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

[holwellcourtfarm]

Anyone else see these photos this week on FB?

Would this count as "improving our lot" if one animal could create more animal impact.....

 

[awkward]

Anyone else see these photos this week on FB?

Would this count as "improving our lot" of one animal could create more animal impact.....

View attachment 867516


View attachment 867517

It will be interesting to see if it develops foot problems and what kind of trimming it will need

 

[hendrebc]

If it was born in the real world in the wild and not on a farm it would have been picked off by a wolf or a lion not long after it was born.

 

[Crofter64]

Old git status : achieved ?

It happens to all of us. Some sooner than later!

 

[hendrebc]

Anyone else noticed the advert at the top of the screen today that says something like
"grassland solutions from fendt"
they probably mean their new range of silage machinery but it did make me laugh.

 

[Henarar]

If it was born in the real world in the wild and not on a farm it would have been picked off by a wolf or a lion not long after it was born.

Why do you say that ?

 

[hendrebc]

Why do you say that ?

How is driving something that says fendt on it going to make your grass grow better

 

[Henarar]

How is driving something that says fendt on it going to make your grass grow better

I thought you were on about the calf

 

[Sheila Cooke]

It was a pleasure to speak at the Graze event put on by Farmers Weekly. Here is an article about it.

What is holistic grazing and what are the benefits? - Farmers Weekly

Mimicking the natural behaviour of herds and wildlife and the way they graze land could help farmers increase their grass productivity by up to 300%

www.fwi.co.uk

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Wow, I think they are about €220 here.
When all this Covidinitus is over I might email the place in the north island and see what their best price is, send a heap of them to @holwellcourtfarm to distribute?

 

[Rob Garrett]

So much for taking "a photo each week to show progress" View attachment 865414
A fair bit of the area doesn't look a patch on this, a combination of poor fertility, lack of groundcover, slugs and ducks etc.

On the plus side, there is plenty of diversity. We (boys, Sarah and I) went for a wander yesterday and played a game of "find something new".
We discovered there's about 60 species present in the area, from "weeds" to "covercrop", so that's massive

12 Aprils Dairy Grazing Tom Trantham

What do you think @Kiwi Pete ?
Good idea if you have shares in the local seed company!
Thinking of establishment on your overseeding trial, instead of your chemical top then hard graze system, this lad tops with bushhogg then tops again in five days. Do you think mechanical topping stresses the old sward more than grazing? Giving new seed more time to get away. Feels better to use sheep not HP, but if the end result works! Also liked @holwellcourtfarm idea of shallow power harrow after hard graze to knock grass back.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

12 Aprils Dairy Grazing Tom Trantham

What do you think @Kiwi Pete ?
Good idea if you have shares in the local seed company!
Thinking of establishment on your overseeding trial, instead of your chemical top then hard graze system, this lad tops with bushhogg then tops again in five days. Do you think mechanical topping stresses the old sward more than grazing? Giving new seed more time to get away. Feels better to use sheep not HP, but if the end result works! Also liked @holwellcourtfarm idea of shallow power harrow after hard graze to knock grass back.

It just seems like a lot of running around to me.
But I'm biased because I have old grass working well and probably couldn't grow 4-5 successful annual crops here, without experiencing a few complete failures.

You really have to work to make permanent old grass fail to grow feed for a quarter of a growing season, whereas much of the success of sowing annuals is "out of my control"

Interesting nonetheless

And yes, definitely more stress with mechanical "overgrazing" I should say.
An animal only bites off the right amount of each plant unless you make them graze it again and again.
A mower just takes it off at "this height" which means more plants are taken too low, and I won't even comment on the rotavator

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

You really have to work to make permanent old grass fail to grow feed for a quarter of a growing season

Really? I could show you a few that manage it

 

[Kiwi Pete]

But that's the thing, actually setting your system up to ensure that nowhere on your landscape has a living root 365.25 days per annum is not a totally regenerative system, even if you have "good looking" crops in the gaps between death and destruction. Or at least the energy cycle isn't, but the guy made no claim to be regenerative either

 

[Guleesh]

I wonder if digestive disturbances whilst shifting to different crops would have any negative effect?

 

[bumkin]

n my old farm the field out the back of the cow sheds was the night pasture it had not been ploughed in living memory ,i was advised by adas to reseed it as they said it was unproductive,one year because we were building into the field i decided to mow it for round bale silage i caled up the adas advisor and told him to have a look it produced far more than the modern leys, and it was wonderful stuff the cows could not get enough of it

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Not much wrong with crusty old grass @bumkin

Took my little truck home this afternoon and spun on some mineral mix with a dribble of SOA to help it spread

About 25kg/ha of minerals; mostly moly, copper, cobalt, selenium, zinc and boron with some extra sulphur. About 18 units of S/ha total - I would have gone for pure S, IF we were able to get rid of the cattle on hand.
But we cannot, so a wee tickle of AS is the answer I came up with. Rain due this week.

 

[bumkin]

as a died in the wool peasant i must say i took great pride in my old pastures the root mass was quite something if there was anything to be drawn from the soil that could do it , when i sold up to move on to bigger things i was chuffed when the older farmers walking the fields praised the condition of the sward with comments like you can almost see the milk in it its funny but most of my age group were brainwashed into thinking that modern reseeds were the way to go, but it takes years to get a bottom in a lay,the modern grass grows tall and kills the bottom. dont get me wrong i have plenty of reseeds as a part of an arable rotation but for volume of grass you cant beat an old pasture also they contain many herbs that are rich in minerals

 

[onesiedale]

... most of my age group were brainwashed into thinking that modern reseeds were the way to go. . .

Whilst you say "most of your/our age group" I tend to agree. However, it's our age group that can stand back and see the errors we have made and have the confidence to hopefully start and correct things.
The difficulty is in persuading the next generation not to make the same mistakes as us. Somehow they seem determined to be focused on production and short term gains because that's what 'all the best farmers do'
This paradigm shift is a massive thing to get moving when no-one else for miles around seems to be asking the big questions

 

[Henarar]

We need better efficiency
Efficient at what I don't know
But we need efficiency