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

[Kiwi Pete]

it's not just farmer's living like that.
if i had to start paying rent tomrrow , i would have to get a job

I love having a job.

Guilty pleasure is burning someone else's fuel and spreading someone else's fert - a good excuse to be nosey if nart else.

This will give you a rough idea of where we are, since you know your way around the country. Up on Hill Dairies today putting minerals on the paddocks - all the fences other than the lanes are reels and standards, makes getting out of trouble much easier when you fall off.

 

[graham99]

You have to have some faith in the processes, otherwise they line up to process your profits by selling you fancy gadgets.

Although I have learnt quite a bit from a refractometer it is still just an eye-calibrator IMO, although again it backs up that you aren't too far wide of the mark the stock are the experts, just like you can't fool an old combine the grain is fit.

I remember a chap telling you off for "old outdated advice" about multicut silage a while back, and soon after was grizzling about the drought and lack of silage going forward.
I think about 3 weeks after telling you off, to be precise...
Also interesting is what well-fed stock decide to graze first - here it's tumbleweeds, docks, cali thistle flowers, timothy and cocksfoot heads, then the "nice grass and clover" that someone planted - but only after the weeds have been eaten.

back before my enlightenment .t i did notice the cows went for the sh!t grass under the fence .
which led me to the word WHY.
even today if i see something i don't know i ask why.
i find fighting nature is a folly.
especially when mother nature will do it for you ,if you give her the time to do it

 

[graham99]

I love having a job.

Guilty pleasure is burning someone else's fuel and spreading someone else's fert - a good excuse to be nosey if nart else.

This will give you a rough idea of where we are, since you know your way around the country. Up on Hill Dairies today putting minerals on the paddocks - all the fences other than the lanes are reels and standards, makes getting out of trouble much easier when you fall off.

i work best self employed .one of my bigger down falls

 

[Kiwi Pete]

back before my enlightenment .t i did notice the cows went for the sh!t grass under the fence .
which led me to the word WHY.
even today if i see something i don't know i ask why.
i find fighting nature is a folly.
especially when mother nature will do it for you ,if you give her the time to do it

I actually first noticed that happening on the holistic dairy I worked on when the eldest lad was a baby.
We still topped but it would be half a break each "round", the cows would walk straight through the lush stuff and jam their craggy heads through the fence to eat the roadside grasses.
The idea was you could still manage the quality without dropping the cover too much, it was also where I learned that a mulcher is a far superior topper than a topper is.
I also learned to keep what you are feeding today and what you are growing today about the same - ie a daily mental feed budget so you don't dig a hole for yourself, and if the cows are backgrazing then it's time to move them

May have been a low paying position but hell I learned a lot - including how crap a kiwicross cow can be compared to something LIC hasn't involved itself with - those ones are selected for performance from lamb tucker, not proper grass.
Hence the shorthorns and ayrshires and montys - and even red devons in the herd .

It's made me quite mindful that although NZ is full of "grass only" genetics it may not be so elsewhere, where other options are affordable - and also "grass" and "grass" can be many things to many people, especially the new age dairy farmers.

I know what you mean about the self-employment thing, often that can completely bugger us up for being someone's employee. But I have always had several jobs offered to me, and so I pick what I want to do.
At the moment it's bugger off so my wife can learn the finer points of grazing for herself, rather than grazing from recipes she can learn to think like a migratory animal - and it's great to see the learning, she is immensely excited by nature.

We tipped out the portable trough tonight and she was gobsmacked by the water just disappearing, 200 litres gone in a few seconds; she said to me "now I see what you were saying about that sucking noise, and I see why we graze like this".

