"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[Karliboy]

It’s 18 days since it last rained here above the blue line was warm and damp then overnight it turned to (hot for a Yorkshire man )low 20s and windy since which is anything below the blue line even though I left plenty of litter cover you can see the difference as to how regular rain helps

Cows are in the blue wooded area for a couple of days now as it’s near impossible to split this area up then into purple then red then out

Can barley see calves when they go in a new cell

ive decided to slow them down a little as there’s very little/no moisture due so I’m working on a little more consumption but still leaving a good amount of litter.

Hard to tell but there’s 3feilds right up the middle of this pic which is a lot damper/shaded which is where they will start this weekend hopefully and give another 20ish days before we get back to the hill which is looking awsome on foot up there

 

[Samcowman]

What are the grass plants telling you?
For me this one definitely needs longer recovery

 

[farmgineer]

I had a similar paddock last year. I gave it 90 days recovery, followed by 2 days grazing and then rested over winter (Nov to May) and it's one of my best paddocks this year.

The lesson I took away is that Rest works

 

[Guleesh]

It’s 18 days since it last rained here above the blue line was warm and damp then overnight it turned to (hot for a Yorkshire man )low 20s and windy since which is anything below the blue line even though I left plenty of litter cover you can see the difference as to how regular rain helps View attachment 966534
Cows are in the blue wooded area for a couple of days now as it’s near impossible to split this area up then into purple then red then out View attachment 966535View attachment 966537
Can barley see calves when they go in a new cell View attachment 966538

ive decided to slow them down a little as there’s very little/no moisture due so I’m working on a little more consumption but still leaving a good amount of litter.

Hard to tell but there’s 3feilds right up the middle of this pic which is a lot damper/shaded which is where they will start this weekend hopefully and give another 20ish days before we get back to the hill which is looking awsome on foot up there View attachment 966541View attachment 966543

It's looking good and the drone shots are great. I'm wondering what the trees/bushes with the white flowers are though?

 

[Karliboy]

It's looking good and the drone shots are great. I'm wondering what the trees/bushes with the white flowers are though?

Hawthorne.

 

[som farmer]

if your grass is growing like ours, 9/10 days, it might look completely different. Perhaps this is the year to farm the grass, and not 'the plan', a balanced utilisation of forage, is crucial to making the stock grow. Our grass has really got away from the dairy, as tonight's bulk collection has shown, 2litres down, or 61p per cow/day. And yet they are completely content, it's hard work just getting them to move, we are 16 days into service, and they are bulling well, we will be close to 90% served in the first 21 days, which proves they are nutrient satisfied, whether pregnancy rate will match, we have to wait and see.
Beginning to realise there is a very fine line, between leaving enough behind the cows, while trying to keep grass quality up, to produce milk, and we haven't found it yet. We are mowing behind the cows, and we are thinking about mowing before the cows, something we have never done.
Your pics show the mayflower beautifully, this year both the blackthorn and hawthorn, has been stunning in their display of blossom

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Hawthorne.

Going to be a dry year?

 

[Karliboy]

Going to be a dry year?

I have a sneaky feeling it is going to be around here.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I have a sneaky feeling it is going to be around here.

I notice a few when it's a normal year, but they are everywhere in bloom some years, and they are the dry ones.
Then again, we're now about 800mm behind this time last year.. it's hard to remember what wet years were like

 

[Jonny B88]

I notice a few when it's a normal year, but they are everywhere in bloom some years, and they are the dry ones.
Then again, we're now about 800mm behind this time last year.. it's hard to remember what wet years were like

Your short around 800mm of rain compared to a ‘normal’ year? Thats a serious difference!!!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I notice a few when it's a normal year, but they are everywhere in bloom some years, and they are the dry ones.
Then again, we're now about 800mm behind this time last year.. it's hard to remember what wet years were like

Time you stated a drought thread.....

 

[Fenwick]

It’s 18 days since it last rained here above the blue line was warm and damp then overnight it turned to (hot for a Yorkshire man )low 20s and windy since which is anything below the blue line even though I left plenty of litter cover you can see the difference as to how regular rain helps View attachment 966534
Cows are in the blue wooded area for a couple of days now as it’s near impossible to split this area up then into purple then red then out View attachment 966535View attachment 966537
Can barley see calves when they go in a new cell View attachment 966538

ive decided to slow them down a little as there’s very little/no moisture due so I’m working on a little more consumption but still leaving a good amount of litter.

