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

awkward

Member
Location
kerry ireland
Yes, it’s standing. The white lines are where they’ve mowed it to place the Hotwire.

I’ve never seen anyone feed hay to cattle out on corn. If they’re going back to the corral for water then I guess it’s not impossible there’s feed for them there but I doubt it. I’ll have to go for a drive, that block might be right beside a road for me to get up too it.
no just not seen cows eat standing corn before and looks very mature so wondered about the feed value of it.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
no just not seen cows eat standing corn before and looks very mature so wondered about the feed value of it.
I’m not well versed in corn feed values. I want to say that after a hard frost it converts sugars to something or something to sugars or something like that.

It’s definitely mature. They plant it the same time as everything else. Cows love it. They eat every scrap and it looks like a war zone afterward.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
https://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/20...rn-to-cattle-success-starts-with-the-planter/

I know some producers don’t like the roller coaster it can put cattle on. They eat cobs first, then leaves, then stalks, so when first introduced they’ll have high nutritional value and then they’ll dip down to the lower value. Then you move them and they’ll peak back at the top and go down again. Vice versa to pH where they’ll start off at a low pH and go higher, then repeat. To combat this some will rotate them really tightly but not all do.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
20181211_204525.jpg
20181211_213033.jpg

28 day recovery, heading out to about 40 now, I am tightening them up a little as the covers are getting up there! But over the hump, as far as the grass is concerned - now it is time for clover diets.
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
R1s being moved this morning. Come off the grass paddock in the background and are now on a forage rye/rape mix with bales of haylage set out
IMG_20181211_080403_8.jpg

Close up of the cover. Bit disappointing but maybe the rye will come back for a second bite. Grazing it now before the chickweed smothers everything out completely. How do I stop the chickweed? Or do I just accept that it's another form of organic matter being trodden in for future soil?
IMG_20181211_080449_6.jpg
 

texas pete

Member
Location
East Mids
R1s being moved this morning. Come off the grass paddock in the background and are now on a forage rye/rape mix with bales of haylage set out
View attachment 747326
Close up of the cover. Bit disappointing but maybe the rye will come back for a second bite. Grazing it now before the chickweed smothers everything out completely. How do I stop the chickweed? Or do I just accept that it's another form of organic matter being trodden in for future soil?
View attachment 747332

Hooves should hammer it a bit?

From experience, rye gets cracking in the Spring, which should help...at least you have good ground cover.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
R1s being moved this morning. Come off the grass paddock in the background and are now on a forage rye/rape mix with bales of haylage set out
View attachment 747326
Close up of the cover. Bit disappointing but maybe the rye will come back for a second bite. Grazing it now before the chickweed smothers everything out completely. How do I stop the chickweed? Or do I just accept that it's another form of organic matter being trodden in for future soil?
View attachment 747332
It certainly is, call it green manure!
Sheep would have a fieldday with that, they can be quite handy on a cow farm....
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Was going to say exactly the same thing everyone needs some sheep ;) does frost kill chickweed or did I imagine that?
It doesn't here, it is usually still quite obvious in the springtime, especially the mousy ears stuff.
Generally the first grazing from my cattle punches it in and then it is hard to find during the spring, gone during summer, and back in the autumn like magic!!
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
1% organic matter equates to 2000kg / ha N
there is about 75 t of atmospheric N above every hectare . . .


How do we grow microbes in the soil?
Published on December 9, 2018December 9, 2018 • 57 Likes • 13 Comments

Marius WillemseFollow
Agricultural and environmental systems ecology and biogeochemical cycling solutions
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“You are into regenerative farming and the microbes’ thing! I read researchers say microbes help grow better crops. They help enhance crop nutrient uptake and yield, control pests and mitigate plant stress. How do we grow microbes in the soil?”

“You must grow microbes in the soil in much the same way as one would grow them in the laboratory.”

“Uhh... Well then, how do you grow microbes in the laboratory?”

“I was not being facetious in my response. Laboratories use solid or liquid media that contain carbohydrates such as agar or glucose as carbon source, to which a range of chemicals/nutrients are added to form a microbial growth solution. There are various recipes or templates for this type of nutrient media, ranging from general to very species/strain specific media. Species specific media is largely based on the mean stoichiometric composition of a microbial population. This then allows the very efficient utilisation of the media, and therefore for the cost-effective industrial scale production of organisms or their products, for example, enzymes. Much the same principals used in laboratory or industrial production can be applied to managed-soils to improve microbial community growth.”

