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

[Karliboy]

i think a lot of my trouble with docks is that most of my land is steepish to steep so whenever its anything more than damp the cattle slide the top layer as such with there feet leaving bare soil/poaching which with existing seed bank in the soil will give perfect conditions for them to regenerate

 

[som farmer]

That's what I was thinking.
In fact that's what i'm always thinking...

sheep did a wonderful job, nibbled off all the blue tips of grass, they came out 26 feb ish, and it's grown like stink since, till the cold weather, they had some grazing grass before that, and that's now being grazed. Just need some nice warm rain now, the last 3 weeks, just been to cold and dry. It does, however, look as though our 'new' grass system is looking good, get a decent growing summer, we wont know where to put it all ! And that, would make a very welcome change. Over the last 3 years, we have reseeded, or over seeded, all our main grass fields, bar 4 acres, some twice, that is not good, but what is now down, contains more drought resistant varieties, now herbs, and non ryegrasses as well, it's going to be an interesting time, hoping/watching the result. 147 acres of grass, 1x 6ac field ploughed behind kale, and reseeded this spring, and 1x 7 ac ploughed, and reseeded last spring, the rest tined, or over seeded. 16 ac, behind kale, ploughed and drilled spr barley, the h/rye and vetch, tined and drilled, not sure what we will do, before the maize, depending how much sh1t goes on ! So l think we have tried the 'non inversion' tilling, enough to give a good result !

 

[som farmer]

i think a lot of my trouble with docks is that most of my land is steepish to steep so whenever its anything more than damp the cattle slide the top layer as such with there feet leaving bare soil/poaching which with existing seed bank in the soil will give perfect conditions for them to regenerate

use the modern management tool, spray it, if the docks are really bad, use it as a 're-set', and hope you can control them after, by other methods. We are strip grazing dry cows, tight, with a back fence now, they are eating the docks right down tight, but, ungrateful things, they are leaving the boar thistles !

 

[ShooTa]

ive noticed a distinct drop on docks - both via grazing and the inbuilt rest of planned grazing - plus the higher densities lead the animals to eat them off - so certain reduction in 3 years.

 

[Fenwick]

So in a couple of fields I have quite a heavy dock infestation
What are people’s opinions on how to reduce this easily. Is it possible via grazing

i think a lot of my trouble with docks is that most of my land is steepish to steep so whenever its anything more than damp the cattle slide the top layer as such with there feet leaving bare soil/poaching which with existing seed bank in the soil will give perfect conditions for them to regenerate

Pull the cattle in tight during some dry weather when the won't pugg it. It works well here. We have very few docks on the farm, I'd say less than the neighbors. We have never sprayed or cut or dug out or whatever. Docks are suprisingly uncompetitive in grassland. - Give them some bareground though and boom!

As a side note we even let them go to seed. (My cattle will eat the leaves but not the seed heads).

 

[som farmer]

old chap we know, never has sprayed for docks, hasn't got a problem, he has a population of 'beetles, or insects' that strip the leaves very efficiently. Some research, by agrominist, gave me the name, and there was some effort made, to replicate them on a field scale, that didn't come to anything.
Frost here again this morning, never quite seen it like this before, there is a clear line across our lawn, frost/clear, about 1/2 way up ! There is a stream at the bottom of the garden, dad said years ago, he visited the farm upstream, in summer, no water flowing, but the farmer had his churns of milk, in the bed, asked why, it keeps them cool, dad said, he went down, and there was a lovely cool breeze, on a hot summers day. Just wonder if that's the same with our frost line.
Easy day today, over 100 entries onto BCMS yesterday, plus the lot onto our computer programme, with all their details, which were rather 'muddled' with the 60+ new cows, just a heap of p/ports, and no info! A 14 hour marathon.
ending with a bad headache.

 

[Whitewalker]

old chap we know, never has sprayed for docks, hasn't got a problem, he has a population of 'beetles, or insects' that strip the leaves very efficiently. Some research, by agrominist, gave me the name, and there was some effort made, to replicate them on a field scale, that didn't come to anything.
Frost here again this morning, never quite seen it like this before, there is a clear line across our lawn, frost/clear, about 1/2 way up ! There is a stream at the bottom of the garden, dad said years ago, he visited the farm upstream, in summer, no water flowing, but the farmer had his churns of milk, in the bed, asked why, it keeps them cool, dad said, he went down, and there was a lovely cool breeze, on a hot summers day. Just wonder if that's the same with our frost line.
Easy day today, over 100 entries onto BCMS yesterday, plus the lot onto our computer programme, with all their details, which were rather 'muddled' with the 60+ new cows, just a heap of p/ports, and no info! A 14 hour marathon.
ending with a bad headache.

