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

[DrWazzock]

And that's great to see, not only the books but the slow dawning on... people.. that "we" have been persuing something unsustainable for a long time.

I really like @DrWazzock and the way he says things - he once commented that conventional ag is "a busted flush" and I think that applies to the whole food model in western countries. I've also learned from one of his comments a while back that I'm a rancher, not so much a farmer, and that really helped me find a lot of more relevant information on the net.

One thing that's really rubbed off over the last few months with you guys is that the "taught HM" uses really great language, and by changing the language we change the thought processes - if you want to make BIG changes, change the way you SEE things, has been really apt.

I more learned via osmosis, as you'll know - a "but what if it doesn't" type of farming, "old-fashioned farming"..

If you can glean something useful from my ramblings then that's something @Kiwi Pete .Still learning here but I think our approach has become more holistic over the last 5 years. We have gone from all arable and just combinable crops to 50% grass and reintroduced sheep sometime ago, cattle more recently. We have halved our ammonium nitrate usage as clover is now our nitrogen source on half the farm. Since doing our own agronomy we don't reach for the chemicals everytime there is a perceived problem and gradually pest/predators seem to be rebalancing.

Happy to report that in the year to March 18 we made the highest profit we have made for 10 years yet turnover is 30% down. With the old system, ( the busted flush) we were spending a lot and working hard and we had a big gross income but a low profit due to high costs. We were buying output, not generating it.

We "recycle" a lot more of the arable byproducts such as straw and beet tops through the livestock and have a much more varied rotation which reduces the establishment of difficult weeds such as brome and black-grass. Field getting bad for brome? No problem. Direct drill stubble turnips, graze it over winter and then direct drill barley late in the spring sorts it out, whereas before would have ploughed and / or thrown chemical at it, less and less successfully.

We sometimes grow Lupins for a protein source helping reduce reliance on imported soya and also providing us with another nitrogen fixing break crop.

Also pays to look at local history. There was a reason this farm had a big cattle yard and the land to the west of us was one huge block of grazing common land. It is fragile sandy Heath and best use for it. Trying to make it fit continuous combinable cropping regime was never going to be sustainable yet some folk won't stop pushing that model until they've spent their last penny running organic matter down to nothing and spent all day in a sprayer cab like its some kind of crop life support machine.

Look to history also for livestock shed design. The old system (pre antibiotics) had sheds round a central open yard. The open sides of the sheds faced the yard. The closed sides of the sheds were the outer walls so there was shelter but ventilation and sunlight as the beast could walk out into the open yard. Pneumonia was rarely a problem. Then they started constructing sheds based on industrial portal frame design with no open yard and poor air flow. Respiratory disease became an issue. No surprises there, but then antibiotics became the get around for a problem that need not have been created in the first place, they are overused, resistance builds and so on.

I think ultimately that the further away we get from simply hunting and gathering the indigenous plants and animals, the more we screw the system up big time. Maybe that's a bit extreme but there's something in it.
I can actually live on the feral deer and game here and don't "farm" them at all. They just get on with it, adapted to the ecosystem over centuries. Wouldn't support a very big human population though but that's another topic.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That's just fantastic, really glad that things are working out better simply by your own doing - there seems to be an awful lot of myth entering agriculture, especially here over the last 20 years. It seems absurd, but each to their own.

The only people I'm trying to prove anything to, live in my home with me..

 

[Farmer Roy]

If you can glean something useful from my ramblings then that's something @Kiwi Pete .Still learning here but I think our approach has become more holistic over the last 5 years. We have gone from all arable and just combinable crops to 50% grass and reintroduced sheep sometime ago, cattle more recently. We have halved our ammonium nitrate usage as clover is now our nitrogen source on half the farm. Since doing our own agronomy we don't reach for the chemicals everytime there is a perceived problem and gradually pest/predators seem to be rebalancing.

Happy to report that in the year to March 18 we made the highest profit we have made for 10 years yet turnover is 30% down. With the old system, ( the busted flush) we were spending a lot and working hard and we had a big gross income but a low profit due to high costs. We were buying output, not generating it.