“I can see similarities but we don’t know what microbes there are in the soil, let alone their chemical composition and from soil analyses we only have a basic understanding of the soil chemical profile.”

“Yes, there are unknowns when it comes to soil. The main differences between laboratory and soil microbial growth are, in soil there is a resident community of microorganisms and you are given a pre-existing formulated media. But, don’t let this scare you!

The present soil microbial community species composition is a reflection of the ruling biotic and abiotic environment, and the latter includes the soil chemical component. Community composition is not static. It changes constantly, between seasons, with temperature, precipitation, pH and will for instance change when you change a management practice, to name a few.

Your objective in soil microbial growth is simply to create an environment that is broadly the most beneficial for the greatest diversity of organisms. Don’t concern yourself too much about the soil microbes; if the environment is supportive then beneficial species will be dominant and at the same time suppressive of pathogens.

Your focus should be on getting water to soil infiltrate and on preventing wide soil temperature fluctuations. This you achieve with least soil disturbance, compaction prevention, maximising the period of having living plant roots in the soil, leaving crop residues on the soil surface and above all by stopping the practice of select soil nutrient amendment targeted at the next crop.”

“But if we stop using fertiliser, where will the crop gets its nutrients from?”

“Ah, two misconceptions in a single sentence! We are not seeking organic certification but attempting to restore real soil fertility and to even further enhance soil fertility, and to do it within a very short space of time with the aim of reducing the need for future production input, to optimise resilience and yield. And that yield includes harvest yield, profit, an environmental and a social return. We are thinking holistically and not exclusively. We are not trying to look green but to save our collective butt.

In fertile soils 85-90% of plant nutrient acquisition is microbically mediated. Microbes take up fertiliser nitrogen first; they are much faster and more competitive than plants. Crops don’t get to directly take up fertiliser nitrogen, unless soil fertility, the organic carbon and microbial community, has been destroyed to such an extent that it leaves fertiliser nitrogen in soil solution which the crop then partially take up.

We must use nutrients, including inorganic nitrogen and other chemical elements, not to feed the next crop but to provide the soil microbial community with the nutrients they require for growth and efficient function.”

“But, if all the nitrogen is in the microbes where or how does the crop get its nitrogen?”

“That’s the beauty of nature. Plants primarily take-up NO3, then NH4 and to lesser degree small organic molecules such as free amino acids and peptides. There are always alternatives within a functioning system. A nitrogen deficient plant in nature is rare. Nitrogen is made available for uptake by plants through bacteria and fungi predators that excrete nitrogen, and bacterial and fungal phages (viruses) that burst microbial cells to spill their content. Plants are also not passive bystanders, they allow microbes into their roots and then extract nutrients from them, form direct symbiotic relationships with microbes, but above all plants and microbes trade with one another in a mutually beneficial relationship. Plants exude carbon rich compounds that stimulate microbes to mobilize organically bound nitrogen.”

“Ok, I get it. If there is a sufficiently large and active microbial biomass in the soil then plants in one way or another will receive adequate nitrogen. But, we must still feed the microbes for them to grow and to provide the crop with its nutrient requirements. So, where and how can we possibly reduce nutrient input in crop production? It sounds all the same to me!”

“Everything but! Very significant savings in nutrient inputs can be realised if we focus on feeding the microbes instead of the crop. The point missed in our fixation with trying to feed the crop is that we do more harm than good. Select fertiliser nutrients addition generally only succeeds in further destabilising the soil nutrient ratios that the microbes so actively try to establish. There are plenty of nutrients already in the soil. Our job is to make sure that it can be made available to the crop on demand, and that requires an active microbial biomass. I’ll try and explain:

Assume you have a soil with 1% organic carbon. Forgetting about bulk density for now, that means we have 20,000 kg C/ha in the top 20cm of soil and approximately 2,000 kg N/ha associated therewith. If you have 2 % organic carbon then you have double the nitrogen, about 4,000 kg N/ha. The ratio between C and N in soil is reasonably static and an outcome of microbial metabolism. Under natural conditions 99.9% of this nitrogen will be in soil organic matter, in the humus or adsorbed to it and in the microbes, and only a tiny fraction thereof will be in soil solution at any point in time. The same basic principal applies to the other soil nutrients as well.

