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

[Kiwi Pete]

Pretty sticky now so I didn't bother with the sieve - broke up the sod and counted the worms and about 55 in that square foot (that I found) and loads of eggs in the thatch (which would be likely more than I could count before dark) but it is a fairly solid, compact top few inches when it has moisture in it.

Fairly typical for a kiwi drystock farm I would say - 43% of NZ is this soil type, probably average OM down here would be 5-6% on this less improved soil and 3-6% on the "improved"areas
(raped-by-farmer areas)
Not sure if we have gained much this year with less cover but this will be closer to 10% than 5% SOM - not that it's important but tells a story that there is more going in than out over the past decade or 2 not uncommon to find woody carbon residues in it but it can be quite mottled due to lack of aeration in areas. Hence earthworm and invertebrate populations are thus a large consideration in remaining as chemical free as possible - without them I am useless, and would be quickly unprofitable - these are the best tools of them all, the decomposers, if you think cattle are the pinnacle, they aren't.. its the tons of life in the soil that do "the man's work" around here... cycling 12 or 13 tons of drymatter per hectare takes some horsepower

 

[hendrebc]

https://viewer-nsdr.landcareresearch.co.nz/soil/id/nsdr/sa_site/1933?view=sitereport

Not sure if this will work, hopefully someone else can report back?
It is the nearest official soil survey to here, anyway, may be of interest. The horizons here are similar on average to the survey, we would have what I would call a foot of topsoil and then a spadelength of subsoil, very friable as far as you can dig hence the water storage capacity here

Also very prone to smearing being a silty clay loam, but a very usable base for our style of farming.

It works. Silty soil makes sense having seen some of your pictures. Dont think ive ever seen silty soil before but it is what i would imagine it to look like from your pictures. Is it prone to capping after being cultivated? The only thing i know about silt soil types here is that they can can quite easily after rain but are generally pretty good soils

 

[Treg]

Pretty sticky now so I didn't bother with the sieve - broke up the sod and counted the worms and about 55 in that square foot (that I found) and loads of eggs in the thatch (which would be likely more than I could count before dark) but it is a fairly solid, compact top few inches when it has moisture in it.View attachment 671178 View attachment 671180
Fairly typical for a kiwi drystock farm I would say - 43% of NZ is this soil type, probably average OM down here would be 5-6% on this less improved soil and 3-6% on the "improved"areas
(raped-by-farmer areas)
Not sure if we have gained much this year with less cover but this will be closer to 10% than 5% SOM - not that it's important but tells a story that there is more going in than out over the past decade or 2 not uncommon to find woody carbon residues in it but it can be quite mottled due to lack of aeration in areas. Hence earthworm and invertebrate populations are thus a large consideration in remaining as chemical free as possible - without them I am useless, and would be quickly unprofitable - these are the best tools of them all, the decomposers, if you think cattle are the pinnacle, they aren't.. its the tons of life in the soil that do "the man's work" around here... cycling 12 or 13 tons of drymatter per hectare takes some horsepower

Those lighters get everywhere, had them here washing up on the local beaches for years (container over board ).
Soil looks good Kp .
Mine are -
30% silt
34%sand
36% clay
Alters slightly between fields .

 

[Henarar]

https://viewer-nsdr.landcareresearch.co.nz/soil/id/nsdr/sa_site/1933?view=sitereport

Not sure if this will work, hopefully someone else can report back?
It is the nearest official soil survey to here, anyway, may be of interest. The horizons here are similar on average to the survey, we would have what I would call a foot of topsoil and then a spadelength of subsoil, very friable as far as you can dig hence the water storage capacity here

Also very prone to smearing being a silty clay loam, but a very usable base for our style of farming.

looks good we are lucky if we have 6 inch of topsoil over a lump of yellow clay that as kids we use to dig up and make pots with

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

https://viewer-nsdr.landcareresearch.co.nz/soil/id/nsdr/sa_site/1933?view=sitereport

Not sure if this will work, hopefully someone else can report back?
It is the nearest official soil survey to here, anyway, may be of interest. The horizons here are similar on average to the survey, we would have what I would call a foot of topsoil and then a spadelength of subsoil, very friable as far as you can dig hence the water storage capacity here

Also very prone to smearing being a silty clay loam, but a very usable base for our style of farming.