We "recycle" a lot more of the arable byproducts such as straw and beet tops through the livestock and have a much more varied rotation which reduces the establishment of difficult weeds such as brome and black-grass. Field getting bad for brome? No problem. Direct drill stubble turnips, graze it over winter and then direct drill barley late in the spring sorts it out, whereas before would have ploughed and / or thrown chemical at it, less and less successfully.

We sometimes grow Lupins for a protein source helping reduce reliance on imported soya and also providing us with another nitrogen fixing break crop.

Also pays to look at local history. There was a reason this farm had a big cattle yard and the land to the west of us was one huge block of grazing common land. It is fragile sandy Heath and best use for it. Trying to make it fit continuous combinable cropping regime was never going to be sustainable yet some folk won't stop pushing that model until they've spent their last penny running organic matter down to nothing and spent all day in a sprayer cab like its some kind of crop life support machine.

Look to history also for livestock shed design. The old system (pre antibiotics) had sheds round a central open yard. The open sides of the sheds faced the yard. The closed sides of the sheds were the outer walls so there was shelter but ventilation and sunlight as the beast could walk out into the open yard. Pneumonia was rarely a problem. Then they started constructing sheds based on industrial portal frame design with no open yard and poor air flow. Respiratory disease became an issue. No surprises there, but then antibiotics became the get around for a problem that need not have been created in the first place, they are overused, resistance builds and so on.

I think ultimately that the further away we get from simply hunting and gathering the indigenous plants and animals, the more we screw the system up big time. Maybe that's a bit extreme but there's something in it.
I can actually live on the feral deer and game here and don't "farm" them at all. They just get on with it, adapted to the ecosystem over centuries. Wouldn't support a very big human population though but that's another topic.

this is a very good post, thank you

 

[Sharpy]

If you can glean something useful from my ramblings then that's something @Kiwi Pete .Still learning here but I think our approach has become more holistic over the last 5 years. We have gone from all arable and just combinable crops to 50% grass and reintroduced sheep sometime ago, cattle more recently. We have halved our ammonium nitrate usage as clover is now our nitrogen source on half the farm. Since doing our own agronomy we don't reach for the chemicals everytime there is a perceived problem and gradually pest/predators seem to be rebalancing.

Happy to report that in the year to March 18 we made the highest profit we have made for 10 years yet turnover is 30% down. With the old system, ( the busted flush) we were spending a lot and working hard and we had a big gross income but a low profit due to high costs. We were buying output, not generating it.

We "recycle" a lot more of the arable byproducts such as straw and beet tops through the livestock and have a much more varied rotation which reduces the establishment of difficult weeds such as brome and black-grass. Field getting bad for brome? No problem. Direct drill stubble turnips, graze it over winter and then direct drill barley late in the spring sorts it out, whereas before would have ploughed and / or thrown chemical at it, less and less successfully.

We sometimes grow Lupins for a protein source helping reduce reliance on imported soya and also providing us with another nitrogen fixing break crop.

Also pays to look at local history. There was a reason this farm had a big cattle yard and the land to the west of us was one huge block of grazing common land. It is fragile sandy Heath and best use for it. Trying to make it fit continuous combinable cropping regime was never going to be sustainable yet some folk won't stop pushing that model until they've spent their last penny running organic matter down to nothing and spent all day in a sprayer cab like its some kind of crop life support machine.

Look to history also for livestock shed design. The old system (pre antibiotics) had sheds round a central open yard. The open sides of the sheds faced the yard. The closed sides of the sheds were the outer walls so there was shelter but ventilation and sunlight as the beast could walk out into the open yard. Pneumonia was rarely a problem. Then they started constructing sheds based on industrial portal frame design with no open yard and poor air flow. Respiratory disease became an issue. No surprises there, but then antibiotics became the get around for a problem that need not have been created in the first place, they are overused, resistance builds and so on.

