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

[ShooTa]

ive got a chappie...who does mine for me -- tis great.

aside. Awsome work bowland - great link - and almost perfect for what ive been looking for.

this may help ppl - cant remember if ive linked it already.

Earth Observation Explorer

Esri's Earth Observation Explorer app is a powerful tool for visualizing our planet and understanding how the Earth has changed over time. The app leverages the power of Sentinel/Landsat satellites, which gather data beyond what the eye can see. Users draw on Sentinel's/Landsat's different bands...

livingatlas2.arcgis.com

have to jump to BASEMAP rather than sentinal or landsat
and then swithc option to imagery on the basemap options (window icon)

I can see my grazing from fricking SPACE.

 

[som farmer]

How do you set stock really well? Genuine question. From what one hears and reads, set stocking inevitably leads to overgrazing of the “nice” plants as they recover and undergrazing of the plants that the stock are less keen on.

good question
perhaps by continually set stocking, you end up with the variety of grass that survives that treatment. It doesn't follow that is either good or bad, because it could be either, but as said before, cattle are selective eaters, so one could assume the surviving grasses were the 'not first choice' ones, however, they have to eat, and much earlier on this thread, i think it might have been KP, had managed to get cattle to eat thistle crowns, so the cattle may just have adapted to eat whatever is left growing. Whether they grow to potential on that, is another measurement. And i don't know the answer.

 

[onesiedale]

We all need one of these
View attachment 943869

Being as the weather is so good this weekend, perhaps you could give us a fly over your ground then?

 

[som farmer]

I can almost guarantee what I want to do will not work as well for you as it works for us.
Because what I want to do is not what you want to do!

The principles are pretty universal, for sure.... but I often need to stress the fact that I am not trying to be a farmer.

I don't need "more grass faster" to improve my landscape function and it would only minutely affect the P:E ratio of our business if we do so; which is why @sheepdogtrail et al have quite a different view to me about grass species.

(I seek to increase days between grazings, not decrease, made more difficult by having grass that keeps coming back up )

If I was deriving my income from lamb/calf sales, then I would have much different priorities.

If I could get 800 cattle to do one grazing every year then it would suit better than 80 cattle doing 10 laps or 40 cattle doing 20 grazings a year, because that simply takes longer to increase landscape function (if it even happens).

perhaps we cease to be individual farmers, when we start copying systems, each farm is different, and needs to be farmed to its quirky differences.

 

[sheepdogtrail]

good question
perhaps by continually set stocking, you end up with the variety of grass that survives that treatment. It doesn't follow that is either good or bad, because it could be either, but as said before, cattle are selective eaters, so one could assume the surviving grasses were the 'not first choice' ones, however, they have to eat, and much earlier on this thread, i think it might have been KP, had managed to get cattle to eat thistle crowns, so the cattle may just have adapted to eat whatever is left growing. Whether they grow to potential on that, is another measurement. And i don't know the answer.

All animals are selective eaters. Including us. My take, as long as you have forage species that are palatable they will be grazed from the top to the bottom if allowed. Worse case, they will be trampled. Unpalatable forage does no one or any sytem any good as the efficiency rating of the plant stock is low.

Forcing unpalatable feed on a animal is abuse and wrong. What is unpalatable feed you ask? Force some cardboard down your throat and see how that settles in your stomach. That has about the same energy profile as rank forage.

The energy that once resided in its stem has migrated up and out of the plant. Rank, over mature 2nd class forage should not be in your paddock. If so, you are only asking for more 2nd class forages to grow. Part of the plant needs to be consumed for the best direct soil or animal benefit that comes from it. Soil critters are consumers as well. If they can not convert residuals to organic matter and fertility, nothing can. Next animal health suffers, soil biology goes away and the next thing you know so does your land.

I personally stride to have all plant matter consumed, leaving a residual of 1500 lbs/DM/Ac. or about 3 inches of plant from the deck. Anything that is trampled feeds the underside of my farm. It needs energy as well.

I hear from a lot of folks who try to do what I do and often they are not factoring the true cost of Energy on the system. Traditional mob grazing can work with physicaly heavier cows. It takes a modified approach with sheep and lambs. The pricipal is the same, the density is a lot different. The management is completely different. That is the difference between mob/mig/mmig and set stocking. Set stocking can be mob/mig/mmig grazing with the introduction of a different management plan.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

good question
perhaps by continually set stocking, you end up with the variety of grass that survives that treatment. It doesn't follow that is either good or bad, because it could be either, but as said before, cattle are selective eaters, so one could assume the surviving grasses were the 'not first choice' ones, however, they have to eat, and much earlier on this thread, i think it might have been KP, had managed to get cattle to eat thistle crowns, so the cattle may just have adapted to eat whatever is left growing. Whether they grow to potential on that, is another measurement. And i don't know the answer.

It's great feed, they just always don't work out how to get past the prickles by themselves.
Have you noticed that some herds will eat a bale and leave all the thistles in the bottom of the ring, but other herds eat the thistles too?

