eh?
"Oh they won't ban neonics/ glyphosate/ diesel cars.... we grow cheap food"
"it'll mean we aren't competitive"
My heart pumps custard .
So much for unfair advantages - but, back to topic, that's why we can't/don't just import biological controls and beneficials with ease.
Bringing in gorse mites and rabbit calicivirus were examined for all impacts on the ecosystem, which is an extensive expensive process, but VERY necessary.
Assumption being the..........
Completely agree with you Roy, I read through some of the threads & just put my head in my hands. We must come across as a right bunch of numpties over here.err, I came to the conclusion a while ago that 'dry', 'drought' & 'drought tolerant' mean different things to different people . . .
I wont say anymore
but then a read a post asking about seeding rates for wheat
it blew my tiny mind
the plant populations ( especially on 'light' land that presumably doesn't have high PAW )
not to mention the requirements for constant fungicide applications with such a thick canopy & the resultant micro climate it produces
ffs
this thread is about the only 1 here that has ANY relevance to ANYTHING I do
the cropping & machinery ones are just a waste of time
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I guess you don't see much Timothy where you are - it is a really interesting grass compared to some others, with interesting adaptations for cold and wet conditions:
It has a basal corm where it stores its nutrient reserve and has no winter vernalisation requirement; and it grows two different types of tillers depending on whether they are spring, or autumn grown.
The spring tillers remain vegetative and under close grazing may form stolons and creep across the ground to form new plant sites, the autumnal tillers flower the following summer.
It thrives best under lax grazing in a rotational system, hence very very popular down south here
It also has shallower roots than ryegrass, making it more susceptible in summer dry areas, but by incorporating into a seed mix it can boost growing season by a few weeks at either end, in our climate.
The main thing it doesn't do, is handle repeated close grazings during summer, as it is the autumn grown tillers that reproduce the following summer.
It also doesn't handle trampling well, due to the likelihood of the corm being damaged.. it is, however a great forage due to it remaining 'active' while flowering, so the nutrients are "up top" (hence why it is so desired for hay) and recovers quickly from summer dry in an effort to form the autumn tillers necessary for survival/future reproduction.
However, to claim it is a more suitable species than say a cocksfoot or a fescue for "drought tolerance", is just the most incredible thing I have read today
I would have said cockfoot, fescue, maybe even an invasive sod-forming grass like my favourite poa pratensis (you might know it as meadow-grass, bluegrass?) would help cover the soil better than others, and hang on longer.
I like the adaptations some of these grasses have to survive, I know a lot of people call them weed grasses because they survive, but having them all present covers an awful lot of different situations.
Some, like bluegrass and the bents (agrostis spp.) can almost be too successful, browntop and redtop can form a thick matted thatch and drive other species out, but largely management and seasonality is key. Most of them beat flatweeds as a source of livestock nutrition.
Thanks for the heads up, Kiwi Pete. Very interesting - now should I be worrying most about lack of moisture or ground cover? I was wondering about cocksfoot, but I'm maybe not quite desperate enough. I once had some in my lawn (!). It needed a chainsaw, not a lawn mower.
cocksfoot is ok in places where it regularly gets dry, we have some on our land on top the hill but I wouldn't want it down here where as a rule it is much wetter yes its dry this year and it may be next year but historically that's the exception rather than the rule
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
The modern varieties are NOTHING like the old clumpy stuff that grows on roadsides etc etc. It does take slightly different management to ryegrasses.
But Safin (for example) is a very fine-leafed cocksfoot, and handles a range of different grazing strategies. Being zero-endophyte, it can be grazed right down without giving your stock staggers, and very dense and leafy if you keep on top of it.
In our conditions here it probably gives an extra 8-10 weeks of growing season compared to perennial ryegrasses, which is why I had the initial audacity to suggest that ryegrass was my weed species
What altitude and rainfall do you have up there? Lots of things can alter the choices you would make. I'd possibly still lean towards herbs and legumes to help cover summer forage requirements, they cost more initially but generally pay off simply due to the minerals driving livestock performance, the different root structures able to seek moisture at depth, and the "biodrilling" effect of the taproots, which can create inroads for the grass roots to progress downwards.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That was going to be the next caveat, these last few years seem to have been quite unorthodox going by regular weather patterns.
All very well to make changes to accomodate the extremes but if weather patterns become more normal, then, was it worth it?
It is always a lottery down here, based on averages you'd conclude that most species would be OK, yet the compostion changes before the weather does, as we commented earlier on about the buttercups, and flowering hawthorn... and a lot of other things out there.
You realise afterwards that the plants are ahead of the game, and we are playing catch-up.
It is very interesting to try to manage such complexity and variability, I tend to focus on my clovers and let the grass take its chances.
I think its easy to criticise others farming choices from grasses to seeding rate and everything else but when they are farming different land perhaps in different country's with different climates with perhaps different aims in their farming you need to at the least understand what they are dealing with or at best have farmed there.
things can change from one field to the next or a mile up the road let alone hundreds of miles
but that is not to say that some criticism is not well placed
things can change from one field to the next or a mile up the road let alone hundreds of miles
but that is not to say that some criticism is not well placed
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Definitely correct. I always go and visit the clients and try to get a complete picture of what they want to achieve with their pasture or cover crop before a single seed goes in the mixer.
It is therefore quite an interesting thing to see a forum decide what should be grown, as we all have a different expectation and context of how things should be.
I think @Kevtherev is very similar in how he runs his seed business; it's just a hobby for me because I don't really need to reseed anything here, it does its own thing. But my old schoolmate Si comes and collects me for anything interesting or alternative, then we hash it out together and arrive at what we think will do the best job for the farmer and his margins.
Some of the seeds are frightfully expensive, if the farmer isn't sure then we omit them, set-stocking for 3 months over lambing---》weaning is enough to see them fizzle out, so they're unwarranted in many cases.
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Tailor everyone’s crops to suit the farm and type of farming
Seasons produce trends this year fast growing Italians and westerwolds are in demand as are hybrid rape and turnips to make up the fodder shortfall.
Seasons produce trends this year fast growing Italians and westerwolds are in demand as are hybrid rape and turnips to make up the fodder shortfall.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
How are the seed supplies holding up?
Some years some things are completely sold out - or at best the lead time means you can't get them in time for the drilling window.
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Lots sold out namely 2 varieties of hybrid rape/kale and some Italians.
Plenty on way from Abroad but a long boat journey
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Just came across this series of ABC interviews from 2015 with Glen Morris who runs a property near Inverell. Well worth a listen and very pertinent to the current dry conditions.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/10/07/4327138.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/10/07/4327138.htm
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya