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

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Does anyone spin out their seed in the fert spreader mixed in with N? Dos that work?
wagtail is ok, twin disc not so good, we always drill ours, spent £7,500 on a 2nd hand vaderstat, last year, virtually paid for itself already, cross drill, or d/d. It's a personal matter of choice which way you do it, grass box and einbok are pretty good as well. Our drill, we can drill everything between clover seed to corn accurately, very pleased with it.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
just looked up how long the dairy grazed kale/rape, from 27july, they have had 1 feed/day from the rape, short break in late sept, back on mid oct, i/c hfrs were on it between, spring calvers some stayed out on kale 1st week december, dry cows go out, and still out on kale, rape/kale is sown in stages. That is a lot of rape used, and still ran short of both grass and silage !
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Does anyone spin out their seed in the fert spreader mixed in with N? Dos that work?
We probably spin on 1600ha of seed a year, usually about a 50:50 of DAP and serpentine super and just put the seed into the bin in fractions
Usual recipe would be something like 250kg DAP 250kg serp per ha and sow twice at 250kg/ha

Brassicas and cereals I set the GPS for 16m and grass about 11m.. sow into the middle and back out to the gate

This is with a twin-disc belt type spreading bin on a 4x4 Merc truck
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Does anyone know what the wee yellow flower is, some kind of nettle? I haven't grazed this part for a while, sort of a riparian area
Screenshot_20210123-101143_Gallery.jpg

hence the doggy sort of old grass around it
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
are the leaves a bit spiky shaped for a dead nettle ?
The easiest way to describe it is that it looks "like a skunky dope plant", I think it's a dwarf version of what BTT says. But yes the upper leaves are quite pointy at the end and broad at the base, like a spear-head.
Sorry it's a bit of a poor photo, I've seen them here before, about the time the mob started the deferred grass 6 months ago. Seems to pop up if we put the rest periods out, this won't have been grazed for 4 months or so and then it was just a buzz-cut (hence the fog and browntop)
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
That nicely topped paddock @GC74
20210123_142850.jpg
amazing how good it looks now compared to when it was "young grass" that had been undersown under a triticale wholecrop, literally bare patches the size of a dinnertable where it had been smothered/shaded out.
20210123_135858.jpg

Bit of dismantling going on today, going to have a brew and then go and lift out some posts with the tractor. Certainly enjoying this "open plan" style of farming, moreso next week when the animals begin to head out the gate
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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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