If I gave you a cape gooseberry or a walnut for the first time you might not work out that it was actually food, unless I opened it and showed you.

Sheep will eat grass if that's all they've got. Or brassicas. Or whatever!

Put them somewhere without grass and they'll go back to browsing trees and bushes and herbs like they did before people grew grass to feed them with.
Like most of the sheep in the world still do.... browse

The thing is that because we see sheep in bright green fields of grass then we set that in our minds as a baseline: that "that's just what sheep do" and not "that's just another thing that sheep can live on"

( The availability heuristic/bias is made of two main things:
What we remember quickly
What we mainly see )

 

[Kiwi Pete]

perhaps we cease to be individual farmers, when we start copying systems, each farm is different, and needs to be farmed to its quirky differences.

You can stop being the leader when you allow yourself to be a follower.
I think it's comfortable to be told what the game is?

I like being a bit of both, to be honest the real main reason I still go off to work in the morning is that my boss tells me the jobs and I go do the jobs, he doesn't tell me to warm up the truck because I know to warm up the engine.
That's really comfy after spending half the night emailing brokers 'what I want them to do' to make me money, literally it's my "out"
Or, figuring out how to help someone get into the house they need, or figuring out how to stock the ranch over winter to best effect.
These things are more complex than "go to Rex Lowery's and with 4 tonne of DAP and meet him at the house" and also much more rewarding as a result of being more complex.

I like both . I don't "need" the job but my brain does need time off complex problems.
Farming is a series of complex problems and thus farmers are very easy to prescribe to, because there is little respite for the farmer elsewhere in life, a livestock farm cannot be turned off and back on

 

[sheepdogtrail]

There are many different types of thistles. Some types are readily consumed by many different animals. Including cows and sheep. Others, such as Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense), AKA California Thistle are not. I have seen the odd sheep every now and then eat Canada Thistle in a gingerly manner. But only the flower. It is not the type of plant I would consider ideal. But there are other types of browse that are pretty good and most classes of livestock can and do thrive on the them after a adjustment period. Tagasaste (Cytisus proliferus) is just one of the many browsing plants that animals can survive on.

I am drifting here. I will get back on topic.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

There are many different types of thistles. Some types are readily consumed by many different animals. Including cows and sheep. Others, such as Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense), AKA California Thistle are not. I have seen the odd sheep every now and then eat Canada Thistle in a gingerly manner. But only the flower. It is not the type of plant I would consider ideal. But there are other types of browse that are pretty good and most classes of livestock can and do thrive on the them after a adjustment period. Tagasaste (Cytisus proliferus) is just one of the many browsing plants that animals can survive on.

I am drifting here. I will get back on topic.

It's all interesting stuff.
The topic certainly isn't all about grass, that's for sure! Grass is only a layer of several possible layers, and you can use planned grazing on almost anything.
Again it's availability bias, and most posters only have a grass layer for their stock.

It always surprises me (sheep do much of the pruning and lawnmowing duties here) how many of our native species they love to munch.
NZ fuschia, they've learnt to stand on each other's backs to browse what they can't reach from the ground, so basically they cleared everything to about breast height. Pittosporum, broadleaf as well.

(Because our native plants didn't coevolve to with grazing or browsing ruminants, only birds, they didn't really need to adapt to protect themselves from being over-browsed.
Hence the introduction of deer etc really screwed with the ecosystems, almost like humans have when faced with nearly limitless food supplies.)

It does have the positive spinoff that most all of the south island (apart from the coastal strip which is dominated by improved pasture) has native flora that will feed your livestock for free.
This has the negative spinoff that selective grazing of grasses occurs, because the option is almost always there to eat something better than grass if given the scope.
Limiting that scope is problematic due to scale, topography, water availability (many areas sub 12" rainfall) and the economics of commodity production.

In this context, successful restorative grazing with browsing ruminants is very similar to heating a pot of stew with a soldering iron, it should work much better than it does.
Water systems for grazers (cattle) is prohibited by cost.
Deferred feed is simply eaten by waves of rabbits, or deer, tahr...

 

[som farmer]

There are many different types of thistles. Some types are readily consumed by many different animals. Including cows and sheep. Others, such as Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense), AKA California Thistle are not. I have seen the odd sheep every now and then eat Canada Thistle in a gingerly manner. But only the flower. It is not the type of plant I would consider ideal. But there are other types of browse that are pretty good and most classes of livestock can and do thrive on the them after a adjustment period. Tagasaste (Cytisus proliferus) is just one of the many browsing plants that animals can survive on.

I am drifting here. I will get back on topic.

where we have been playing with old pasture, grazing very tight, and back fencing, trying, and succeeding to improve it, the hfrs love docks, in full leaf, graze them right down, result ! Then some one said fresh dock leaf's are 25% protien, so not quite as bad, as assumed.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Mostly set stocked ground around these parts. There is a fine line between not enough animals and too many, either way doesn't really work.