Only miniscule amounts of nutrients are in the soil solution at any point in time and this is very important for long-term sustainability. Nutrients in solution move with the water, it can leach out or washed out. A leaking system is a degrading system.

There is a better way than putting down a 100 or 200 kg N/ha, of which typically 50% plus, the bulk of this nitrogen will be wasted at great environmental cost. This is a very inefficient and unacceptable practice. No other industry wastes a primary input at this scale. And worse, the practice only treats a symptom, that of an underperforming microbial community. It does not improve anything, it exacerbates it instead. We need to focus on addressing the cause.

But I’m digressing, back to the amount of nutrients required for microbes as opposed to attempts at fertilising for a crop.

A very high level of carbon and nutrient utilisation efficiency can be obtained when, just like in the laboratory or industrial setting, a purpose formulated nutrient media is used. If you reduce microbial kinetic and stoichiometric constraints, with a growth solution based on the mean stoichiometric composition of soil microbial communities, very quick progress in improving soil fertility can be made.

Instead of the large amounts of crop fertiliser now widely used, we use only relatively small amounts of nutrients to kick-start soil microbial function and to tweak nutrient availability, and in the process also facilitate microbial growth and soil organic carbon deposit.

In the soil everything revolves around balance or stoichiometric ratios. Every nutrient you use to enrich soil causes a microbial response. Sometimes this response makes a positive contribution towards microbial biomass and soil organic matter, and in other cases it detracts. There is therefore different carbon and nutrient utilisation efficiency responses.

Microbial kinetic and stoichiometric constraints are largely overcome when a growth solution comprising a suite of stoichiometrically matched nutrients and organic carbon is provided. In terms of the growth solution nitrogen content we are using only 30 kg/ha for the most degraded soils and less for soils in a better state of fertility. That is only 10 to 20% the amount of nitrogen that conventional agriculture uses.”

“Sounds good but will the soil not run out of nitrogen sooner or later?”

“No, the soil will not run out, even if you remove grain containing 10 times the amount of nitrogen compared to what you put in as part of the growth solution. We are talking a completely different ballgame. By focussing on the microbial needs we are managing a properly integrated soil system and no longer a linear chemical system. In making the shift a large portion of the stored soil organic nitrogen, which measure in the thousands of kilograms per hectare becomes more plant available and can act as reserve buffer, more nitrogen gets fixed by free living nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the system when they have access to energy and function required minerals, a greater portion of the nitrogen that comes with precipitation will enter the soil and we still have the nitrogen in larger crop residue particles which is not included in the amount of stored soil organic nitrogen. When this is matched with improved management practice that includes legumes in rotation or as intercrop we will not run out but further improve system fertility and nitrogen plant availability. The soil is now a finely tuned machine, operating along principals established over eons of microbial and plant evolutionary co-development and no longer simply as a plant root holder.”

“But surely there must be a price to pay for improved soil fertility, how long will it take to regain conventional yield levels?”

“There is no price to pay. Yield levels in the very short-term is comparable, the real difference is in the medium-term when the improved fertility soil will begin to significantly outperform conventional practice and particularly so in bad years. We are not taking anything away in making the change; we are improving functional efficiency and increasing system resilience. Don’t stare yourself blind on the fact that we reduce nitrogen input by a few kilograms.”

“Ok… So what is the cause for an underperforming microbial community, which you mentioned earlier, that we are correcting?”

“We are correcting the loss of organic carbon from the soil, the root cause of which lays in changes to the soil chemical ratios that leads to reduced microbial carbon use efficiency, and which is further exacerbated by soil disturbance and periods of fallow.”


Marius Willemse
Agricultural and environmental
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
1% organic matter equates to 2000kg / ha N
there is about 75 t of atmospheric N above every hectare . . .


How do we grow microbes in the soil?
Published on December 9, 2018December 9, 2018 • 57 Likes • 13 Comments

Marius WillemseFollow
Agricultural and environmental systems ecology and biogeochemical cycling solutions
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“You are into regenerative farming and the microbes’ thing! I read researchers say microbes help grow better crops. They help enhance crop nutrient uptake and yield, control pests and mitigate plant stress. How do we grow microbes in the soil?”

“You must grow microbes in the soil in much the same way as one would grow them in the laboratory.”

