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

[Kiwi Pete]

Don't you find as you get older you are less inclined to want to kill anything, I swerved for a caterpillar crossing the road the other day, bloody great hairy thing he was

Very definitely!
I used to live for shooting ducks and geese, big tallies, give away what I couldn't handle... but now I am much happier to just bag a dozen and keep them for us, the lad gets a bit restless with waiting so we tend to end up digging out huhu grubs and seeing which taste best....

I think age has a bit to do with all that

But I have never really been much of a killer, life and death serve a purpose after all.
I know many farmers who wouldn't handle doing my slaughterhouse job, but I wouldn't be as good a rancher if I didn't get to evaluate "which breed" on such an intimate basis - you gain a lot of knowledge when you see thousands per week.
You don't get that anywhere else, nor the practice at butchery, which benefits our local meat sales by knowing which animal to pick for the best yield of the cut the customer asks for.

I tend to be looking at my stock more and more like big parcels of meat and microbes, every week....

 

[awkward]

to bring things back to practical practice in my system we have stored slurry. the aim is to follow stock with an application after each grazing. how bad is the effect on soil organisms by this putrified sludge.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It does depend on rates, both the rates of slurry and the rates of microorganisms that are available to process it. If a high nitrogen content, then it causes a rise in denitrifying bacteria, which soon brings balance - but that is true of any soluble N source.

Obviously if the soil is very cool or damp then adding slurry at a light rate will be more beneficial for all than really dumping it on for practical reasons?
(Even though the practical reasons may well outweigh the other factors - ie if you are running out of storage, then that is the real priority....)

Down here it is usually more of a dirty water than a thick slurry, so my holistic plan was to store as much as possible through the spring and apply as much as possible during the summer as a bit of a "sports drink" - I know it is viewed as a big use of water, but as irrigation it is great stuff and that's how it is termed " would you please go move the irrigators? ".

Dry, composted muck would be the opposite really, you would want the living things in there to stay living and so in the middle of summer would be the not-so-good time, unless you have plenty of cover and stored soil moisture to help keep the right living conditions for them, while mitigating the compaction issues of application......

I have heard some great things about biological slurry inoculants/additives to help keep ammonia losses in check, and the folks who use it tend to use it for the very reason above- they aren't in a rush to crack on with it until the soil temp is up.
Then you can achieve the maximum impact with a very valuable resource - there is no point putting it out thick until there is sufficient soil activity to process it, and once you have them, you just keep feeding them, same as mob grazing or anything else that is to feed the soil, I would imagine.

I bet you didn't learn a damn thing from that piffle

 

[Ukjay]

I totally agree with you there @Ukjay
I think you would have to be a few shingles short to think that the problems created by thinking about money will be solved by money; the problems we created by chemical abuse will be solved by more chemicals... and so on.

Put it another way, Adolf Hitler was condemned for simply attempting to treat people the way a farmer operates - first of all create a problem, blame it on someone else, then kill anything that doesn't conform to your ideals - and he was actually 'certifiably' insane.

Yet this is everyday food production, no diversity allowed (unless someone is going to pay me for it)

It is a very broken model, fortunately for us down here we aren't in a mollycoddled bubble and if you break the laws of the land you are soon an ex-farmer.
Like Adolf.

So intervention is already quite limited compared to much of the rest of the world, and yet I still want less of it than my neighbours do. The returns really aren't there to spent my best years bent over sheep or running cattle through a race - so the less I have to mollycoddle them to produce saleable items, the better for me.

The last time I worked out my hourly rate, it was around $180/hour.

Ironically, we are all only here for a short time, many will have children - yet we care so little about the environment we are creating for our childrens future

 

[CornishTone]

I totally agree with you there @Ukjay
I think you would have to be a few shingles short to think that the problems created by thinking about money will be solved by money; the problems we created by chemical abuse will be solved by more chemicals... and so on.

Put it another way, Adolf Hitler was condemned for simply attempting to treat people the way a farmer operates - first of all create a problem, blame it on someone else, then kill anything that doesn't conform to your ideals - and he was actually 'certifiably' insane.

Yet this is everyday food production, no diversity allowed (unless someone is going to pay me for it)

It is a very broken model, fortunately for us down here we aren't in a mollycoddled bubble and if you break the laws of the land you are soon an ex-farmer.
Like Adolf.

