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

[som farmer]

digger in today putting some water pipe underground, in case of a big freeze, 12/15 ins down, the soil is dry, best of all, 8/10 ins of dark brown, the next bit, we are trying to sort a wet patch, and water pipe, years ago we tried to sort this wet patch out, couldn't find a drain there, and left it, wasn't a big problem, this year, the ground is rather wet, and causing an issue with cattle out on kale, usually pretty dry up there, I know why we didn't find a drain, it's a 4ft down stone drain, we didn't go deep enough ! And if we keep going down slope, before it starts to rise, we should find a decent stone gout, to take the water away. The ground has started to dry out before, the amount of water running now, should improve things a lot. Even on that wetter ground, before the 'problem' ground is dry a foot down, and a nice bit of dark brown top. But by draining ground, you are 'altering' the natural topography, so what should we refer to as 'nature'?
just caught the end of a radio programme, saying they expect major farm machinery to run on farm produced methane !

 

[Agrispeed]

Who owns the cows? Do you have a family that moves also or do you have your own house and just rent land and buildings?

I own most of the cows, The farm doesn't have any accommodation, but I don't live far away. It was under a contract farming agreement, but with a rental equivalent. Its possibly a easier way into farming but gives you much less security. In this case I decided that a rent equivalent moving £150/ac with no BPS (so equivalent to £230 if it was rented), full tenant maintenance and being limited to 50 cows on 160 acres, especially with restrictions on management and milk yield makes it a bit too challenging for me.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I own most of the cows, The farm doesn't have any accommodation, but I don't live far away. It was under a contract farming agreement, but with a rental equivalent. Its possibly a easier way into farming but gives you much less security. In this case I decided that a rent equivalent moving £150/ac with no BPS (so equivalent to £230 if it was rented), full tenant maintenance and being limited to 50 cows on 160 acres, especially with restrictions on management and milk yield makes it a bit too challenging for me.

Landlords are entitled to ask for any (legal) conditions they like. Tenants are entitled to tell them to fund another mug to do it!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I own most of the cows, The farm doesn't have any accommodation, but I don't live far away. It was under a contract farming agreement, but with a rental equivalent. Its possibly a easier way into farming but gives you much less security. In this case I decided that a rent equivalent moving £150/ac with no BPS (so equivalent to £230 if it was rented), full tenant maintenance and being limited to 50 cows on 160 acres, especially with restrictions on management and milk yield makes it a bit too challenging for me.

Good for you.
Keep working at your goals, you can't work towards everyone elses unless they align with your own.

Imagine that's easier said than done if you have a decent vision!

 

[Crofter64]

there's no real thing in farming, called hurry. Tongue in cheek, the first thing that caught my eye, was the amount of trials, in 4 yrs, did you leave it long enough ?
But i know where you are coming from, often say, farming is a long term industry, living in a short term world, and that is a problem, i have loads of ideas, but cannot try them all at once. As for l/lords, we have suffered x3 bad years, land on our doorstep, will both give us chance to 'recoup' supplies, and it is close, and long term, we simply need it, bills have to be paid, buying forage is a mugs game, which we have to get out of. Interestingly, 12 months ago, we didn't think we would get a chance of any more land, and in dec, picked up 2 lots, 16acres and 56 acres, and have been asked to ring someone, about another 38, and another 20 is possible, if we decide it is worth it ! All that land is long term grass, and plenty of scope to experiment, and am looking forward to farming it.
So, with all your trials, have you 'found' a winning formula ? I feel in a serious rush, knowing there isn't that many more years to see results, and full of ideas !
All farms are slightly different, and the 'trick' is to find a bespoke solution for your patch, that you find agreeable to you. My 'take' is we have to start somewhere, here it's soil, i have always been aware of soil status, but, in my youth, i thought chemicals would sort the 'weedy' bits out, sh1t kept it healthy, and a regular hole digger, to spot pans, which happen very easily here. Then, are those pans caused by loss of structure, by heavy tractors, or lots of hooves, i don't know the answer, yet. Now, i recognise that many problems are caused by us not understanding soil, so that will be the first step, the next step, finding what grows, and survives the best, thus we have sown different herbs and drought resistant grasses. It's all experimenting !

I gather from your posts that your son farms with you. Is he fully onboard the RA wagon and does he also get excited about experimenting? It sounds like you have changed a lot of your thinking in the last few years- are you leading in these changes or are you thinking them through together?

