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

Remember, your tests only likely show you're "slightly short" of available P&K.
(The actual amounts present are massive)

I like the term.you used there, hopefully if you don't have roots that are slightly short then your ability to tap those reserves will be improved, because the easiest way to stall the P cycle is to apply phosphate fertiliser.
And remember that the usual Olsen tests apply to soil pH 7-7.5, ie it's easier on the pocket to ignore that line on the test 😅
Yes, I wasn't planning on lashing any P or K about. I haven't applied any artificial fert for four years and very little at that point. But I was thinking that I should put my hand in my pocket for a bit of lime where indicated?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes, I wasn't planning on lashing any P or K about. I haven't applied any artificial fert for four years and very little at that point. But I was thinking that I should put my hand in my pocket for a bit of lime where indicated?
If you like! It usually doesn't hurt, eventually your soil will be capable of regulating it's own acidity but you can buy time cheap with lime.
I will probably hit our place with some just to keep the Ca trickling in but it's not a pressing concern to me as there's a heap of it waiting to go on in compost form.
If it ever gets dry again, I'm beginning to doubt it! 😅
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
It’s funny I was just thinking about soil testing A few fields again after 2 years of rotations to see how they compare to 2018, mainly because I had a local guy come around to view my setup and see what I was doing as he’s looking into regen agg. He may sign up here as I told him all about this group and how informative/helpful it is.
Anyway We were discussing/wondering if I would/could expect a jump in p and k from this style of grazing by laying lots back down for the soil.
P-k
3-1
1-0

The 1-0 field has done unbelievably well this year compared to last to say what it’s indexes are.
Everything got lime in 2018.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
It can definitely help get things up from the depths; just that extra thought given to plant expression rather than an emphasis on "controlling the growth" means the roots are also living their best life, which increases the amount of connection between plant and soil

Mindfulness is good, it pays to bear in mind that by making our soil ecosystem hum, we can farm more extractively if our system is designed that way?

But, we can also farm more conservatively by keeping our costs down, work on improving our fertility as opposed to working to pay so many bills - if we design our system to be that way instead.

Of course, if some nutrient isn't present then you cannot make it "appear" - but biology often do.

It seems obvious but air is full of nutrients too, if you have air in your soil then you have N and S and CO² and all the other things that air is.
With enough solar power, the biome can source many different elements simply by modifying elements to suit, using the tools (life) at its disposal.
Pretty incredible what can be done, unfortunately "farming stuff" generally means we extract from soil by selling "stuff"
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Heads up that these cheap geared reels are back in stock. At under £11 I figure they got to worth a punt, enabling me to have more moves set up in 1 go.

 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Heads up that these cheap geared reels are back in stock. At under £11 I figure they got to worth a punt, enabling me to have more moves set up in 1 go.

well done, was looking the other night for some, all, out of stock, or dear, just ordered 3, £41.60, bit more than £11, but cheap enough. I'm not very mobile, so my job, is to reel in, those old fashioned, non geared reels, ought to be banned, by law ! The satisfaction, i get, in getting the wire reeled up, before son's got back, with the stakes, is great !!!!!!
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
well done, was looking the other night for some, all, out of stock, or dear, just ordered 3, £41.60, bit more than £11, but cheap enough. I'm not very mobile, so my job, is to reel in, those old fashioned, non geared reels, ought to be banned, by law ! The satisfaction, i get, in getting the wire reeled up, before son's got back, with the stakes, is great !!!!!!
If you all buy as many as I did reckon they'll be out of stock by morning 😆
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
with the 'pukka' ones at £36 + vat, they only need to last a couple of years, money saved !
I have had quite a few 'top of the line' Gallagher reels sh!t their planetary gearsets this year. And break pawls etc.
So no amount of money means they'll last forever, the big bonus is that I can get parts for them at the local depot and be like new again in an hour, which is pretty handy. And now I have super-smooth reels full of ugly old poly, full of "knuckle-cracker" knots 🤣 should stop being so tight but they never break through the old stuff, always the new
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset

When you read articles like these the reel value of them becomes apparent @onesiedale
good reading, the great thing about elec fencing, and controlled grazing, is you can see the benefit, in 24 hrs, very often we move 4 fences a day, with back fencing, you can actually see the growth, every day, when you move the fence, and people still knock it !
The more reels you have, the less you have to move some, which means they last longer, so the cheapies are good value.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
good reading, the great thing about elec fencing, and controlled grazing, is you can see the benefit, in 24 hrs, very often we move 4 fences a day, with back fencing, you can actually see the growth, every day, when you move the fence, and people still knock it !
The more reels you have, the less you have to move some, which means they last longer, so the cheapies are good value.
It's hard to keep up over springtime, just seems to be so much "pressing stuff" and that's when the density counts most towards feeding the sugars in (and adding Carbon)
really any cheapish investment that facilitates it is worthwhile, I think.
All I tend to notice are a whole heap of sheep, managing themselves for the best part of the growing season out of fear of "mismothering", but how do lambs learn to keep up with Mum if there is no real movement?
Spring rotation determines the growing season, summer rotations determine the winter grazing ability. Or that's what I see reflected in the landscape. There's really no economy in having your stock spread out!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
20200918_180634.jpg
This is normally just "damp" hence the concrete posts to give the sheep somewhere to walk and keep their tootsies dry. But the land just cannot take anymore at the moment
20200918_180850.jpg

Fairly well bunched up, this is "the baaa mob"
20200918_182325.jpg

Really pleased I got some cattle gone, even these calves at 300+kg are pushing in a bit. Fairly high OM though so they aren't really "making mud" so much as making it muddy
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Heads up that these cheap geared reels are back in stock. At under £11 I figure they got to worth a punt, enabling me to have more moves set up in 1 go.



Good find 👍
Just ordered 4.
£55 delivered. Can’t fault that.
They look exactly the same as the voss ones I got a few weeks back.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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