I think ultimately that the further away we get from simply hunting and gathering the indigenous plants and animals, the more we screw the system up big time. Maybe that's a bit extreme but there's something in it.
I can actually live on the feral deer and game here and don't "farm" them at all. They just get on with it, adapted to the ecosystem over centuries. Wouldn't support a very big human population though but that's another topic.

Thank you. An interesting and well thought through post as usual.

 

[ShooTa]

i thought i would show a pic of a troublesome pasture - yes the one weve been talking about - aka plough reseed etc.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BssYrahl7Kn/

 

[Kiwi Pete]

i thought i would show a pic of a troublesome pasture - yes the one weve been talking about - aka plough reseed etc.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BssYrahl7Kn/

What's the sulphur level like, in there?

 

[ShooTa]

not a clue - - awaiting responses on the farming connect lady re 80% funding for soil tests - which im likely going to send off to yara IF that lab is open to us here in wales.
were sat on limestone pavement (which is pretty close to the surface in this field)

edit - what makes you think sulphur?

 

[foobar]

I have a field like that - well, that is what it looks like in winter anyway - in summer it's mostly birds foot trefoil, not much grass. Field history summed up by being "over-horsed". Clay/loam/sand on shale, shallow soil, high rainfall. My plan is to harrow the hell out of it in the spring (before the BFT comes up) and over seed with a newman turner type herbal mix and see what happens.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Just the moss factor, to be fair if you've been attacking it with mobs and there is still plenty of moss, it could be sulphur availability.

Where we came from (dairy) we used to give most of the pasture a wee tickle of AS in the spring, and the moss would just burn up and disappear after that. It was a "pretty light rate" but just a bit better, early, than urea for forcing covers up.

Down there was about a similar rainfall to what you have, claggy soils, and you could look out into the southern ocean as you brought in the herd - so saved covers would disappear over winter, not uncommon to "lose" 400kg/ha due to salt burn and frost in a few weeks.

Just a hunch, really, but your tests could throw something up.

 

[ShooTa]

that will be really interesting to see - ive also been looking at pat colbys book and am going to try a mineral sled which will have some sulphur so that may also have a direct impact on it.

 

[Crofter64]

Someone on here commented to me in a discussion about suckler calves that you have only done half the job if you don't finish them, but with the same token you could say that you should be marketing them yourself to the end customer, come to that you should open a restaurant and do the cooking as well

Not a bad idea. I have thought of cooking meals and selling them frozen, just to complete the birth to fork concept. As it is I do birth to freezer.

 

[Henarar]

Not a bad idea. I have thought of cooking meals and selling them frozen, just to complete the birth to fork concept. As it is I do birth to freezer.

it is good to sell lamb/beef that has never been off farm [apart from the abattoir] to the person who is going to eat it
there could well be a market for it cooked but probably not by me

 

[Samcowman]

@Kiwi Pete and other kiwis. Have you seen the stuff about British tourists getting deported from Kiwiland.
They aren’t British they are pikies and be thankful you guys don’t have them.

 

[Farmer Roy]

@Kiwi Pete and other kiwis. Have you seen the stuff about British tourists getting deported from Kiwiland.
They aren’t British they are pikies and be thankful you guys don’t have them.

last report I saw, they ( the family ) were claiming to be English & not Irish gypsies as reported . . .
whatever the case, seeing the pictures of the fat looking feckers, I think the kiwi boys can more than hold their own against them. I don't think the "tourists" realise how lucky they were

 

[Samcowman]

last report I saw, they ( the family ) were claiming to be English & not Irish gypsies as reported . . .

Watched a couple of the news videos. Sound like pikies to me. Listen to the kid be glad you don’t have them round you Roy.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....veller-family-deported-new-zealand-chaos/amp/

 

[Kiwi Pete]

yeah... IMO the best outcome would be to put them in a cargo net and tow them back home behind a container vessel.

 

[Samcowman]

yeah... IMO the best outcome would be to put them in a cargo net and tow them back home behind a container vessel.

Drop them off on the way where they have tough laws and tougher police. Got enough of the barstewards here.