“Uhh... Well then, how do you grow microbes in the laboratory?”

“I was not being facetious in my response. Laboratories use solid or liquid media that contain carbohydrates such as agar or glucose as carbon source, to which a range of chemicals/nutrients are added to form a microbial growth solution. There are various recipes or templates for this type of nutrient media, ranging from general to very species/strain specific media. Species specific media is largely based on the mean stoichiometric composition of a microbial population. This then allows the very efficient utilisation of the media, and therefore for the cost-effective industrial scale production of organisms or their products, for example, enzymes. Much the same principals used in laboratory or industrial production can be applied to managed-soils to improve microbial community growth.”

“I can see similarities but we don’t know what microbes there are in the soil, let alone their chemical composition and from soil analyses we only have a basic understanding of the soil chemical profile.”

“Yes, there are unknowns when it comes to soil. The main differences between laboratory and soil microbial growth are, in soil there is a resident community of microorganisms and you are given a pre-existing formulated media. But, don’t let this scare you!

The present soil microbial community species composition is a reflection of the ruling biotic and abiotic environment, and the latter includes the soil chemical component. Community composition is not static. It changes constantly, between seasons, with temperature, precipitation, pH and will for instance change when you change a management practice, to name a few.

Your objective in soil microbial growth is simply to create an environment that is broadly the most beneficial for the greatest diversity of organisms. Don’t concern yourself too much about the soil microbes; if the environment is supportive then beneficial species will be dominant and at the same time suppressive of pathogens.

Your focus should be on getting water to soil infiltrate and on preventing wide soil temperature fluctuations. This you achieve with least soil disturbance, compaction prevention, maximising the period of having living plant roots in the soil, leaving crop residues on the soil surface and above all by stopping the practice of select soil nutrient amendment targeted at the next crop.”

“But if we stop using fertiliser, where will the crop gets its nutrients from?”

“Ah, two misconceptions in a single sentence! We are not seeking organic certification but attempting to restore real soil fertility and to even further enhance soil fertility, and to do it within a very short space of time with the aim of reducing the need for future production input, to optimise resilience and yield. And that yield includes harvest yield, profit, an environmental and a social return. We are thinking holistically and not exclusively. We are not trying to look green but to save our collective butt.

In fertile soils 85-90% of plant nutrient acquisition is microbically mediated. Microbes take up fertiliser nitrogen first; they are much faster and more competitive than plants. Crops don’t get to directly take up fertiliser nitrogen, unless soil fertility, the organic carbon and microbial community, has been destroyed to such an extent that it leaves fertiliser nitrogen in soil solution which the crop then partially take up.

We must use nutrients, including inorganic nitrogen and other chemical elements, not to feed the next crop but to provide the soil microbial community with the nutrients they require for growth and efficient function.”

“But, if all the nitrogen is in the microbes where or how does the crop get its nitrogen?”

“That’s the beauty of nature. Plants primarily take-up NO3, then NH4 and to lesser degree small organic molecules such as free amino acids and peptides. There are always alternatives within a functioning system. A nitrogen deficient plant in nature is rare. Nitrogen is made available for uptake by plants through bacteria and fungi predators that excrete nitrogen, and bacterial and fungal phages (viruses) that burst microbial cells to spill their content. Plants are also not passive bystanders, they allow microbes into their roots and then extract nutrients from them, form direct symbiotic relationships with microbes, but above all plants and microbes trade with one another in a mutually beneficial relationship. Plants exude carbon rich compounds that stimulate microbes to mobilize organically bound nitrogen.”

“Ok, I get it. If there is a sufficiently large and active microbial biomass in the soil then plants in one way or another will receive adequate nitrogen. But, we must still feed the microbes for them to grow and to provide the crop with its nutrient requirements. So, where and how can we possibly reduce nutrient input in crop production? It sounds all the same to me!”

“Everything but! Very significant savings in nutrient inputs can be realised if we focus on feeding the microbes instead of the crop. The point missed in our fixation with trying to feed the crop is that we do more harm than good. Select fertiliser nutrients addition generally only succeeds in further destabilising the soil nutrient ratios that the microbes so actively try to establish. There are plenty of nutrients already in the soil. Our job is to make sure that it can be made available to the crop on demand, and that requires an active microbial biomass. I’ll try and explain:

Assume you have a soil with 1% organic carbon. Forgetting about bulk density for now, that means we have 20,000 kg C/ha in the top 20cm of soil and approximately 2,000 kg N/ha associated therewith. If you have 2 % organic carbon then you have double the nitrogen, about 4,000 kg N/ha. The ratio between C and N in soil is reasonably static and an outcome of microbial metabolism. Under natural conditions 99.9% of this nitrogen will be in soil organic matter, in the humus or adsorbed to it and in the microbes, and only a tiny fraction thereof will be in soil solution at any point in time. The same basic principal applies to the other soil nutrients as well.

