SilliamWhale
Member
Better worm activity should be able to cycle it a bit too
@Kiwi Pete you seem to have taken a big leap forward this year
Allan Savory doesn't get enough respect in agricultural and political circles
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
Better worm activity should be able to cycle it a bit too
@Kiwi Pete you seem to have taken a big leap forward this year
Allan Savory doesn't get enough respect in agricultural and political circles
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
The Australian government thought he was "dangerous" in the 1980's, tried to prevent him entering the country & threatened to "break" the organisation that had invited & promoted him . . .
- Location
- Cornwall
I’ve just read that chapter in COTRW!
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Yeah, the "official" line from various State & Federal governments Depts of Ag here still hold back from endorsing or giving much credence to his work, from what I've seen . . .
Why just Rc seed Kp?View attachment 748900 View attachment 748902 View attachment 748904
Silage done.
As discussed - managing complexity and diversity as we have is as much an art as a science - the ryegrass is past its best, the timothy just in the boot, and the white clover at its peak.
Made some good rows. Heavy!View attachment 748906
Had a 960 Jag, one truck, one tractor and trailer; a tractor on the stack and a nice 7810 on a 4-rotor rake.
Mowing took me 15 hours, and my little tractor burnt 77 litres.
This week's plan is to graze this area (plenty off the edges, and fencelines to eat), broadcast on some RC seeds, animals can eat some plantain and spread its seed, then I'll spray on some seaweed juice and shut them up again to recover.View attachment 748910
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Cheapest form of nitrogen there is!
Here we can get VNS clover seed, ie variety not specified. And it is cheap, about half the price of specific seed hence why I am not afraid to simply throw it about and see if it grows.
Most of that silage area has heaps of WC so not really much point putting more seed on, as a decent recovery will allow that to happen for free. One field does have a bit less clover, but I think it is just so grassy, a lot of cocksfoot and timothy and they seem to do fine as is (although there is RC in it thanks to my winter "frost seeding" experiment.
I'm colourblind enough that yorkshire fog looks like RC when it comes out the mower
Here we can get VNS clover seed, ie variety not specified. And it is cheap, about half the price of specific seed hence why I am not afraid to simply throw it about and see if it grows.
Most of that silage area has heaps of WC so not really much point putting more seed on, as a decent recovery will allow that to happen for free. One field does have a bit less clover, but I think it is just so grassy, a lot of cocksfoot and timothy and they seem to do fine as is (although there is RC in it thanks to my winter "frost seeding" experiment.
I'm colourblind enough that yorkshire fog looks like RC when it comes out the mower
that's partly what I meant by send something down to get it
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's why we have thistles, I think?
I had a couple here who were astounded by the difference in a spreading thistle, that is partly our side of the fence and mostly in the neighbour's.
But as I said the pH is different, the grazing is different, only the soil is similar.. but the thistle rhizome is full of calcium, they harbour heaps of worms and soil life and mine the subsoil - all we have to do is use the thistle and we have it cycling up top
Same with my dead gorse, most people say it needs bulldozed, I just burn some now and then and then my stock have a supply of charcoal, ash falls on my land, it's being used instead of a big heap of waste and expense. It also protects my little poplars til they get up above grazing height, and then they get some N to help them grow.
Then one dry year I can coppice them and use all that, thankyou weeds.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Thank you, Will.
Yes it has been quite an interesting journey, I am thinking in different language now and that makes a difference, yes?
To how we look at things, interpret, and decide stuff.
I'm having great fun, now, as any stress that was here before has been greatly reduced - as you said right at the start, it's a typical pilot's approach
odd thing with gorse is its a job to get it to grow here, there are a few bits in some of the hedges but not much, when we gapped up a hedge where two fields had been run as one mum wanted to plant some as she likes the flowers so we put in five plants of which four grow and ten years on I think two are left alive doing ok but hardly look like taking over, don't think I will have to go out burning it anytime soon
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
It loves it in NZ. Sadly, it has become a real curse of the countryside, you see it even in native regen areas, basically anywhere the soil is disturbed it springs up and very quickly spreads.