So intervention is already quite limited compared to much of the rest of the world, and yet I still want less of it than my neighbours do. The returns really aren't there to spent my best years bent over sheep or running cattle through a race - so the less I have to mollycoddle them to produce saleable items, the better for me.

The last time I worked out my hourly rate, it was around $180/hour.

It was only a matter of time before Godwin’s Law was invoked I suppose.

 

[CornishTone]

It does depend on rates, both the rates of slurry and the rates of microorganisms that are available to process it. If a high nitrogen content, then it causes a rise in denitrifying bacteria, which soon brings balance - but that is true of any soluble N source.

Obviously if the soil is very cool or damp then adding slurry at a light rate will be more beneficial for all than really dumping it on for practical reasons?
(Even though the practical reasons may well outweigh the other factors - ie if you are running out of storage, then that is the real priority....)

Down here it is usually more of a dirty water than a thick slurry, so my holistic plan was to store as much as possible through the spring and apply as much as possible during the summer as a bit of a "sports drink" - I know it is viewed as a big use of water, but as irrigation it is great stuff and that's how it is termed " would you please go move the irrigators? ".

Dry, composted muck would be the opposite really, you would want the living things in there to stay living and so in the middle of summer would be the not-so-good time, unless you have plenty of cover and stored soil moisture to help keep the right living conditions for them, while mitigating the compaction issues of application......

I have heard some great things about biological slurry inoculants/additives to help keep ammonia losses in check, and the folks who use it tend to use it for the very reason above- they aren't in a rush to crack on with it until the soil temp is up.
Then you can achieve the maximum impact with a very valuable resource - there is no point putting it out thick until there is sufficient soil activity to process it, and once you have them, you just keep feeding them, same as mob grazing or anything else that is to feed the soil, I would imagine.

I bet you didn't learn a damn thing from that piffle

Interest in biologicals is growing here, the consequence of which is the snake oil salesmen are popping up. Had a talk from a guy pushing a product which was basically a variety if lactobacillus strains and was being marketed as a fungicide, soil conditioner and cure for mastitis. Sounds all a little too good to be true?!?! There was good logic behind some of it and of course the usual “we tried it on... and we saw great results” anecdotes but a worrying lack of data!

 

[Farmer Roy]

https://australiascience.tv/award-winning-film-spotlights-fungus-that-could-halt-climate-change/

 

[Ukjay]

https://australiascience.tv/award-winning-film-spotlights-fungus-that-could-halt-climate-change/

That is really interesting - even for a newbie like myself.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Interest in biologicals is growing here, the consequence of which is the snake oil salesmen are popping up. Had a talk from a guy pushing a product which was basically a variety if lactobacillus strains and was being marketed as a fungicide, soil conditioner and cure for mastitis. Sounds all a little too good to be true?!?! There was good logic behind some of it and of course the usual “we tried it on... and we saw great results” anecdotes but a worrying lack of data!

The thing is - biology needs that growing root to keep feeding it - this is the main driver of soil foodwebs in most all ecosystems.
Sure, these things do make a difference - much as some probiotic yoghurt makes you feel really well especially if you have been ill.

It doesn't make you feel well if you are dead!!

But, just as we have an appendix full of gut microbes, tucked away in a safe place in case we are ever cleaned out by dysentry - healthy soils usually have plenty of things lurking away waiting for the right conditions to really leap forward and multiply.
Soils can handle a lot of acute stressors but not chronic stressors (eg continued chemical or physical abuse) and probably to these soils these inoculants can make apparent results.

Look at sheep scald, as an example of how things can bloom when the biome is out of balance - by all rights I should have to carry all my sheep to the next feed - but I don't fudge with nature and use chemicals to do my dirty work, so I don't have scalded sheep in long wet grass all year - things aren't "out of whack" although something could soon do it.

Maybe, wormer, or roundup, I know plenty of farms that use these things and have feet issues in their sheep on any length covers.
They definitely have things like clover weevils that I don't - it could be mycorrhizal networks thwarting that attack - I do not know!

So I don't tinker with perfection!

Everything beyond nature is a step backwards IMO.

 

[Farmer Roy]

You would have to be well brainwashed to ignore the evidence.
Agriculture is broken.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05328-1

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05328-1

That is a truly excellent article and I have a high "productivity per hectare" operation.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

That is a truly excellent article and I have a high "productivity per hectare" operation.

