That's amazing, well knocked down. How long was she there for?Pete you wanted to see photos of our latest trampled spots? Well since I only have the horse here and she’s usually doing her lawn mowing around bins job, I don’t have much getting trampled. But she did a good job on the little section at the gate and barn!
View attachment 825252
She obviously has no interest in my second tallest patch of pigweed though
View attachment 825254
Its a good job you kiwis don't have hills thenI agree, it usually costs us but, who cares?
It won't ever be worth less than what I paid for it, even at scrap value.
It's had a new starter fitted, and the dynamo has been rebuilt, new clutch plate - £850
Still got no brakes to speak of.. but the loader works
you put silage on logs lying randomly on the ground?
Yep! "Any port in a storm"
It is exasperating that so many soil experts have no idea of what good soil should look like and how it can behave, with all the potential benefits to mankind thrown in.From Farmers Weekly New Zealand:
The Interim Climate Change Committee recently ruled out using soil to store carbon on farms because the science doesn’t support it. But, as Colin Williscroft discovered, research is under way to see how that might change in the future.
At least 60% of New Zealand’s high-producing grasslands – those on less than a 20-degree slope – have some potential to store carbon and help cut greenhouse gas emissions, research shows.
Plant and Food Research science group leader Dr Mike Beare, who is working on Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre-funded soil carbon programme, said increasing the amount of carbon stored in soils could reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and partially offset the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
There have been a number of different strands of work over the past four or five years looking at how that might be achieved.
“Developing soil management practices that lead to increases in soil carbon stocks depends on identifying soils that have the capacity to store more carbon,” Beare said.
“In general, soils with a high clay content and a high mineral surface area have the greatest capacity to store carbon.
“Our recent research found that soils with a high mineral surface area are better able to protect new plant carbon inputs from decomposition, which helps to explain why these soils have a greater potential to stabilise carbon.”
Though about 60% of high-producing grasslands have some potential to store more carbon in the topsoil many of those are near carbon saturation point.
The greater potential for carbon storage is in the subsoils, those deeper than 15cm, which have a considerably lower carbon concentration so researchers have used the same method used to predict topsoil carbon storage to make similar predictions for subsoil.
It’s hoped those soils might be able store much more carbon if management practices can be developed to expose them to greater carbon inputs.
“These management practices may include the sowing of pasture species with large, deep-penetrating root systems that deposit more carbon deep in the soil profile,” Beare said.
No pasture species with root systems that penetrate deep enough have been identified yet.
Another approach being investigated is the use of full-inversion tillage (FIT) during pasture renewal to bury topsoil carbon and bring low-carbon subsoil to the surface where it can be exposed to high carbon inputs through the growth of new pasture.
That research is being done at five sites – two at Massey University, a commercial farm near Whanganui and two places in the South Island.
Massey agriculture and environment research officer Roberto Calvelo Pereira said while ploughing is usually associated with carbon losses that is because that type of ploughing is done frequently at shallower depths than the approach the research is taking.
Instead of ploughing to a depth of about 15cm the depth is set at 25cm to 30cm. It would also done far less frequently, about once every 20 to 30 years. Any other soil renewal would need to be done without tillage.
The FIT research started in 2017 and at this stage it has funding till 2020.
Earlier this year Massey hosted a field day at its No. 4 dairy farm to share the results from the research and see how a plough is set up for the type of tillage being investigated.
Indications are the practice shows potential to maintain crop and pasture yields while reducing net greenhouse gas emissions from grazed pastures.
However, it’s not a practice that will work in all scenarios and on all soils and one of the reasons for the research is to work out where it could best be applied.
The potential benefits and trade-offs of pasture renewal using FIT are being investigated by scientists here and their peers in Ireland and Germany in a separate research programme supported by the Global Research Alliance for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.
While research into the potential for soil to store carbon is showing promising it is still early days, Beare said.
Work is continuing, including looking at some of the practical implications for farmers and effects on pasture management and grazing.
“There are some important practical implications of this research for increasing soil carbon storage in New Zealand’s pasture soils.
“First, the development of management practices to enhance soil carbon storage should target those soils that have a relatively high mineral surface area.
“Second, they should focus on exposing low-carbon subsoils, 15-30cm deep, to higher inputs of carbon from plants or perhaps manure, particularly where the subsoil carbon concentrations are less than half that of the surface (0-15cm) soils.”
Recommending deep ploughing of pasture to store more carbon! Only a reductionist scientist could come up with that gem
When I get time this week I'll email Matt Mcgrath and push him about it, he's a science correspondent with them. I'll quote David Montgomery and Richard Teague.
Thanks, not often are there really objective and balanced articles on the subject!
Another good one for you to quote to the NZ climate change panel Pete.
