Long term cattle / cropping rotation

[The Ruminant]

What do the experts think of the attached crop rotation (see pdf file below), designed to give both a grazing platform (approximately 29% of the area) and a decent crop acreage (c.71% of the total area)?

The cover crop shown would be broadcast into the standing wheat crop in mid-June and would consist of peas, red clover, sunflower, stubble turnips and maize. The wheat crop would be cut high, just below the head and the straw left standing.

The winter should kill off the cover crop with the exception of the clover (comments??) and the barley would be drilled into the clover, as would the following OSR. The barley / clover stubble could be grazed quickly between harvest and drilling of OSR - possibly!

A fast growing red-clover ley would be planted immediately behind the OSR (eg Cotswold Seed's "MIXCG03") and would be down for two years.

Wheat would follow the two year ley, (maybe with a mustard mix broadcast into the standing wheat 4 weeks prior to harvest) to be followed by winter beans.

Would this work agronomically? What have I forgotten? Is ther anything I've not considered? All thoughts, however negative, will be welcome!

 

[Dan Powell]

Not sure how well peas and maize will do if you broadcast them? Have you ever tried it?

Also grazing red clover brings a significant bloat risk but I'm pretty sure you're aware of that.

 

[dontknowanything]

Why only a two year ley, I thought you were of the opinion it took a couple of years for the legumes to work properly?

 

[martian]

Nice idea. I think I'd go with white clover in the cover mix, you'd get in a muddle with red in the barley, it goes so tall. Also you'd have red clover in the ground 4 years out of seven, possible disease build up (there is something red clover gets,why it fell out of favour iirr; you maybe can lose it in the diversity of other crops).Not sure stubble turnips would be wiped out over winter.

Would you be grazing year round? Maybe you could have spring instead of winter beans, to get another winter cover in for overwintering...

 

[The Ruminant]

Not sure how well peas and maize will do if you broadcast them? Have you ever tried it?

Also grazing red clover brings a significant bloat risk but I'm pretty sure you're aware of that.

Dan, thanks for the feedback. I will hold my hands up and say I have never tried it - and therefore wouldn't turn the whole farm over to it without a lot of trialwork! However, I have sat them on damp blotting paper and they've grown, I've spilt seed onto damp concrete (!) where it's grown and nothing gets planted in nature, it just lands on the soil....! Broadcasting in mid-June would have two benefits (but isn't without risk). The first benefit is that there's likely to be enough moisture underneath the canopy to chit the seeds, the second benefit is that the plants will have a long enough growing season - both pre- and post-harvest - to produce a decent amount of dry matter. The risk is that, put it in too early and the crop will be so tall that combining is difficult If they're being broadcast, you have very low establishment costs therefore can afford to raise (double) the seed rates to mitigate the number of seeds that won't chit, or will be eaten or will die etc

It's a good point about red clover. My thoughts were that it would be a small proportion of the total mix and so risks of bloat would be low but (given Martian's comments below) it might be a good idea to switch to white clover. I'll give Ian Wilkinson at Cotswold Seeds a call to discuss the mix with him.

Why only a two year ley, I thought you were of the opinion it took a couple of years for the legumes to work properly?

Good question. In part it's because I'm trying to balance the financial side - cash crops are more profitable than grass crops overall (although the fertility building and structure building nature of the grass has its own inherent value). I am also beginning to believe that some clovers get established faster than others - again I need to verify this with Ian Wilkinson, but his website indicates as much. I do think the longer you leave them beyond two years, the more nodulation and thus N fixation you get, but again this is a compromise rotation. It might not work! Ideally, I would like to leave the ley in place for three or four years but until I have more experience of the returns from mob-grazing cattle on such breaks, I'm not brave enough to go beyond two years.

Nice idea. I think I'd go with white clover in the cover mix, you'd get in a muddle with red in the barley, it goes so tall. Also you'd have red clover in the ground 4 years out of seven, possible disease build up (there is something red clover gets,why it fell out of iirr; you maybe can lose it in the diversity of other crops).Not sure stubble turnips would be wiped out over winter.

Would you be grazing year round? Maybe you could have spring instead of winter beans, to get another winter cover in for overwintering...

Thanks Martian, I've taken your comments re red clover on board - good points.

I would be grazing year round. One of my thoughts is to establish the wheat earlier than normal in the late summer then to graze it lightly during the winter. Anecdotal tales I have heard regularly says this has a tremendously positive effect on the wheat, cleaning it up and encouraging tillers. An added benefit would be that the acreage available to the cattle would increase markedly during the winter months, so stocking rates would be very low and damage would be minimal....