Only miniscule amounts of nutrients are in the soil solution at any point in time and this is very important for long-term sustainability. Nutrients in solution move with the water, it can leach out or washed out. A leaking system is a degrading system.

There is a better way than putting down a 100 or 200 kg N/ha, of which typically 50% plus, the bulk of this nitrogen will be wasted at great environmental cost. This is a very inefficient and unacceptable practice. No other industry wastes a primary input at this scale. And worse, the practice only treats a symptom, that of an underperforming microbial community. It does not improve anything, it exacerbates it instead. We need to focus on addressing the cause.

But I’m digressing, back to the amount of nutrients required for microbes as opposed to attempts at fertilising for a crop.

A very high level of carbon and nutrient utilisation efficiency can be obtained when, just like in the laboratory or industrial setting, a purpose formulated nutrient media is used. If you reduce microbial kinetic and stoichiometric constraints, with a growth solution based on the mean stoichiometric composition of soil microbial communities, very quick progress in improving soil fertility can be made.

Instead of the large amounts of crop fertiliser now widely used, we use only relatively small amounts of nutrients to kick-start soil microbial function and to tweak nutrient availability, and in the process also facilitate microbial growth and soil organic carbon deposit.

In the soil everything revolves around balance or stoichiometric ratios. Every nutrient you use to enrich soil causes a microbial response. Sometimes this response makes a positive contribution towards microbial biomass and soil organic matter, and in other cases it detracts. There is therefore different carbon and nutrient utilisation efficiency responses.

Microbial kinetic and stoichiometric constraints are largely overcome when a growth solution comprising a suite of stoichiometrically matched nutrients and organic carbon is provided. In terms of the growth solution nitrogen content we are using only 30 kg/ha for the most degraded soils and less for soils in a better state of fertility. That is only 10 to 20% the amount of nitrogen that conventional agriculture uses.”

“Sounds good but will the soil not run out of nitrogen sooner or later?”

“No, the soil will not run out, even if you remove grain containing 10 times the amount of nitrogen compared to what you put in as part of the growth solution. We are talking a completely different ballgame. By focussing on the microbial needs we are managing a properly integrated soil system and no longer a linear chemical system. In making the shift a large portion of the stored soil organic nitrogen, which measure in the thousands of kilograms per hectare becomes more plant available and can act as reserve buffer, more nitrogen gets fixed by free living nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the system when they have access to energy and function required minerals, a greater portion of the nitrogen that comes with precipitation will enter the soil and we still have the nitrogen in larger crop residue particles which is not included in the amount of stored soil organic nitrogen. When this is matched with improved management practice that includes legumes in rotation or as intercrop we will not run out but further improve system fertility and nitrogen plant availability. The soil is now a finely tuned machine, operating along principals established over eons of microbial and plant evolutionary co-development and no longer simply as a plant root holder.”

“But surely there must be a price to pay for improved soil fertility, how long will it take to regain conventional yield levels?”

“There is no price to pay. Yield levels in the very short-term is comparable, the real difference is in the medium-term when the improved fertility soil will begin to significantly outperform conventional practice and particularly so in bad years. We are not taking anything away in making the change; we are improving functional efficiency and increasing system resilience. Don’t stare yourself blind on the fact that we reduce nitrogen input by a few kilograms.”

“Ok… So what is the cause for an underperforming microbial community, which you mentioned earlier, that we are correcting?”

“We are correcting the loss of organic carbon from the soil, the root cause of which lays in changes to the soil chemical ratios that leads to reduced microbial carbon use efficiency, and which is further exacerbated by soil disturbance and periods of fallow.”


Marius Willemse
Agricultural and environmental
Great article.
Although it can be nigh on impossible to convey that, to anyone who has been brought up on a diet of "have to feed the crop", and ask them to challenge their beliefs when fear is involved.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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