 

[Farmer Roy]

err, I think the kiwi laws worked pretty well to deport them so quickly
seems a shame their UK equivalents appear so helpless . . .


I would have to say, our cops & immigration would have jumped on top of them & kicked them out as well.
sh!t - we even threatened to shoot Johnny Depps dogs & deport him, when he brought them in illegally

 

[RushesToo]

If you can glean something useful from my ramblings then that's something @Kiwi Pete .Still learning here but I think our approach has become more holistic over the last 5 years. We have gone from all arable and just combinable crops to 50% grass and reintroduced sheep sometime ago, cattle more recently. We have halved our ammonium nitrate usage as clover is now our nitrogen source on half the farm. Since doing our own agronomy we don't reach for the chemicals everytime there is a perceived problem and gradually pest/predators seem to be rebalancing.

Happy to report that in the year to March 18 we made the highest profit we have made for 10 years yet turnover is 30% down. With the old system, ( the busted flush) we were spending a lot and working hard and we had a big gross income but a low profit due to high costs. We were buying output, not generating it.

We "recycle" a lot more of the arable byproducts such as straw and beet tops through the livestock and have a much more varied rotation which reduces the establishment of difficult weeds such as brome and black-grass. Field getting bad for brome? No problem. Direct drill stubble turnips, graze it over winter and then direct drill barley late in the spring sorts it out, whereas before would have ploughed and / or thrown chemical at it, less and less successfully.

We sometimes grow Lupins for a protein source helping reduce reliance on imported soya and also providing us with another nitrogen fixing break crop.

Also pays to look at local history. There was a reason this farm had a big cattle yard and the land to the west of us was one huge block of grazing common land. It is fragile sandy Heath and best use for it. Trying to make it fit continuous combinable cropping regime was never going to be sustainable yet some folk won't stop pushing that model until they've spent their last penny running organic matter down to nothing and spent all day in a sprayer cab like its some kind of crop life support machine.

Look to history also for livestock shed design. The old system (pre antibiotics) had sheds round a central open yard. The open sides of the sheds faced the yard. The closed sides of the sheds were the outer walls so there was shelter but ventilation and sunlight as the beast could walk out into the open yard. Pneumonia was rarely a problem. Then they started constructing sheds based on industrial portal frame design with no open yard and poor air flow. Respiratory disease became an issue. No surprises there, but then antibiotics became the get around for a problem that need not have been created in the first place, they are overused, resistance builds and so on.

I think ultimately that the further away we get from simply hunting and gathering the indigenous plants and animals, the more we screw the system up big time. Maybe that's a bit extreme but there's something in it.
I can actually live on the feral deer and game here and don't "farm" them at all. They just get on with it, adapted to the ecosystem over centuries. Wouldn't support a very big human population though but that's another topic.

@DrWazzock You are always such a miserable bugger, glass half full I would not ever have expected this from you. You do realise that it will all go wrong - said from my pint half full view of the World which resembles yours.
Bloody well done sir - and keep complaining, it isn't quite good enough yet.

Can't say how pleased I was to read this.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It's never good enough.

I got heaps of inspiration yesterday, and feel really charged to take things to the next level, sharing experiences with a few others that are doing things better than us has showed that we really need to make some leaps.

First things first, we need to destock, and be regenerative for a while.
Secondly, when we restock, we need less "aggressive" stock, that are more compatible.
And thirdly, we really need to get them bunched up, bulls are fine early in the season, probably the best choice for us, so the new "thing" might be to have bulls for a few months to get the most impact and LWG early, then trade down to some smaller and quieter cattle to graze, then house, then trade in the spring.

That was my new strategy, I ventured it to the group, and got applause

We have been invited to visit a proper techno-grazing property - they have 5000 ewes on daily shifts, and have 70 cattle on 8 hour moves, 6000 x 0.1ha (that's quarter acre) cells.
Time input is about 2 hours per hectare per year or in their context a 24 hour week on 600ha (including all management tasks).

I like the sounds of this