Officially, this is our soil here:

https://www.landis.org.uk/services/soilsguide/mapunit.cfm?mu=58204

and

https://www.landis.org.uk/services/...m?mu=58203&sorttype_association=map_unit_name

"Deep fine loamy over clayey and clayey soils with slowly permeable subsoils and slight seasonal waterlogging. Some slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged fine loamy over clayey soils. Calcareous subsoils in places". Yeah, Right. If only it were that easy. Quite apart from the 30% of the farm that was dug for sand in the 1980's and backfilled with 40 feet of clay subsoil and car sized concrete lumps with a thin skim of the original topsoil smeared over it in places the farm is best described as "variable"

This is officially Dad's soil, only 5 miles away:

https://www.landis.org.uk/services/soilsguide/mapunit.cfm?mu=41104

This comment from the Hanslope page is nearer the mark for both farms:

"Near Stevenage and Letchworth, the boundaries with the Hornbeam associations are complex resulting in inclusions of Marlow and Hornbeam series."

Still, looking on the bright side it means we have at least some land that is suited to whatever climate the year throws at us.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It works. Silty soil makes sense having seen some of your pictures. Dont think ive ever seen silty soil before but it is what i would imagine it to look like from your pictures. Is it prone to capping after being cultivated? The only thing i know about silt soil types here is that they can can quite easily after rain but are generally pretty good soils

I thought it was more clay than silt by how it behaves.
You DEFINITELY lose a lot by cultivating it - which is why all the DD goes on here and has done for a long time.
In saying that it is easy for the worms to put back together again, it is friable but structure easily lost by wrongful usage

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I thought it was more clay than silt by how it behaves.
You DEFINITELY lose a lot by cultivating it - which is why all the DD goes on here and has done for a long time.
In saying that it is easy for the worms to put back together again, it is friable but structure easily lost by wrongful usage

How many folk around you are actually aware of their soil type classification and characteristics Pete?

 

[Henarar]

I thought it was more clay than silt by how it behaves.
You DEFINITELY lose a lot by cultivating it - which is why all the DD goes on here and has done for a long time.
In saying that it is easy for the worms to put back together again, it is friable but structure easily lost by wrongful usage

hate to say this but it sounds like boys soil

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

hate to say this but it sounds like boys soil

.... unless you wreck it

 

[Henarar]

.... unless you wreck it

There is that

 

[hendrebc]

Theres a single stack back road that splits here. One side is deep yellow clay full of boulders with blue clay underneath. Sits very wet in winter especially now the drains are all packing up but grows like hell in summer and it has to be very hot for a very long time fot grass not to grow on it
The other side is sloping mostly free draining and a loamy type soil with shale underneath in places. Doesnt often burn up though other than the tops of the hillocks. More clay and wet patches in anywere thats flat though. Quite a bit of variation between fields on that side usually the steeper they are the lighter the soil.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Go right ahead, you know how it works?

Light the fuse, come back tomorrow to inspect the wreckage
A good way to learn how folks think, so you can think different, like - and you'll soon see some funny ways of justifying loading up with liability to avoid paying tax

It will also help keep us off the trending threads bit

It seems to be working, this thread's been pushed down to no 4

 

[Sheila Cooke]

Hi Kiwi Pete,

Thank you so much for creating this thread. I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am not a farmer. I am an educator of holistic management, and I am the hub leader for 3LM, the Savory Institute hub in the UK and Ireland. I hope you don't mind me being part of the group. It is really helpful to me, because it supports my own learning to hear the farmer's perspective on this blog.

There is a new video, We are Running Out of Time, that Savory Institute posted this month which addresses some of the questions @CornishTone posed in reference to Allan Savory's TED Talk. If you have more questions after you watch this "response video", please post them here and I'll do my best to address them.