In areas like here the growing season is short but we have near round the clock daylight at summer solstice, provided the ground is holding similar stocking rates in summer as it did in winter then the majority of plants do get a reasonable chance to recover.

Soil health is still decreasing, but if done 'well', it's decreasing at a rate slow enough for it to be almost unnoticeable in the working life of one generation farming it. It seems to take a hundred years at least before the system completely collapses.

The same damage can definitely be achieved in merely a few years of badly managed rotations.

The difference between having your ground degenerating or regenerating can be slight, and sometimes very small changes can tip the balance the right way and get things moving in the right direction. What KP says, likening it to racing a dirtbike, strikes a chord with me, If we want to make any change we're not around long enough to waste time. Once you get it heading the right direction and the cycle 'pulsing' you want to push it as hard as you can.

That's my take on it

An interesting parallel in current times is the Covid "R number". If it's 0.98 then infections ARE declining but it might take 5 years to be noticeable. If its 0.25 the progress is rapid and obvious.

If its 1.1 the epidemic IS growing but it would be impossible without statistical surveillance to know the difference between being at 1.1 or 0.98 at the time.

Regardless whether a farm is regenerating slowly or quickly it IS regenerating. There a huge difference in impact, motivation and economics though.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

where we have been playing with old pasture, grazing very tight, and back fencing, trying, and succeeding to improve it, the hfrs love docks, in full leaf, graze them right down, result ! Then some one said fresh dock leaf's are 25% protien, so not quite as bad, as assumed.

Changes how you see some plants, doesn't it?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

An interesting parallel in current times is the Covid "R number". If it's 0.98 then infections ARE declining but it might take 5 years to be noticeable. If its 0.25 the progress is rapid and obvious.

If its 1.1 the epidemic IS growing but it would be impossible without statistical surveillance to know the difference between being at 1.1 or 0.98 at the time.

Regardless whether a farm is regenerating slowly or quickly it IS regenerating. There a huge difference in impact, motivation and economics though.

That's why I believe it's critical to understand the difference between 'adaptation' and 'evolution'.

You can adapt something, like living in an overpopulated place and stay away from others... this brings slow progress...
or you can be evolutionary and have really fast results

the problem is that people are taught how to think straight, and it leads to the mind working like a simple lever:
more distance but less effort,

again a parallel to the way the western world thinks about food.

If we weren't so concerned about feeding the world today, then perhaps it would be possible to feed humanity for a very long time, but it seems only a minute fraction of a percent can actually tear themselves away from the short game to see the long one is gonna hurt.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

View attachment 943915
That's why I believe it's critical to understand the difference between 'adaptation' and 'evolution'.

You can adapt something, like living in an overpopulated place and stay away from others... this brings slow progress...
or you can be evolutionary and have really fast results

the problem is that people are taught how to think straight, and it leads to the mind working like a simple lever:
more distance but less effort,

again a parallel to the way the western world thinks about food.

If we weren't so concerned about feeding the world today, then perhaps it would be possible to feed humanity for a very long time, but it seems only a minute fraction of a percent can actually tear themselves away from the short game to see the long one is gonna hurt.

I'll send you a copy of Tim Langs' book "Feeding Britain". It'll be fascinating to get your thoughts on his analysis and recommendations. It might also scare you a bit in places!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Not sure if I am game after rereading Grassfed Nation

You guys seem awfully hung up on "the need for annuals" over there!
Does a complimentary seed sowing guide come in The Brown Christmas Envelope or something?

 

[Henarar]

Not sure if I am game after rereading Grassfed Nation

You guys seem awfully hung up on "the need for annuals" over there!
Does a complimentary seed sowing guide come in The Brown Christmas Envelope or something?

No that comes with farm contractor

 

[Kiwi Pete]

No that comes with farm contractor

Pretty flash. The only rag we get tries to sell me raincoats and dog tucker. You don't know what it's like to scrimp and save

 

[Henarar]

Pretty flash. The only rag we get tries to sell me raincoats and dog tucker. You don't know what it's like to scrimp and save

Its free
I just have to embellish a little these days.
I am a potato grower don't you know

 

[awkward]

Like that idea.
We could set up a thread/group here that would be a useful tool and reference. @awkward care to host the first walk?

My problem would be too much material to hang myself with , as I'm no different to most others, that said if it was possible I guess why not ,constructive criticism to highlite whare changes could be made. I have some ground making no improvement so fresh eyes would make a difference

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I didn't grow any spuds this year. Garden is a bit "hot" thanks to ½ tonne of chicken sh!t last year, but the corn is mental!

The boys planted the garden this time, it's been really rewarding for them because they have great variety and it appears to be growing by the hour.

Tomatoes are just coming ripe in the glasshouse and we might try some tomorrow. Small boy must have tried a beetroot already because I saw one replanted - with tooth marks in it