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

[ShooTa]

i keep seeing the term sheep or cattle sick coming up - dad used it a while back - but by the sounds of it the fields need a jolly good rest and some careful management,. thoughts?

 

[onesiedale]

i keep seeing the term sheep or cattle sick coming up - dad used it a while back - but by the sounds of it the fields need a jolly good rest and some careful management,. thoughts?

Like you said. Rest and planned grazing is what's needed

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Some Biochar videos as promised:

This one is long but deals with the dual drum method and talks through the process well:

This one deals with small quantities made in a pit:

And this one deals with larger quantities made in a trench:

 

[JohnGalway]

I dabbled this and last week introducing some new thinking aspects at the local mart. The idea fences hereabout seem stout and tall ?

Not enough chemicals, bad weather, softer stock were mostly to blame. When I speculated these may be human management issues... I see how regen ag can lose one friends ???

 

[JohnGalway]

The start of my paddock system, or at least the tools I need ? The farm has a LOT of rock, be it in the form of tiny not stock proof walled fields or protruding bedrock.

Plan is to drill some stones in the walls, every 3 paces or so. This will save me moving temp electric posts from one side of a wall to the other side just because the stock have moved. It'll also I hope give some protection to what's left of the walls, sheep just love knocking them!

 

[JohnGalway]

i keep seeing the term sheep or cattle sick coming up - dad used it a while back - but by the sounds of it the fields need a jolly good rest and some careful management,. thoughts?

Correct, that phrase popped into my head this week as well. We, I believe, have lost a lot of observed wisdom thanks to easy "technology" originating from chem labs or machinery factories that'll fix all our problems! Whether we know we have them or not ?

"Nothing new under the sun" is another which closely followed that thought. We're relearning.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Maybe, the land is simply sick of being abused by people, for people - via sheep and cattle and cropping?

I know where my number twos go, and it certainly isn't back onto the land (unless caught short) so when you look at what we've become over the past few thousand years, it's small wonder that "our" landscapes are beginning to struggle.

We've established that "fertiliser" is really just the remnant of a redundant wartime explosives industry, but in effect it's simply facilitated a different type of explosion - a bunch of "feed the worlders" and their consumers, and all their parasites as well.
That's a completely seperate 'foodweb' from the one of nature's design.

That's how I believe land becomes sheep sick, it's sick of a crop of lambs being sold off each year and "replaced" via adding acidic phosphates, nitrates, carbonates - but nothing we-ate

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I dabbled this and last week introducing some new thinking aspects at the local mart. The idea fences hereabout seem stout and tall ?

Not enough chemicals, bad weather, softer stock were mostly to blame. When I speculated these may be human management issues... I see how regen ag can lose one friends ???

Regen ag is not only losing friends, but also the 'enemies' are stepping forward.

Quite a number of soil scientists locally are stepping forward to dismiss it, because they either blatantly or inadvertently miss the point that we're changing paradigms, not suppliers.
Folk like Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, and Will's mate Doug Edmeades are very quick to say that this "new fad won't work", and yet you'd hope as "soil scientists" they'd have a grasp of how the 15 miles of AMF in a handful of soil can source better nutrients than the crap they sell.

So, they don't even mention it!

 

[Farmer Roy]

Nicole Masters

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Regen ag is not only losing friends, but also the 'enemies' are stepping forward.

Quite a number of soil scientists locally are stepping forward to dismiss it, because they either blatantly or inadvertently miss the point that we're changing paradigms, not suppliers.
Folk like Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, and Will's mate Doug Edmeades are very quick to say that this "new fad won't work", and yet you'd hope as "soil scientists" they'd have a grasp of how the 15 miles of AMF in a handful of soil can source better nutrients than the crap they sell.

So, they don't even mention it!

How do they respond when questions are asked about soil biology function, improving water cycle efficiency or improving species diversity?

It's hard to get people to understand regenerative principles when their money is earnt from the opposite!

 

[Treg]

Regen ag is not only losing friends, but also the 'enemies' are stepping forward.

Quite a number of soil scientists locally are stepping forward to dismiss it, because they either blatantly or inadvertently miss the point that we're changing paradigms, not suppliers.
Folk like Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, and Will's mate Doug Edmeades are very quick to say that this "new fad won't work", and yet you'd hope as "soil scientists" they'd have a grasp of how the 15 miles of AMF in a handful of soil can source better nutrients than the crap they sell.

So, they don't even mention it!