 

[hendrebc]

Hi Kiwi Pete,

Thank you so much for creating this thread. I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am not a farmer. I am an educator of holistic management, and I am the hub leader for 3LM, the Savory Institute hub in the UK and Ireland. I hope you don't mind me being part of the group. It is really helpful to me, because it supports my own learning to hear the farmer's perspective on this blog.

There is a new video, We are Running Out of Time, that Savory Institute posted this month which addresses some of the questions @CornishTone posed in reference to Allan Savory's TED Talk. If you have more questions after you watch this "response video", please post them here and I'll do my best to address them.

I havent watched the video (crappy farm internet ) but am somewhat familiar with Allan Savoury i will watch it tonight but i understand the gist of what he is going to say. It would be interesring to put the video in a thread all of its own in agricultural matters to see what everyones thoughts are on it. I bet it we can guess now what it would be

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I have just sat and watched it

Thanks @Sheila Cooke - that was good - and it has been a pleasure to explore some things on here already.

I think I know what I am heading towards here now, obviously our environment and, well, most of the people following will have their own version of what "animal impact" means, and definitely I have some areas that need a productivity boost.

I also have quite a lot of things in mind for my grazing plan, thanks to the internet and imagination I have thought of many things that can be done if I plan in advance - even having animals in the right places to simplify management tasks eg weighing cattle and shearing sheep can be made easier

On the list of shopping tomorrow is more printer ink so a grazing plan can begin tried - failed - no ink

 

[hendrebc]

Just watched the whole video from start to finish. What a remarkable man Allan Savoury is. There was a lot i didnt know that he did like spreading HM through the local areas first and helping them to help themselves. Hes doing more for Africa or the world even than any charity or any do gooder celebrity will ever do
Shame he faces so much opposition. Big agriculture has a lot to answer for

 

[Farmer Roy]

It seems to be working, this thread's been pushed down to no 4

I thought I'd thrown a hand grenade into that lot, expecting a world of hate . . .
Must be on a lot of "ignore" lists

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Just watched the whole video from start to finish. What a remarkable man Allan Savoury is. There was a lot i didnt know that he did like spreading HM through the local areas first and helping them to help themselves. Hes doing more for Africa or the world even than any charity or any do gooder celebrity will ever do
Shame he faces so much opposition. Big agriculture has a lot to answer for

Yes, it goes to demonstrate how to "feed the world" in a more effective way than the current materialistic reductionist selfish way that many currently farm their land

I should add I had the best night's sleep and it certainly wasn't due to boredom; it helped demonstrate how we need to do things here, and that we are on the right page already with our community orchard project and the school gardening club that we are starting in the spring

Food is about skills, not labour so much as being empowered

 

[CornishTone]

Hi Kiwi Pete,

Thank you so much for creating this thread. I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am not a farmer. I am an educator of holistic management, and I am the hub leader for 3LM, the Savory Institute hub in the UK and Ireland. I hope you don't mind me being part of the group. It is really helpful to me, because it supports my own learning to hear the farmer's perspective on this blog.

There is a new video, We are Running Out of Time, that Savory Institute posted this month which addresses some of the questions @CornishTone posed in reference to Allan Savory's TED Talk. If you have more questions after you watch this "response video", please post them here and I'll do my best to address them.

Brilliant! Thanks Sheila. Apart from Allan’s disturbing and upsetting habit of walking around without shoes or socks on [emoji33] that was a fascinating insight into the system and really answered many of the questions I had from the TED talk.

Now, to implement that kind of system on a 200 acre, mixed farm in Cornwall. The game’s afoot!

 

[Farmer Roy]

following on from Savory, also check out the work of Stan Parsons & Terry McCosker as well

http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/a...ife-at-agricultures-cutting-edge/1936315.aspx

https://www.ranchmanagement.com/about/about.html

http://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/the-rcs-story/a-brief-history-of-rcs/