Agreed.

"Only if we diagnose our food system honestly, can we heal it."

 

[Kiwi Pete]

"It wants put back up and re-fooked" to use a local farmers' pet phrase

Although our systems are largely for export, not so much domestic, it applies everywhere I can think of.

It also gives me hope as locally we have made some reasonable inroads into not simply adding cost and hope to our operations, and several other problems which are pretty exclusively EU related issues that we don't have to worry about.

But as a whole - the food chain is about as bad as it could be, and still be working.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

"It wants put back up and re-fooked" to use a local farmers' pet phrase

Although our systems are largely for export, not so much domestic, it applies everywhere I can think of.

It also gives me hope as locally we have made some reasonable inroads into not simply adding cost and hope to our operations, and several other problems which are pretty exclusively EU related issues that we don't have to worry about.

But as a whole - the food chain is about as bad as it could be, and still be working.

There's now so much big money involved in "food" production, distribution and marketing, corrupting society at the top, that it will probably only be possible to change things from the bottom up. Today's politicians are so in hock to the big businesses (food retail, oil and energy, food "manufacturing", financial services) that most can't bring themselves to attempt changes that would compromise these "mates".

 

[CornishTone]

Interesting tangent, Mum and Dad have just come back from a cruise around Eastern Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. They did a quick farm visit in Finland and he was chatting to a farmer who said back in the 50’s and 60’s the government encouraged the farmers in the south to sell their stock to the northern farmers who couldn’t grow crops and keep to cropping in the south.

They now just continuously spring crop, plough/power harrow, with no livestock input. Dad was shocked how bad the crops looked. They’ve had a bit of a dry time like much of Europe but it certainly shows the effect of government meddling and the value of keeping livestock in the rotation and the plough in the shed.

 

[Henarar]

Interesting tangent, Mum and Dad have just come back from a cruise around Eastern Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. They did a quick farm visit in Finland and he was chatting to a farmer who said back in the 50’s and 60’s the government encouraged the farmers in the south to sell their stock to the northern farmers who couldn’t grow crops and keep to cropping in the south.

They now just continuously spring crop, plough/power harrow, with no livestock input. Dad was shocked how bad the crops looked. They’ve had a bit of a dry time like much of Europe but it certainly shows the effect of government meddling and the value of keeping livestock in the rotation and the plough in the shed.

most of the time if the gov pee'd off and left us alone then we would be fine

 

[Kiwi Pete]

most of the time if the gov pee'd off and left us alone then we would be fine

Too right you would be - must be a bloody good place to farm, despite the barstewards.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

There's now so much big money involved in "food" production, distribution and marketing, corrupting society at the top, that it will probably only be possible to change things from the bottom up. Today's politicians are so in hock to the big businesses (food retail, oil and energy, food "manufacturing", financial services) that most can't bring themselves to attempt changes that would compromise these "mates".

And then there is the sticky bit - the acknowledgement that they, the government, have got it all very very wrong amd they are very very sorry about all that
They have paid you to work against nature, and now have come to the conclusion that it isn't their fault half the topsoil is in the channel and the roads are worn out

The island landscape is no place for business ideals.

Money won't put it right, lack of money will.

 

[Farmer Roy]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/20...rganic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf191823274=1

 

[Kiwi Pete]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-06-15/red-centre-boasts-certified-organic-beef-country/9861274?smid=Page: ABC Rural-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf191823274=1

It is a journey I have thought long and hard about beginning.
I am still conflicted.
Paperwork and inspections and audits just don't fill me with the same joy that "best practices" do.

Plus, some day the other tools in the box may be warranted needed or useful - and although my woodchip flooring is about as organic as it is possible to be, it isn't certified....

As Will said way earlier on, this is a decision tree.... conflicts are still difficult.
Organic (tm) bedding material, in my area..... I don't actually know how I would do it, and yet I can't look anywhere and not see trees!!

So it is a bit of a non-starter, as you can see.
The rules say my tanalised posts are sort of OK, just don't plant any more, the seaweed that comes out of a polluted ocean is good, but chipped trees as bedding material need to be certified produce of somewhere
Yet somewhere antibiotics are OK?

I struggle.