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

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
To be fair I’ve never seen it so dry so early.
Most of my watering holes in the golf course are dried up already apart from one which is slow too.
I’m seriously thinking of buying some bales now while I can to do some early supplementary feeding to let covers get ahead.
Heard of my straw man that last years straw is climbing in price already. £100/ton wheat to go to wales from selby in Yorkshire already :facepalm:
Not going to like that but looking at contingency plans myself, daffodil farms paying £330/ acre / year for 5 years......tempting.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
So here's a question for you lot.

Would you consider compost, litter? Or residue if that's the word you use.

Backstory:
I know a lady struggling with dandelion issues in a pasture. I showed her my recent photos where my chicken litter layer seems to have drastically cut down on dandy's. Her response is she doesn't have bare patches really, the dark spots in her pictures are where the compost is as they spread a layer of that.

My thinking is that, while a layer of compost can have similar qualities to a layer of litter - helping retain some moisture, build up OM, etc, It's not really a layer of litter. True compost is a suitable growing medium to host plant growth where a thin layer of mulchy litter isn't really. A bare patch of compost would be no different to a plant looking for a place to grow than a bare patch of soil.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
You probably won't see the same tidemark that I have here, because my silage was very late being cut, a stupidly heavy crop (c.36 tons per hectare removed) and then stupidly dry weather with stupidly low deep soil moisture.... :dead:

I'm keen to see how long the bits I silaged take to look like the bits I grazed, would be likely quite different if those things weren't all conspiring against it :unsure: and I know you have wet feet in places so it would be interesting to see the timeframe difference (y)
its greening behind the mower so far but how long that will continue I don't know, not much rain in the forecast, just hope we get enough till we get some cover back

Same situation here as several posters above, very slow growth & no moisture in the soil , luckily having read this thread I've increased my breaks between grazing, 31 days last go round, will drop to 24 this go round ( was expecting to drop to 18 days as we discussed earlier in the thread but the recovery just isn't there ) & hoping to increase break if I can cut silage ( as someone put above I'm afraid to cut until there's rain in the forcast:scratchhead: ).
Big difference in grazing land that had dirty water spread on it end of March , think the water more than the nutrients made a difference :)
dirty water will make it grow
on cutting away land now and take a chance, right or wrong who knows
someone told me we are in for a dry June
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Noticed that grass is starting to head on the rotation. Will be interesting to see what growth is when I do my round on Friday. Was 70kgdm day last week.
Weighed the steers last week and they have done 1kg/day since the start of April that’s including TB testing and turnout so real gain from grass will be higher than that. Silaging the end of the week so will use the edges of the neighbouring silage fields to extend out the rotation by a few days to up over 30. But may spin them around quicker again depending on how much seed head I see on Friday. Will also put a bit of fert on to tell the grass life isn’t so hard after all. So far though Nexit seems to be going ok
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
So here's a question for you lot.

Would you consider compost, litter? Or residue if that's the word you use.

Backstory:
I know a lady struggling with dandelion issues in a pasture. I showed her my recent photos where my chicken litter layer seems to have drastically cut down on dandy's. Her response is she doesn't have bare patches really, the dark spots in her pictures are where the compost is as they spread a layer of that.

My thinking is that, while a layer of compost can have similar qualities to a layer of litter - helping retain some moisture, build up OM, etc, It's not really a layer of litter. True compost is a suitable growing medium to host plant growth where a thin layer of mulchy litter isn't really. A bare patch of compost would be no different to a plant looking for a place to grow than a bare patch of soil.
I'd agree.
Litter seems to rapidly form compost, but it isn't until it at least begins to decompose, IMO
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
@ kiwipete how many tons/dm/ha would you grow?
Varies a lot depending on season.
Between 9 and 13, I would say it varies that much?
They suggest the district av is 10.5TDM, but it is so seasonally dependent that I'd only be guessing, really.

If our cover gets down then we can grow SFA for a looong period of time - my neighbour did a Farmbase assessment (down the throat calculation based on production) same as I and our results were like chalk and cheese, for the same season.

It led him to 'lose' a lot of cows, and it led me to aim for a much higher spring stocking rate
 
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Tyedyetom

Member
Livestock Farmer
We need 13tn to feed so would be more like perhaps15tn grown with around 200kg nitrogen ha. From the cows, digestate form and AD plant and urea. With rent and borrowings to repay we’re reluctant to reduce these inputs just yet as that would mean fewer cows.
I went on a course a couple weeks ago on using fermented cow sh!t as a mineral fertiliser, taught by a Columbian chap Jairo Restrepo. Anyone come across him?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
How much rain would you have in a year? If that wasn’t limiting would you be able to grow more and more each year?
Between 650 and 1150mm here. Average 900-940 (depending where you look).
I don't measure my growth, but enter in what we produce and they calculate it back from there, which also suggests our nitrogen figures.