 

[som farmer]

I gather from your posts that your son farms with you. Is he fully onboard the RA wagon and does he also get excited about experimenting? It sounds like you have changed a lot of your thinking in the last few years- are you leading in these changes or are you thinking them through together?

leading along, but, unusually for many, he runs the show, i cast myself as a fantastic consultant ! If other older farmers realise the rewards, of seeing the next generation, making the correct business decisions, and seeing what they have taught them, come to the fore, many would 'let go' of the reins earlier. But both of us have realised what we have done, is not sustainable, and change had to happen, both of us heading the same way, which is really the only way left, intensification, doesn't work, so we had to look at other ways, trying different crops, and different systems, all makes logical progression. It would be true to say, i have adapted to changes in the mkt, both quickly and radically, have had to, bad accident left me to struggle to farm profitably. It would also be fair to say, once we have made a decision, we do it, him more so than me now !

 

[Kiwi Pete]

 

[ShooTa]

.. sorrynotsorry

how to cut balewrap...might be different to petes//
http://instagr.am/p/CJrQkXuncBw/

 

[hendrebc]

At turnout I'm thinking of doing a quick pass over the silage fields, idea is to tip (just take the top off) the winter growth and leave 2/3 standing/trampled... Am I mad?

This would likely be just as the plants start to push beginning of May with a view to cut late June.

Benefits I think are; application of slurry as the squirt at turnout on fresh grass, trample in the residue and dead grass that grew during winter, bring forward turnout reducing housing costs and act as a stress to induce tillering...?

Drawbacks I can think of; taking energy from the system just as it's starting off so more removed from the root system, if it comes wet I'm gonna have some lumpy mowing ground!

Would then follow this with a ballast roller to take out some pather marks that need doing.

Or shall I just get some set stocked sheep in?

Do it

 

[Kiwi Pete]

.. sorrynotsorry

how to cut balewrap...might be different to petes//
http://instagr.am/p/CJrQkXuncBw/

That'a actually exactly it!
Two perfect discs (thick) for various uses.. and then a lightweight.... um.... sheath for a tree trunk

I like the "thick circle parts" for all sorts of stuff.
Great for crawling under vehicles, or throwing down if you need to mechanic/weld outside... things like bolts and little clips and stuff don't get lost. Welding chip doesn't end up all over the show as it melts into the plastic a bit.
If you mess it up with grease or dirt then it's disposable, so pretty good for working on people (with less ideal grazing management)'s vehicles.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

There's a reason I didn't post this one up years ago.
But it's about one of the best "putting HM into practice" videos you will find anywhere, in my opinion.

 

[Treg]

There's a reason I didn't post this one up years ago.
But it's about one of the best "putting HM into practice" videos you will find anywhere, in my opinion.

That does make more sense to me as I struggle with graze a third, trample a third & leave a third , just can't train the cows to do it ( completely their fault, nothing at all to do with my management ).
BUT... going back to when KP spoke about disruption & @Blaithin spoke about diversity, I don't think the whole farm has to be farmed in the same way .
If I have a field that I feel is losing quality I will quite often do several shorter rest periods & tighter grazing in that field followed by a longer recovery, whereas a field where I know I've over worked I will give longer rest periods and not so tight grazing.
It's all a question of balance.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That does make more sense to me as I struggle with graze a third, trample a third & leave a third , just can't train the cows to do it ( completely their fault, nothing at all to do with my management ).
BUT... going back to when KP spoke about disruption & @Blaithin spoke about diversity, I don't think the whole farm has to be farmed in the same way .
If I have a field that I feel is losing quality I will quite often do several shorter rest periods & tighter grazing in that field followed by a longer recovery, whereas a field where I know I've over worked I will give longer rest periods and not so tight grazing.
It's all a question of balance.

It is.
I think that balance is quite easily struck if you have a bit of a plan going on - and have that experience with density as a tool. Have stock that suit the job.

You can't adjust grazing to benefit 'this bit here' if the stock are parked all over the show, which is probably how the issue began?

I'm pretty happy with the litter here, I don't necessarily believe you need to "waste grass" to have plenty of litter as long as you graze at the right time.

In our context we didn't grow enough grass to graze slowly enough to grow enough grass to slow down... looking at it holistically I could have simply thrown money at the problem (buy the farm off the bank and just rest it) but that goes against our core values to an extent.

We wanted to approach this progression as an example to the children that you actually don't need to be rich to build something up.