 

[Karliboy]

sorry to do this again folks
i am looking for a video that was uploaded in the last fortnight or so of a presentation on soil health about the fungal and bacterial life in the soil
i cant remember the presenters name but he was fairly young with a beard i think he was english
i missed bookmarking it and cant find it for the life in me (it may not even be in this thread) and would like to go back and finish watching it
its possible it was @Samcowman @Agrispeed who uploaded it but not sure
cheers

 

[Kiwi Pete]

sorry to do this again folks
i am looking for a video that was uploaded in the last fortnight or so of a presentation on soil health about the fungal and bacterial life in the soil
i cant remember the presenters name but he was fairly young with a beard i think he was english
i missed bookmarking it and cant find it for the life in me (it may not even be in this thread) and would like to go back and finish watching it
its possible it was @Samcowman @Agrispeed who uploaded it but not sure
cheers

Tell us what you can remember

I upload beggar all, the last one was Walter Jehne I think.

 

[Karliboy]

Think he had a red shirt.
There was a Qand A at the end and some Americans were asking about invasive worms in woodland and how to get rid of them

 

[Farmer Roy]

Possibly Joel Williams ?

 

[Karliboy]

Possibly Joel Williams ?

Cheers Roy that’s him.

 

[scholland]

@Kiwi Pete i was at a meeting yesterday looking at outwintering and the guy leading the meeting was adamant fodder Beet can’t be direct drilled. There’s more beet grown over in NZ is it direct drilled or is it as it was being grown here. Plough, power Harrow, beet and then plough after beet.

@scholland did some direct drilled fodder beet and it looks great

Photos of dd beet below, yielded over 20 ton dm/ha.

 

[Karliboy]

Found vid online now cheers guys

 

[Crofter64]

i work best self employed .one of my bigger down falls

I think that applies to many of us. Better poorer but your own boss.

 

[Crofter64]

Photos of dd beet below, yielded over 20 ton dm/ha.

Do they eventually eat the roots or are they left in the ground to decompose?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Well, my mate grew 3 beet crops last year - one was precision planted with the big coated seeds and the other direct drilled with a Duncan Renovator. The other one was broadcast with my airseeder rig and rolled down, on ex-rape ground.
The PP crop went 24 ton/ha and the DD crop 19 ton - but looked totally different to the eye, the PP was better soil and far more even, but smaller bulbs than the DD which had bulbs double the size and more gaps - it was a bàstard of a summer though, even brassica crops had about 3 different chits over 3 months.
So I wouldn't say "it doesn't work" because in terms of $/TDM it worked out cheaper to get the DD contractor in.
It worked out cheaper still to broadcast and roll, as "my" crop went 19 ton as well, but mates rates...

Few folk here actually recognise just how much they spend creating a "precision planting" seedbed even before you factor in the soil ecology damage. It's why I'll be trialling DD forage maize this spring which, as we all already know, won't work.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Photos of dd beet below, yielded over 20 ton dm/ha.

It'll never work you know

 

[scholland]

Do they eventually eat the roots or are they left in the ground to decompose?

Utilising 85%.

 

[Samcowman]

It'll never work you know

It won’t Mr Morgan told me so yesterday. Also you have to graze down to 1500 when rotating. I have a trial I’m going to do this summer to prove him wrong that leaving more solar panels is better(I hope)

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

It won’t Mr Morgan told me so yesterday. Also you have to graze down to 1500 when rotating. I have a trial I’m going to do this summer to prove him wrong that leaving more solar panels is better(I hope)

Sounds fun

 

[Samcowman]

Sounds fun

Should be interesting. Not going to be doing it for cattle growth as it’ll be one part of a rotation but will be doing it to asess grass growth on both newer ley and old pasture.

 

[Karliboy]

Flipping grass thieves

Must say I’ve never seen it this green this early for a long long time. Grass is just reaching top off toes on steel toe caps.
I’m guessing the lime I spread has helped a lot.
Got some clover mixes to dust over the top when winters properly over.

Having applied lime to correct/improve the below, what would be my best options for improving P and K

For items 7,8,9,10 which is my real ruff land I’m hoping to cover in fym again this summer.
Or would I be better applying the fym to 1-6 my better mowing land (thinking about buying all winter fodder this year though and maybe next)and cycling around 1-6 with more cows more for the regenerative aspect, and getting something like a 0-24-24 for item 7-10 and let it have a easier year as this all got overseeded last backend to let it establish And just run cows over lightly until the autum this year when hopefully a good cover will help to keep cattle out longer.

It’s all confusing I know