Hard to tell but there’s 3feilds right up the middle of this pic which is a lot damper/shaded which is where they will start this weekend hopefully and give another 20ish days before we get back to the hill which is looking awsome on foot up there View attachment 966541View attachment 966543

loving the drone shots. really helps get an idea of how things are progressing at your place.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Your short around 800mm of rain compared to a ‘normal’ year? Thats a serious difference!!!

Last year started out with a roar, we had 450mm fall in a week not long after we drilled our covercrop and then it remembered how to rain after that, in fact we had quite good rains after that.

This year, we hadn't had 150mm by the start of May, up to 175mm now though.

It's all over the show!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Last year started out with a roar, we had 450mm fall in a week not long after we drilled our covercrop and then it remembered how to rain after that, in fact we had quite good rains after that.

This year, we hadn't had 150mm by the start of May, up to 175mm now though.

It's all over the show!

"The new normal": There IS no normal!

 

[Henarar]

"The new normal": There IS no normal!

No there isn't you are right there, seen it before will see it again

 

[Henarar]

loving the drone shots. really helps get an idea of how things are progressing at your place.

I can't get over what an odd pace he farms

 

[Henarar]

Time you stated a drought thread.....

Totals can be a bit meaningless to a point, timing is more important

 

[Henarar]

Not as much as I used to think. I would have said "yeah, maybe a lax grazing in the springtime" but all that really guarantees is that you will have a summer farm that looks like summer hit it.

Plan B is that you have a paddock of spring grass to go into, every day of the year, and that high leaf:stem thing only happens if you make it happen, goodness knows we tried most other things along the way..

It has to be said though, there is always the law of maximum, you only push one principle so far before another principle becomes apparent. This one will be the same but I'm really starting to see how to give this all a lot more time in the sun without just having a heap of rubbish when we get there.
(Needs to be well cleaned up, to get there)

I see the opposite quite often here in the summer, someone will bale a paddock and a week later there's a handful of lambs or cattle eating the green pick that comes away after mowing and then it shuts down after that.
I never used to think that was "good" but that was based on the idea that the plant eats it's roots if you knock it down hard, which is quite false as it so happens
What happens is every day growing, the plant is pumping stuff down and sucking stuff up.
Within reason, the more of those days before you come back there, the more of that the plant does .
Then the cow can do more, so the plant can do more, so the cow can do more

Either way, it stops that partial rest

Is the root shedding thing/short roots thing more to do with keeping the pasture short all the time as apposed to taking it down and then giving it a long recovery ? that's how I took it.

Still say that land without cover will dry up quicker, take a veg garden that you never weed the peas and beans will be in amongst it somewhere and the soil will be damp the patch next door that every weed is puled out of and the land is bare will need watering
Timing is everything.

 

[som farmer]

shrubs, trees, are reacting to last years dry summer, apparently if they go through a serious stress time, drought, nature compensates by producing more reproductive chances, the following year, ie this years flowers are set by last years weather, sounds about right. This year for both blackthorn and may flower, one of the best shows i have seen, who needs imported shrubs.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Is the root shedding thing/short roots thing more to do with keeping the pasture short all the time as apposed to taking it down and then giving it a long recovery ? that's how I took it.

Still say that land without cover will dry up quicker, take a veg garden that you never weed the peas and beans will be in amongst it somewhere and the soil will be damp the patch next door that every weed is puled out of and the land is bare will need watering
Timing is everything.

Yeah, there is a diagram circulating and it was based on an experiment conducted by cutting grass with scissors (Cridder, 1955) to promote rotational grazing vs set-stocking

It's sort-of become one of those lies that, if repeated often enough, becomes "the truth"

it is probably the case on golf-course greens etc where the grass is always cut and removed, and the sprinklers turned on after - the really short roots are entirely adequate and the soil is compacted by traffic

Cover is really a seasonal thing of course, most of our plants only really grow "tall" in October and then grow short and thick, because it aint the tropics there isn't enough sun to penetrate dense and tall pasture, plant density is the driver of how well it works.