We get those beetles now and again but not consistently........yet , here’s hoping

 

[Henarar]

We get those beetles now and again but not consistently........yet , here’s hoping

We have them on an away block of land, they do a better job some years than others

 

[Karliboy]

Yeah we get them beetles here too but they don’t really seem to attack the plant leaves until it’s quite mature and producing seed.
(I didn’t see nowhere near as many last year though as previous years but I’m putting this down to cattle eating the plant at a younger stage)

 

[Whitewalker]

We have them on an away block of land, they do a better job some years than others

We have historical compaction , overgrazing and heavy fertiliser use and a good seed bank of docks . Top dressing fertiliser I’m sure gives them a leg up , we are reducing our fertiliser and covers are thickening up so hope they reduce in time alongside more aeration and worms

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Had a bit of a play at plumbing

 

[Karliboy]

Is it emergency plumbing so late a night

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Is it emergency plumbing so late a night

Just been out seeing what leaks and getting the air out of the ends of the lines - if we didn't have much water flow before, boy do we have it now

Really pleased I went for a 40mm main instead of a 32

 

[som farmer]

most of ours is 32mm, instead of biting the bullet, we have done 'bits', but we should have gone 50mm, it's 'ok'ish, pressure drops if 2 things drawing at the same time, penny pinching hardly ever pays !
Useful looking 't' coupling, haven't seen them before, l thought slip connections were fantastic, those look easier.

 

[som farmer]

Cut some grass today, 1 piece sown last spring, prg and r clover, the other last autumn, prg r clover and chickory, both bits well ahead of the rest of cutting ground, and both cut only leys. We were shocked by the amount there, close to double expectations, the big difference ? both leys are 'thicker' in the bottom, now l cannot claim this is all down to our 'new' grass regime, all l can say, it definitely hasn't been detrimental. We do try hard to get new leys in properly, and been focused on 'drought' resistant mixes, the one sown last spring, was slow all summer, and went nuts when it rained, the other, hasn't been 'challenged' yet, both tine worked, and drilled. Does not ploughing give that much difference ? l could understand the soil fauna would increase, and help the soil stay damper. Seeing as 1 piece was grazed by sheep till late feb, pretty astonishing. All l can add, long may it continue !

 

[Kiwi Pete]

most of ours is 32mm, instead of biting the bullet, we have done 'bits', but we should have gone 50mm, it's 'ok'ish, pressure drops if 2 things drawing at the same time, penny pinching hardly ever pays !
Useful looking 't' coupling, haven't seen them before, l thought slip connections were fantastic, those look easier.

Two schools of thought on tees vs tapping saddles.
I have never used the saddles before but they are simply great bits of kit - adjust it to where you want it, then drill the pipe and screw the fitting in and you're done.
Not that these are buried deep, but you can get the pipe going in square as opposed to cutting the main and then trying to gauge how much to remove to allow for the tee, which can be tricky on larger diameter pipe, buried deep!

As you can probably tell, I just peeled the turf back and then excavated by hand (answers to Jack Russell).

 

[Kiwi Pete]

But even this guy is amazed with the result of the "little bit more" approach

@som farmer when you use those tapping saddles, the compression fitting off the shelf (for our 25mm example) is actually a reducer, ie to take a 25mm od pipe it would be a 20mm thread - so we ordered in the 25 x 25 ones from the philmac distributors to avoid the restriction, and having to put adaptors on each one (more cost).

Seems to have paid off because we have good enough flow down the back to have mild water-hammer as the micro switches on and off and even our highest point has enough flow, with only 4 metres of head and 633 metres of 25mm to go through. I'm feeling pretty happy because I wasn't sure how well it would flow up there in the top corner.

Insultube has finally landed, so I can get to work fencing over the weekend and put the arrows and other 65 micros into the lines where they need to be, just a matter of snipping the pipe with a tubing cutter and putting them in the lines.

 

[Samcowman]

Also never seen those fittings before. So do you just drill the hole and fit the saddle over it?
I see how it could be more secure than a normal T fitting underground.

 

[onesiedale]

View attachment 954564View attachment 954565
Had a bit of a play at plumbing

What make are those fittings?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Philmac I just use philmac for md and Hansen for ld piping. And some Anka stuff on ldpe as well.