Livestock the solution or the problem

[DaveGrohl]

On old PP which is Direct Drilled or Overseeded with new grass and clover is a complete waste of time as there is always too many creatures and other things waiting to kill it off.
I have never had any success with not using Glyphosphate on old pasture which is drilled with a forage crop in the summer or late autumn, however we are in a low rainfall area, especially with summer droughts.
If someone can tell me how to do this successfully without spraying it off I am ready to give it a try!

Move?

 

[CDavidLance]

Actually disagree with pretty much all of that. And we were getting on so well .

Please expand on that. Any better information gratefully received.

 

[delilah]

Please expand on that. Any better information gratefully received.

You have praised the TFF information sheet - thank you for that - and then gone on to suggest that some production systems are better than others.

The reason the TFF flyer 'works' is that it quite purposely makes no distinction between different systems. Any livestock farmer - whether they own a plough or not, whether they feed soya meal or not, whether they house their cattle or not - can feel comfortable using that flyer to promote their business and their industry.

Your assertion - that there are 'good' and 'bad' systems - is the same as so much of the material put out by the NFU and the AHDB. It uses as a starting point the premise that we and our cows are harming the planet, and that we need to do better. We don't need to do better. All of the environmental damage in the food chain is being caused by the huge changes that have taken place in that chain. There is nothing wrong our side of the farm gate.

 

[CDavidLance]

You have praised the TFF information sheet - thank you for that - and then gone on to suggest that some production systems are better than others.

The reason the TFF flyer 'works' is that it quite purposely makes no distinction between different systems. Any livestock farmer - whether they own a plough or not, whether they feed soya meal or not, whether they house their cattle or not - can feel comfortable using that flyer to promote their business and their industry.

Your assertion - that there are 'good' and 'bad' systems - is the same as so much of the material put out by the NFU and the AHDB. It uses as a starting point the premise that we and our cows are harming the planet, and that we need to do better. We don't need to do better. All of the environmental damage in the food chain is being caused by the huge changes that have taken place in that chain. There is nothing wrong our side of the farm gate.

Thank you. The first line of post #37 was about your flyer.
I should have put the rest of it in a separate post.
Your flyer is very well pitched for informing people about what they should be thinking about farm livestock.

 

[Muddyroads]

Yes. Studies have been running on this since the 1970's when the Direct Drilling alternative was becoming established. The figures I am using come from the paper below and from reviews of literature.
One off ploughing of previously unploughed soil releases about 4 to 6 % of the Carbon that was there from the profile as a whole.
If ploughing is then used each year the accumulated depletion is about 20 % of Carbon lost after 5 times (years) and about 40 % after 10 times (years) and can be as much as 50 % by that stage. Eventually there is an equilibrium well below 50 % of initial Carbon in soils that are ploughed every year.

Loss of soil organic matter upon ploughing under a loess soil after several years of conservation tillage | Request PDF

Request PDF | Loss of soil organic matter upon ploughing under a loess soil after several years of conservation tillage | Restricting tillage to shallow-mixing operations as conducted in many conservation tillage systems occasionally causes problems such as compaction... | Find, read and cite...

www.researchgate.net

Thank you for this. To put it into practical terms can we take one of my fields as an example?
My light land is low on carbon, less than 2% in some cases. If I plough the grass down, from your figures I could lose 5% of that carbon, dropping it down from 2% to 1.9%. What would that equate to in kg? I then apply composted dung and compost to grow veg and from my experience see a considerable increase in worms. I’m wondering how much organic matter has to be added to negate the ploughing. As we’re organic, direct planting of veg into grassland is not an option.

 

[CDavidLance]

Thank you for this. To put it into practical terms can we take one of my fields as an example?
My light land is low on carbon, less than 2% in some cases. If I plough the grass down, from your figures I could lose 5% of that carbon, dropping it down from 2% to 1.9%. What would that equate to in kg? I then apply composted dung and compost to grow veg and from my experience see a considerable increase in worms. I’m wondering how much organic matter has to be added to negate the ploughing. As we’re organic, direct planting of veg into grassland is not an option.

This is really tricky. Do you mean 2 % Carbon or 2 % Organic Matter. At 2 % or less OM your soil should not be ploughed because it is on the threshold of soil collapse. If you are planting vegetables can you use black plastic to control weeds rather than plough? You might need a specialist to come and help you with how best to do what you want. There would be a lot of other things to take into account.