I think it just relishes a season where it can flower twice, and so quickly establishes a seed bank.
I looked back to 2004 on Google maps, and we had about 6 bushes on the farm, 12 years later it took about 16 loads of spray (100 gal tank) to kill it all.
So in terms of being successful, it ranks highly
I think it is quite useful in terms of being a great source of nitrogen, it's just that while it is growing it is so invasive.
SilliamWhale
Member
Gold under bracken
Silver under Gorse
Famine under heather
Was that it?
Silver under Gorse
Famine under heather
Was that it?
I've heard that said in Welsh before. I always thought it was referring to the soil underneath when the mountains were reclaimed by ploughing and reseeding and what sort of soil would be expected underneath. I could be wrong and it's earlier than that but bt is referring to soil.
Aur o dan yr rhedyn
Arian o dan yr eithin
A newyn o dan y grug
In case anyone was wondering.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Not quite sure if I can get my head around your thoughts on thistles. How do you manage them in a grazing rotation? Creeping thistles on our place get avoided by the stock and just go to head and spread if they are not topped, mowed or sprayed.
Yet you say they really are good for soil.
To me they are a headache. What am I supposed to do with them?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Then you can top, mow or spray them
I usually have.
It's quite heartening when you get the patches to shrink again, one of those little victories that nobody gives a fudge about but is a source of happiness for me
But they are difficult to "beat" in grassland especially if the landscape is just grassland - it's a diversity thing.
Whether we like it or not, the reason we have these weeds is because they are doing things that grasses cannot do.
And as you said, one of their major advanatges is that nothing defoliates them, so to control them then we must, for a while... but it only masks the symptom that our land has no plants like them - hence I'm keen to give chicory a try one day.
However, if your pasture is good enough quality then putting a mower through them in the wet and then grazing seems to hurt them, and cattle eat most of them once softened by the wilt
and they are good food.Very high in minerals, I use a refractometer to check my pastures and some of these weeds have way, way higher readings for WSC than our fancy grasses etc do
So they are good but mostly bad.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
texas pete
Member
- Location
- East Mids
Struggled in America too.
https://www.savory.global/hope-for-...urny9ofo745yuM-xUsqle_o4xhM6mFznvOXQumetLAnFo
I'm just catching up with you f**kers....thought it was really interesting.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
As we were discussing via PM, sometimes in this crazy world of sterile agriculture, it is handy to look at what "normal" actually is.
It's possible that we are so surrounded by order, clean crops, puddles after a shower of rain, dead fields, upside down soils etc, that we actually begin to believe that this degree of "order" is "normal"
It obviously is not normal, but our baseline adjusts - your neighbour may have no thistles and no profit to go with it!
He may have great yields in a good year, but be in severe difficulty if it doesn't rain on cue, or lose a heap of soil if it rains "too much" - blaming the weather is really common in agricultural conversation but it isn't going to stop .
So it is sometimes good to just check that our idea of reality, our goals actually match nature's ideas - or the money we make can easily be spent.
It's possible that we are so surrounded by order, clean crops, puddles after a shower of rain, dead fields, upside down soils etc, that we actually begin to believe that this degree of "order" is "normal"
It obviously is not normal, but our baseline adjusts - your neighbour may have no thistles and no profit to go with it!
He may have great yields in a good year, but be in severe difficulty if it doesn't rain on cue, or lose a heap of soil if it rains "too much" - blaming the weather is really common in agricultural conversation but it isn't going to stop .
So it is sometimes good to just check that our idea of reality, our goals actually match nature's ideas - or the money we make can easily be spent.
SilliamWhale
Member
Equally we should never be afraid robust criticism and scrutiny. There are definite failings to Holistic Grazing - not least it has not penetrated the conciousness enough and maybe there are some reasons for that?
But Savory is an incredibly thoughtful man
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