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

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
As a native breed beef farmer I think I can say this with out being biased, petty much all breeds finish well of grass alone, its the system not the breed.
I use to buy Belgium Blues back in the 80s & several farmers said it will take some corn to finish them, they never seen any on this farm & finished very well.
@Henarar seems to manage quite well with blues on a grass system.
We only finish one a year for the freezer, they get a couple kg of cheap blend for the last few months along with their weeds but we have had one or two that wouldn't eat it so they finish without but we are in no big hurry.
In any case a lot are out of cows with at least some native in them.
The breeding bulls we sell get a couple kg after weaning till they go at 18 to 24 months and they seem to do ok for those that buy them,
If I have his location right one went not far from Som farmer a few weeks ago, that will get him guessing :unsure:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
water has long been earmarked as the cause for the next conflict. With the climate warming lot, that time, might be to close, for comfort, if, if, they are correct.
Farmers started housing cattle, because it was easier, and more convenient. Farmers began out wintering, again, for monetary reasons, the convenience factor, hasn't changed. Will it change back, now better prices are here ?
We have limited ground we can out winter on, the rest, we dare not, it simply pans, leading to a large reduction, in yield, the following season, not sure if 'herbs' roots, would reduce, that surface pan.
Yep

and while everyone's sky is falling because over carbon dioxide, and methane; seemingly doing everything wrong actually fixes many of these issues at the roots!

Who would have thunk it? 🙂

More fertilisers and trees and better leadership and death in plastic cans, none of it is done while thinking mainly about water and how much it drives our planet's life systems, for some reason it's all about "food", water is a nuisance

when actually you can grow it yourself, for pennies, and obtain a degree of food security and satisfaction, many the fixed narratives about how we're meant to get our nutrition seem absurd enough to discount

To paraphrase Mr Savory "we need to unf**k ourselves and we are running out of time" and that needs people to reassess their own ideas about what success is
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Yep

and while everyone's sky is falling because over carbon dioxide, and methane; seemingly doing everything wrong actually fixes many of these issues at the roots!

Who would have thunk it? 🙂

More fertilisers and trees and better leadership and death in plastic cans, none of it is done while thinking mainly about water and how much it drives our planet's life systems, for some reason it's all about "food", water is a nuisance

when actually you can grow it yourself, for pennies, and obtain a degree of food security and satisfaction, many the fixed narratives about how we're meant to get our nutrition seem absurd enough to discount

To paraphrase Mr Savory "we need to unf**k ourselves and we are running out of time" and that needs people to reassess their own ideas about what success is
So what do you think success is?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
The simmental and Fleckveigh(?) are supposed to be very milky?
Black ones or brown ones?
Screenshot_20211125-235257_Facebook.jpg
 

Rob Garrett

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Derbyshire UK
water has long been earmarked as the cause for the next conflict. With the climate warming lot, that time, might be to close, for comfort, if, if, they are correct.
Farmers started housing cattle, because it was easier, and more convenient. Farmers began out wintering, again, for monetary reasons, the convenience factor, hasn't changed. Will it change back, now better prices are here ?
We have limited ground we can out winter on, the rest, we dare not, it simply pans, leading to a large reduction, in yield, the following season, not sure if 'herbs' roots, would reduce, that surface pan.
Hmmm!
IMG_20211123_113559_705.jpg
IMG_20211125_104110_400.jpg
IMG_20211125_104033_068.jpg
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
not sure what that funny coloured lump is ........... Most of our ground would contain only stones which came out of the dung spreader, ancient building works - quite a lot of them, or 15acres of stone brash. Which is great, from some points, the down side is, it pans very quickly, especially surface pans, and it dries out quickly. We use a lifter, more than the plough.
Used to farm some ground, where rocks that size, were small, built up 20ft, with 'spare' from a dual carriage way, either they didn't put much soil over them, or they worked to the surface.
You could say, some farmers are never satisfied !!!!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Managed to get off the bike tonight
20211127_203706.jpg
🙂 have some nice new boots to wear and it doesn't feel like my foot is gonna fall over! 😁
20211127_203636.jpg
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Still really just playing with things, density is a bit low for my liking but we're getting away with it, recovery is short but we're getting away with that too, for now. Onwards and upwards
20211127_203604.jpg

Certainly that time of year 🙂 the old thoughts of racing around "think of the quality" etc are still quite loud sometimes...
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
I could do with a machine like that!
we have a simpler one, no roller.
best bit of kit we have bought for a long time, and only cost £400, didn't make it's reserve at wessex auction, bought after.
seriously altered our soil, breaks any pan, and if use 'close' together, we can shallow p/harrow behind it, basically, with d/d, has replaced the plough, now reserved for, tidying up behind kale, or this year, after maize, pre wheat.
Group of us talking yesterday, N is now close/at £800/ton, if if you can get it, and l think that, at that price, is uneconomic, or for very targeted use - 1st cut ?
So now we will be targeted to use all sorts, of 'alternatives', it may prove to be 'interesting' to see some of these 'alternatives', probably products, marketed, and flopped, now brought back !
But unless fert drops back to a reasonable price, don't think it will be sub £400 again, use will be severely reduced, globally. Which means lower food production, globally, which l class, as quite satisfying, and welcome, it means prices will be on a supply/demand basis, with a bigger demand, than supply :D . Also transport costs, for imported food, are now altering that 'cheap' supply of food.
All in all, a period of rapid change, rapidly approaching, Covid rearing it's head again, russia and china flexing their muscles, and a weak president, in america, =political uncertainty.
I consider myself quite lucky, that l stumbled across this thread, and regen principles, have learnt a huge amount of 'new' ideas, which, for the above reasons, are daily becoming more important. Most of us, on this thread, are reducing the need for artificial solutions, by trying to increase soil fertility/health, which will keep us, 'leading the rush', for reducing chemical inputs, a nice feeling. If prices keep increasing, and we can successfully reduce our chemical costs, with better soil health, there will not be the pressure on us, to keep output up, to keep the bills paid, lower stock numbers, less inputs, more return, sounds ideal.
A piece of trivia, one firm, will be unable to dish out it's usual calenders this xmas, the spring wire, that holds the pages together, are currently unavailable, till march, cause, covid, this date, march, he tells us, is the standard date, for delivery, on a very large amount of stock, of which, at least 50%, will not arrive then.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Screenshot_20211127-200513_Samsung Internet.jpg
can't claim credit for thinking of this myself I saw it on a webinar slide but thought it was such a blindingly obvious push to sell more I had to go and find the source and copy it for here. yara (fertiliser manufacturers and sales) reckon your optimum rate of nitrogen is 100kg per ha as in those black lines. But what they really mean is that's when the line stops going up it starts to plateau way before then at roughly where my red arrow is around the 50kg mark. Do they think farmers are stupid :unsure::cautious:
The webinar hosts did a much better more professional job than I did and had other graphs showing how much the extra dry matter would cost and they came up with 40kg of nitrogen being the optimum for growth/cost of nitrogen.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

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  • 1
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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