There's bound to be a lot of "enemies " as it just doesn't make money for the Big multi nationals it keeps money in farmers pockets where their more likely to spend it locally.
That can't be allowed to happen so there will be well budgeted scientists who will come up with lots of evidence that looking after the soil is wrong & by giving XYZ is far better even though XYZ will kill everything in the soil, it will feed us cheaply for a few years, until there is no soil.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

There's bound to be a lot of "enemies " as it just doesn't make money for the Big multi nationals it keeps money in farmers pockets where their more likely to spend it locally.
That can't be allowed to happen so there will be well budgeted scientists who will come up with lots of evidence that looking after the soil is wrong & by giving XYZ is far better even though XYZ will kill everything in the soil, it will feed us cheaply for a few years, until there is no soil.

Sadly true.

I'm willing to bet there is very little funding available for genuine research to better understand regenerative agriculture but plenty on offer from all quarters to conduct reductionist Ag science that leads to a "product".

Perhaps regenerative research should be crowdfunded? Ask the end beneficial recipients to fund it directly rather than via companies who sell them stuff.

 

[Farmer Roy]

I suppose most here will have seen that link I posted, an article from a couple of “agricultural consultants” debunking “fads” & warning against following crazes

 

[Farmer Roy]

Why farmers should avoid magic and opt for science

Comment: Too much attention is placed on fads say agribusiness consultants, Phil Holmes and Ian McLean.

www.farmonline.com.au

interestingly, a lot of people came out & complained about this article

 

[Poorbuthappy]

I believe @Agrispeed has experienced the scepticism of scientists, despite the results measured with what he's doing.

 

[Treg]

Why farmers should avoid magic and opt for science

Comment: Too much attention is placed on fads say agribusiness consultants, Phil Holmes and Ian McLean.

www.farmonline.com.au

interestingly, a lot of people came out & complained about this article

Science is like history it's always changing.
Proven science 20 yrs ago is now mostly laughed at.
One scientist will prove another wrong .
They mention engineering, how often do we hear about the most advanced engine or plane for it to be outdated in a few years .
Lots of work done 50-60 yrs ago with electric vehicles, my dad had a electric milk float in the 70s & in a short period it became old fashioned because of modern efficient engines. Dare I mention diesel engines we were all encouraged to buy them because they were better for the environment & 10 yrs latter their the devils engine.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yeah. Soil needs bugger all except the correct management and the correct weather for what grows there
Sadly in many cases, people assume that's trees, when trees aren't a part of that biome they thus change the soil
Ditto grass
Ditto crops

The thing is that tillage/ -icide use favours a bacterial soil, as do popular modern species, but bacterial soils are far less efficient
As plants progress into later successional species, they encourage a biome that has more fungi and thus the foodweb requires far less nitrogen and other elemental inputs to be productive and healthy ecosystems
I think that's conned many out of ensuring more diversity, ie a deeper cropping rotation, or mixing stock and grazing

Recipe and repitition are not nature's way, chaos is, albeit a beautiful cocktail

Just been giving the heifers a play on the long-acre again and watching the sun go down, it's easy to have plenty if you don't withdraw too much

Quite surprising what lurks in the long-acre

Even some good old Montgomery Red in there

Nature seems to ensure there's always just enough N in the system

 

[CornishTone]

We had a talk by Dr Jenni Dungait a while back. She’s one of the top soil scientists in the country and edits The European Journal of Soil Science. She is very pro regen Ag but see’s the threats similarly to you. She also adds the organic certification bodies to the list of threats though, as they try to hi jack it to further their own cause because “you can only be regenerative if you’ve registered with the Soil Association” (and paid their fees and submitted to their inspections and “standards”).

I think you can also add zealotry to the list of risks. Just go on some of the regen Facebook groups and read some of the cringeworthy posts where they get up on their high horse and belittle, patronise and abuse anyone who doesn’t agree with their point of view. The danger is they put off the very people that can benefit the most from the concept.

 

[Henarar]

Maybe, the land is simply sick of being abused by people, for people - via sheep and cattle and cropping?

I know where my number twos go, and it certainly isn't back onto the land (unless caught short) so when you look at what we've become over the past few thousand years, it's small wonder that "our" landscapes are beginning to struggle.

We've established that "fertiliser" is really just the remnant of a redundant wartime explosives industry, but in effect it's simply facilitated a different type of explosion - a bunch of "feed the worlders" and their consumers, and all their parasites as well.
That's a completely seperate 'foodweb' from the one of nature's design.

That's how I believe land becomes sheep sick, it's sick of a crop of lambs being sold off each year and "replaced" via adding acidic phosphates, nitrates, carbonates - but nothing we-ate

It all comes back to to many people but not many seem to want to do anything about that

 

[Jungle Bill]

Will Harris’s latest blog tells of another threat, greenwashing removing the competitive advantage of genuinely regenerative food. http://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/greenwashing-is-destroying-regenerative.
The accreditation schemes are losing credibility in their desire to work with the multinationals and the only real way of guaranteeing you are buying genuinely good food is a direct relationship with the grower.