You don't need to "rely on your other income to subsidise your hobby" as is often implied in here, you just need to clear all the prejudice out of your top paddock....

eta the poo is so squished-in here because it was pretty wet while they had this break - about 35mm of rain

 

[som farmer]

There's a reason I didn't post this one up years ago.
But it's about one of the best "putting HM into practice" videos you will find anywhere, in my opinion.

interesting points made, especially on grazed grass, and cattle preference, a flippant thought on that, develop grasses with an addictive taste ! it does show why unpopular grasses can become a problem, selective grazing to the 'roots' on some types, whilst ignoring, or just picking off the juicy bits of others, can lead to unwelcome plants taking control.
We can see this in the leys we sow, after x years, the 'good' grass loses out to 'bad' grasses, and then a new reseed ! A different angle to look at our leys from. To go back to selective eating, we grew an all singing high sugar ley, which, in theory should taste sweet, in practice, holstiens hated it, acidosis caused milk to drop, but the verges and hedges, had a free trim, day 3 they cleared a bale of straw, before starting the new wrap of grass, we then conserved the rest, y/s after cutting, kept getting out, interestingly, when we moved more xbred, they 'tolerated' better, Germinal came out to look at it, mumbled about it, and gave us 10 kg clover seed to overseed it with, basically saying dilute it down. That brings us to the 'type' of stock that we have, to the type of pasture available, we run xbred dairy cows now, but were holstiens, xbred graze aggressively, hols, don't really want to graze. He uses gut fill as a measurement of how full a cow is, done that for years, that triangle, tells the story, nice to know we are doing something right. I haven't quite got my brain sorted over residuals, i think what he is saying, that cows will graze right down to the roots, grasses they select, for taste, only trim the others, so the residuals are 'bad' grasses, which would lead to the overall change of grasses in the ley, exactly what happens, at the end of a leys 'lifetime'. All in all, something to ponder over.

 

[Woolless]

Did anyone see the article on technograzing in Farmers Guardian? Slightly different to what some of you are doing , of course but quite interesting. Headlines were building OM faster than set stocking and 37% greater LWG/Ha than set stocked.

 

[Andrew_Ni]

We tried not toppimg and drilling multispecies CC after applying a weak salt&vinegar spray
We tried grazing it at 200,000 to 1200,000kg/ha

Just wondered how effective this spray mix was and also for mob stocking densities such as those, what sort of stock numbere would be needed ?

 

[som farmer]

back on our drainage today, amazing what you can learn, our 4ft deep stone drain, of yesterday, was actually the stone on top of a 6in horseshoe drain, so 5ft deep, and found some more of the same. What we didn't find, was a 'main' drain down through the 'valley', the drains we found, and direction of flow, made no sense whatsoever, digger driver has been 'doing' drains for 45 yrs, and he couldn't work it out. The 'end' seemed to be in a layer of brash, certainly when we let accumulated water down the trench, it soon disappeared into the stone ! The drains we found, connected to both sides of the new pipe. Nether of us had come across a 6in horseshoe drain, plenty of 4in, and very rare to find stone on top of pipe, around here, those drains were probably 200yrs old, dug in by hand, 5ft down. Anyway job done, another 250 m of water pipe in. The best bit, good 10ins of nice dark brown soil, and downward fissures about 3 ft deep, the bottom of the trench was clay, so, all in all an interesting, if cold and muddy, job, it's nice to know the soil is in good shape. Be better if we could have worked out the drainage 'plan', but as long as it works, just another £1,000 gone !

 

[bendigeidfran]

There's a reason I didn't post this one up years ago.
But it's about one of the best "putting HM into practice" videos you will find anywhere, in my opinion.

Thank's for that, very interesting, is this your thinking for changing your grazing?
The main thing i want to know is why haven't you posted this before

 

[Samcowman]

Thanks for posting the Graeme Hand video up @Kiwi Pete. About half way through it and some of the stuff he is saying resonates with things I have noticed the last couple of years.
I think the approach to grazing needs to be diverse as some of you guys have said with if you choose to not shorter rotations where you are aiming for growth, where the animals will be more selective you probably need to follow with rounds of high utilisation to help level the sward and stop your preferentially grazed plants getting worn out.

 

[som farmer]

perhaps our little experiment, on 'old' grass, taking it all right down, strip grazing and back fence, might be better than 1st thought, it's giving all the grass chance to regrow, without having residual weed grasses to compete with. Be interesting to see on the new 'old' pasture, what we can achieve. Presumably, if we stock/graze at the 'right' amount, we should/could alter the grass types, increasing the good ones. If we can, there is a considerable cost saving potential. Going back to our experiment, on the very thin soil, the better grasses are increasing. I can remember being taken to a farm, with pretty well all pp, and seeing how it produced comparable gains to rye grass, i don't think any of us, on our college visit, actually believed that ! We have a problem of our leys being 'thin' in the bottom, despite xdrilling, old pp does not have that problem, ground cover is complete, so is it the grass density in pp, the main reason they can compete with drilled ? Said in an earlier post, this thread is awful, it keeps answering a thought, with another thought !