 

[dontknowanything]

One of my thoughts is to establish the wheat earlier than normal in the late summer then to graze it lightly during the winter. Anecdotal tales I have heard regularly says this has a tremendously positive effect on the wheat, cleaning it up and encouraging tillers. An added benefit would be that the acreage available to the cattle would increase markedly during the winter months, so stocking rates would be very low and damage would be minimal....

Please try this and let us know how it works!

 

[SilliamWhale]

My first thought would be the power of any residual chemistry on the small seed legumes and broadleaves.

grazing wheat - they do a lot of it in places like Tasmania. Pulling the animals off early enough can be crucial.

 

[martian]

Traditionally you'd graze wheat with sheep as they are nibblers, rather than cows which can hoick the whole plant out with their tongues.

By the time you get to the end of the rotation you'll only be spraying roundup once every now and then with no residuals in the system...or am I thinking we're in N Dakota?

 

[Gilchro]

I know of two opposing stories on red clover. One is that a farmer lost 4 bullocks grazing straight red clover with no runback.
However, know of another farmer that grazes pure stands of red clover and ameliorates any bloat problems by pouring a gallon of cooking oil in the water troughs.

As long as there is not too much red clover in the mix, should be alright.

 

[border reiver]

In theory sounds feasable but are you not compromising your potentialy most profitable crop of wheat by sharing nutrients that should be used by it and if we get another wet summer could the undergrowth of crop turn into an overstory risking the harvestability of the cereal?
Would broadcasting a brassica and clover mix 3 weeks before harvest remove these risks and still give a fertility building cover crop but of less bulk?

 

[dontknowanything]

Neil Kinsey did say that clover could have different bloating effects depending on the level of a certain nutrient in the soil. I can't remember which one though!

 

[BSH]

Just to add to others comments that I think the red clover ley would be a mistake because of disease and frequency. You would be better with a different ley mix based on white clover. Did you consider the herbal leys? They have a huge mix of species for diversified plant population but are more expensive. I think I mentioned to you that I used a westerwolds cover crop for the first year of grazing that did provide a lot of grass, but I had problems with the seeds getting in the cows eyes. Perhaps that was more of an issue with the rain though. the westerwolds certainly provided a lot of bulk that trampled well. Also did you coinsider undersowing the barley? You could do that then follow the grass break with the rape which might be a better crop to grow after the grass if doing DD? Are you set on beans ? What about two wheats and drop the beans? Would it be better financially? I agree that beans would be good agronomically. My 2 pence!

 

[martian]

Mulling over this and agree with BSH a 'herbal' type ley might work better, esp for grazing and keep it down for three years to justify the cost. Maybe then 'stack' your two wheats behind the ley, cover crop, spring barley, wosr and back to ley. Nice old-fashioned Friend Sykes type rotation...You will probably find the cattle pay better than winter beans and the extra fertility saves you a fair bit of fertiliser. You could whack in an extra wheat behind osr, but might compromise ley establishment in a year like last.

 

[BSH]

My wheat that has gone in behind various leys suffered with the N lock up of the decaying leys. I think that rape with the opportunity to fertilise at drilling with N would be a better pioneer coming out of grass.

 

[martian]

certainly a lot easier to keep clean

 

[dontknowanything]

You can fertilise wheat at planting if you're using liquid.

 

[T C]

Very interesting - had mulled over a simpler version on some light land. Wosr 2yrs red clover grass Ww and repeat. We would not be able to establish clover / grass after wheat reliably. Should be a low N rotation.

 

[BSH]

I think in the past people grazed forward wheat with sheep which meant reduced fungal disease in the spring. I dont think it would work so well with cattle? If one did use cattle it would need to be young stock and they would nned to be lightly stocked. I dont see it as a mob grazing opportunity, largely because you are specifically not trying to trample.

 

[Baling Hay]

I have spent many a day wondering the same thing Ruminant. The rotation I have come up with though is as follows:

3 years white clover ryegrass mix / WOSR / WW / WW - Winter cover / Spring Beans / WW - Winter cover / Spring Barley undersown with grass mix and repeat.

 

[Dan Powell]

I think in the past people grazed forward wheat with sheep which meant reduced fungal disease in the spring. I dont think it would work so well with cattle? If one did use cattle it would need to be young stock and they would nned to be lightly stocked. I dont see it as a mob grazing opportunity, largely because you are specifically not trying to trample.

Interesting article here about grazing wheat pastures in Nebraska:

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/ec185/build/ec185.pdf

Doesn't seem to affect yields there if grazing is before stem extension and carefully managed. They seem to prefer to graze when the ground is frozen to prevent plants being pulled up as you suggest. Would prevent poaching too.

Probably not caught on here as we don't have reliable long ground frosts in the winter, but it could be done opportunistically if cattle were grazing a cover crop nearby for example.