 

[Muddyroads]

This is really tricky. Do you mean 2 % Carbon or 2 % Organic Matter. At 2 % or less OM your soil should not be ploughed because it is on the threshold of soil collapse. If you are planting vegetables can you use black plastic to control weeds rather than plough? You might need a specialist to come and help you with how best to do what you want. There would be a lot of other things to take into account.

We grow around 20 acres per year so for that and a variety of other reasons plastic sheeting would be impractical. My main question is how to convert % soil carbon figures into kg, as percentages are meaningless in practical terms. It would also help to quantify exactly what is being talked about.

 

[CDavidLance]

We grow around 20 acres per year so for that and a variety of other reasons plastic sheeting would be impractical. My main question is how to convert % soil carbon figures into kg, as percentages are meaningless in practical terms. It would also help to quantify exactly what is being talked about.

What is the depth of the soil sample? Grassland tends to be 10 cm depth of sampling and arable tends to be 20 cm and scientists will often go down to 30 cm to deal with the whole plough layer.
If it is 10 cm, and if the dry soil bulk density is about 1.5 g/cu cm, then the calculation for tonnes per hectare of Carbon is approximately % x sample depth x bulk density. In your case that might be 2 x 10 x 1.5 = 30 t/ha.
If the sample depth is 20 cm then double that.
Then the 5 % loss you mentioned might be 1.5 t/ha of Carbon from the top 10 cm.
The FYM needed to replace that would be about 4 x 1.5 = 6 tonnes/ha. That's because Carbon is about half the dry mass of FYM and if the FYM moisture content is about 50 % then you double again = 4 x overall.
There are organic accounts for weed control that you can Google. Some I have seen suggest using the added manure as a mulch for weed control and advocate hoeing and covering rather than ploughing to kill the weeds/grass sward. That keeps the Organic Matter at or near the soil surface which promotes soil stability and nutrient availability. I suggest you do some Googling. There are a lot of surprisingly useful suggestions out there.
The Staverton and Buckfastleigh area has hundreds of acres of plastic and landscape fabric mulches every year growing Organic Vegetables for Riverford. The Vale of Evesham and other places have the same.
You may be able to get advice from Riverford.
There are four "Ifs" in the calculation above so please use with caution.

 

[Bury the Trash]

@Muddyroads

 

[CDavidLance]

@Muddyroads

Brilliantly relevant. Thank you.
So Guy Watson of Riverford Organic Farmers says this is what we are doing but it isn't right in an Organic System. Ploughing does all the wrong things for the soil on an Organic basis. So growers that need clean produce carry on ploughing, killing earthworms and decomposers and burying an ecosystem.
Now you can see why I think that using Glyphosate is the lesser of the evils. I think it is less inorganic than ploughing.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Brilliantly relevant. Thank you.
So Guy Watson of Riverford Organic Farmers says this is what we are doing but it isn't right in an Organic System. Ploughing does all the wrong things for the soil on an Organic basis. So growers that need clean produce carry on ploughing, killing earthworms and decomposers and burying an ecosystem.
Now you can see why I think that using Glyphosate is the lesser of the evils. I think it is less inorganic than ploughing.

Yes to kill all weed its very effective but that s only the first part of what's needed for potatoes, carrots onions etc.
The suitable depth bed made with cultivation, plough or otherwise is what vegs like. That aerated pile of tilth is what gets them growing and thriving for their short growth cycle is the key to it all.
Guys look at the hedgerow , well that earth is not quite such a good comparison/example of natural soil structuring , because those hedgerow 'plants' are perennial which gives them a huge advantages .

An old fashioned rotation will keep plenty of worms , one years cultivation and a few further years of ley livestock grazed will be good enough for now at least, until something better is developed and practiced.

Trouble is if you're on high grade soil which are well suited to vegs then it would be awfully tempting not to bother with that break

 

[CDavidLance]

Yes to kill all weed its very effective but that s only the first part of what's needed for potatoes, carrots onions etc.
The suitable depth bed made with cultivation, plough or otherwise is what vegs like. That aerated pile of tilth is what gets them growing and thriving for their short growth cycle is the key to it all.
Guys look at the hedgerow , well that earth is not quite such a good comparison/example of natural soil structuring , because those hedgerow 'plants' are perennial which gives them a huge advantages .