Yeah, moisture is limiting within a day or two of the last rain, it's now so dry at depth and many places just don't have the infiltration, they have runoff or the wind whips it away.

Hence the big change of management here....
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Why is it so dry at depth now? Farming practices or less rainfall. Has your farm always been down to grass?
Less rainfall, and warmer summers.

This one would have set records if it wasn't for last year, so we only set a new March record.
It does come in cycles, as it was reasonably similar in pattern to the 80's - either wet as a drowned shag or very very long intervals between summer rains.

I actually can't remember the last year we had "average" monthly rainfall over summer.
Last winter was dry as well, so in similar fashion to many on here, we only really grew much in the early spring and then it tailed off - a good time to learn about being flexible with how many stock we carry and when.
This place has been grass for about 120 years, scrub and tussock before that.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's really odd driving a heavy fert truck about at the moment - places that would normally be far too wet are still really firm.

When she lets go that's it - I tried to climb a bit today that was a bit keen and she wouldn't - but the tyres dug down to dry stuff about 4cm below the surface (before I shot backwards down the slope)

It's really strange, almost as if the subsoil on some places has become "unwettable" and this spot was a dark/backlying piece of land as well. Here's hoping winter is mild but wet
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Moved onto a steep bank yesterday Got them to stay on it all night without breaking out to find a flat spot to lay down on
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Last pizza slice move to top of bank this morning. Will move them all out this evening back onto the golf course
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Approx 6 acres lasted 19 days for about 16 cattle and 8 calves on average as was swapping a few in and out for calving.
It’s my first round was heavy crop So that’s 0.12 hectares per day for the above stock. How’s that compare to others on here out of interest.
 

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well my 50 odd ewes and 50 lambs are on somewhere between 0.4-0.6 of an acre and im racing them atm to try and stay ahead of the heading grass...i dont think ill hit all our fields but im trying
im coming up to the end of my first round after then - so 2 weeks time i guess..then 2nd round ill start pushing them tighter - maybe multi day moves in the eiser to set up fields.

we had a pretty sh!t lambing though as we bought in 20 new ewes .. which had toxo.. and about 1/2 died.. so im hoping for a better year...so much for getting back up past 100 ewes this year - im introducing slowly so that theres enough time for the ewes to sort pecking order and not too many that would mean that the old ones are outnumbered.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Moved onto a steep bank yesterday Got them to stay on it all night without breaking out to find a flat spot to lay down on
View attachment 802204 View attachment 802206
Last pizza slice move to top of bank this morning. Will move them all out this evening back onto the golf course
View attachment 802208

Approx 6 acres lasted 19 days for about 16 cattle and 8 calves on average as was swapping a few in and out for calving.
It’s my first round was heavy crop So that’s 0.12 hectares per day for the above stock. How’s that compare to others on here out of interest.
We're running 29 Simmental & South Devon sucklers (600kg or so) plus 24 young calves, 7 bulling heifers and the bull on cells of 0.3Ha. If the forage was longer I could tighten them up a bit. Dropped to daily moves on 0.3 Ha now as growth seems to have slowed with lack of rain from the twice daily moves on 0.2Ha we started at.

I'm still a novice though and have a long way to go.
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
We're running 29 Simmental & South Devon sucklers (600kg or so) plus 24 young calves, 7 bulling heifers and the bull on cells of 0.3Ha. If the forage was longer I could tighten them up a bit. Dropped to daily moves on 0.3 Ha now as growth seems to have slowed with lack of rain from the twice daily moves on 0.2Ha we started at.

I'm still a novice though and have a long way to go.


So your going to be eating down tighter leaving less cover but giving a little extra recovery am I seeing that as right?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
So your going to be eating down tighter leaving less cover but giving a little extra recovery am I seeing that as right?
In theory, yes, but I could be utterly wrong. We have 2 days left of our first round so the covers are longer just now but in 3 days we'll be on shorter stuff.

Oh, and only 30% of the land has had any fertiliser this year. The remainder grew ok without it so I'm taking the plunge.

Our grazing chart is being updated regularly as things change :whistle::rolleyes:

Like I said, a novice ;):D
 
yeah this years grazing chart is now very much off plan - basically all the time lengths that id guestimated were all too long as they were based off me taking them too tight too early .. im sure itll work out - but makes planned events somewhat tricky but itll get fudged somehow..

Question for anyone thats done weed control with the mobs - ive got heavy nettles round trees - and rather than scythe/strim and let them eat them like i did last year im thinking of short (1-2hr)b trample - but whats the best way of getting them from their previous paddock into one that clearly is tiny and not as inviting as the grass 3 ft away.???
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

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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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