An old fashioned rotation will keep plenty of worms , one years cultivation and a few further years of ley livestock grazed will be good enough for now at least, until something better is developed and practiced.

Trouble is if you're on high grade soil which are well suited to vegs then it would be awfully tempting not to bother with that break

And that brings us back to the theme of this thread. Compensation the same year can be made if appropriate manure is applied to the fields that are used for vegetables from farm livestock, even though they are not on the fields. New Zealanders might well undersow with clover as well.
It takes a lot more added organic matter to keep a whole plough layer in good heart, as mentioned in the calculation above. Two or three times as much, depending on the depth of cultivation, compared with shallow tillage or grassland.

 

[Muddyroads]

And that brings us back to the theme of this thread. Compensation the same year can be made if appropriate manure is applied to the fields that are used for vegetables from farm livestock, even though they are not on the fields. New Zealanders might well undersow with clover as well.
It takes a lot more added organic matter to keep a whole plough layer in good heart, as mentioned in the calculation above. Two or three times as much, depending on the depth of cultivation, compared with shallow tillage or grassland.

My formative teenage years were spent working for a world ploughing champion. Part of my learning was that good ploughing spreads fertility through the soil, particularly towards the bottom of the furrow which encourages the new crop to put its roots down, improving drought tolerance.
Modern thinking is clearly different, relying on worms and other soil life to migrate manure and compost through the top soil which can also act as a weed suppressing mulch.
However this raises a fresh thought in my mind. If we spread a carbon rich material on the surface, presuming the percentage of carbon lost to the atmosphere is the same as for soil, a far higher quantity of carbon will be lost if it’s left on or near the surface rather than being fully incorporated?

 

[CDavidLance]

My formative teenage years were spent working for a world ploughing champion. Part of my learning was that good ploughing spreads fertility through the soil, particularly towards the bottom of the furrow which encourages the new crop to put its roots down, improving drought tolerance.
Modern thinking is clearly different, relying on worms and other soil life to migrate manure and compost through the top soil which can also act as a weed suppressing mulch.
However this raises a fresh thought in my mind. If we spread a carbon rich material on the surface, presuming the percentage of carbon lost to the atmosphere is the same as for soil, a far higher quantity of carbon will be lost if it’s left on or near the surface rather than being fully incorporated?

There are no hard and fast answers to any of these points. Beware of anybody that says there are.
Ploughing does some mixing, but mostly burying. It is designed to bury weeds.
The further tillage after ploughing to prepare the seed bed does more of the mixing, but care is taken not to bring back up the original surface that has been buried. It also promotes more Carbon to be lost from the profile. It also stimulates more release of nutrients to the crop. It also mixes any added manure or fertiliser.
Different crops need to draw nutrients from different depths. Grass and cereals can harvest nutrients near the surface, and water from further down. Roots and vegetables need different provision.
Whilst the plough layer is usually less dense than before ploughing, there can also be compaction at the bottom of the plough layer in the form of a smear pan or accumulated wheeling. That can form a barrier to water movement and root growth at that level.
Every time a ploughing operation is used, a percentage of earthworms are lost and the species mix begins to change in favour of the shallow mixers and at the expense of the deep burrowers and surface feeders. Repeated ploughing causes notable general depletion.
In theory your last point is correct. If left on the surface organic matter will just burn away after a long period of time. However, it also releases nutrients feeding soil life and the crop and protecting the soil surface from collapse. Soil life and tillage will also mix it in over a shorter period of time and some of the nutrients will wash into the soil. Some fully incorporated organic matter can be ploughed back up again the next year and show very little signs of decomposition, particularly straw. Other material can disappear.
These ideas are all dynamics that need to be watched. The most obvious signs are at the soil surface. Beware if your soil starts to slake, collapse or erode. Have a spade on the tractor and discover what is happening in the profile and see what is happening at the bottom of the plough layer. You will get a feel for the effects that your tillage is having and that is more important than the theory relayed here.
The whole thing is a balancing act between harvesting a profitable crop and sustainably maintaining a healthy soil over the immediate and longer term.
There are no definitive answers and anybody that claims there are is usually trying to sell you something.