Looking to the future

[Hill Dairy]

Been watching a few of Gabe Browns videos lately. How do people think some of his principles could be applied to uk dairying.
We have been rotatioaly grazong for 15 years plus and have soil organic matter percentages of 11 plus. How high have others got?
How have others managed to reduce the use of bagged n and yet still kept production the same? Using clovers and other species? Anyone grazing multy species swards? How do you maintain these or are they anuals?

If we could grasp more of these principles we could not only insulate ourselvs from extreem weather events like last summer but have a very positive message to show how bovines are key to locking carbon into our soils and thus essentual to stopping global warming. With the vegan onslaught of late this could be a great pr story for our industry.
Whats others veiws?

PREVIEW
58:53
Gabe Brown: Keys To Building a Healthy Soil
8 Dec 2014

 

[lazy farmer]

Total agree with this. Though John roache is suggesting that above 1 cow an acre we are actually mining carbon

 

[vantage]

We have fields with high teens OM,rotational grazing started in 1969 when my parents bought the original farm.I'm pretty sure that bovines are not the problem as I read somewhere that the total weight of ruminants today is the same as when dinosaurs roamed the earth,so it must the human race that is responsible!

 

[Hill Dairy]

Total agree with this. Though John roache is suggesting that above 1 cow an acre we are actually mining carbon

I get what he's saying but is there a way of adapting how we graze to lock in more carbon and yet keep yelds the same. The grazing principles that we follow wernt designed around building organic matter in our soils. They were purely focost on utilisation and production per hecter. Is this to short termist? We have been going into 3000 plus covers and leaving slightly higher residuals for last few years say 1800 does this help build OM if we trample more in?
Would be really good to see some more studys on grazing and building OM as well as how much carbon dairy farms are sequensing in there soils would be ADHB money well spent.

 

[Walwyn]

I get what he's saying but is there a way of adapting how we graze to lock in more carbon and yet keep yelds the same. The grazing principles that we follow wernt designed around building organic matter in our soils. They were purely focost on utilisation and production per hecter. Is this to short termist? We have been going into 3000 plus covers and leaving slightly higher residuals for last few years say 1800 does this help build OM if we trample more in?
Would be really good to see some more studys on grazing and building OM as well as how much carbon dairy farms are sequensing in there soils would be ADHB money well spent.

Watch this space Will, we're just putting together a project as the demo farm with FC looking at multispecies leys. Good to see i'm not the only 1 thinking this way. Be looking to manage similarly to IRG for comparison purposes initially, but could follow on from there. Will suggest OM test at the start to measure any change over time.

 

[Agrispeed]

Currently sequestering around 3kg carbon per l produced, but I reckon that will probably end up around 1.5-2 as we can produce a lot more off the farm than previously thought. The system has doubled OM in grass fields in the last 10 years, including reseeding in that period. We now have several fields in the high teens, bordering on 20%.

Most of the grazing block and a fair proportion of the cutting ground is in herbal leys now. The management is a but different but they are incredibly productive - 75-100KG/Ha/day growth is fairly usual and they are much better in summer and the autumn than a ryegrass based ley.

I'm quite keen on multi-species cover crops for winter grazing. I've been talking to cotswold seeds (expensive, but they do know their stuff) and I reckon I've worked out a pretty good mix to have a go with in late summer, with 13 different species, including clovers, grasses, brassicas and cereals. One day I hope to be able to work out a system where I can milk over winter without housing.

 

[In the pit]

I get what he's saying but is there a way of adapting how we graze to lock in more carbon and yet keep yelds the same. The grazing principles that we follow wernt designed around building organic matter in our soils. They were purely focost on utilisation and production per hecter. Is this to short termist? We have been going into 3000 plus covers and leaving slightly higher residuals for last few years say 1800 does this help build OM if we trample more in?
Would be really good to see some more studys on grazing and building OM as well as how much carbon dairy farms are sequensing in there soils would be ADHB money well spent.

Buy grazing higher covers and leaving higher residuals do your cows still milk aswell

 

[jerseycowsman]

Buy grazing higher covers and leaving higher residuals do your cows still milk aswell

I've been doing this by mistake as I realised last year when I used a plate meter for the first time! My spring calving jerseys are averaging 5800 at 5.3 and 3.9 off 1.2 tonne of cake.
Ours are going in at 3000 kg DM plus and not taking it any lower than 2500. Usually pre now once in May and June to tidy it up

 

[Agrispeed]

Buy grazing higher covers and leaving higher residuals do your cows still milk aswell

I generally go in at (measured) 3000+ and out at 15-1700, but herbal leys are more diverse, so tend to have an understory of clovers and herbs, with chicory, red clover and cocksfoot above.

Doing 3,500l+ off grass, I reckon 4000l+ would be fairly easily achievable.

 

[Hill Dairy]

Buy grazing higher covers and leaving higher residuals do your cows still milk aswell

Yes they do and i would say condition and fertility are better. But we wouldnt be utilising quite as much of the grass as before and do have to do one round of pre mowing mid season.
Its interesting as by leaving a slightly higher residual the regrowth is quicker so in total we may not loose so much total production.

 

[Hill Dairy]

Currently sequestering around 3kg carbon per l produced, but I reckon that will probably end up around 1.5-2 as we can produce a lot more off the farm than previously thought. The system has doubled OM in grass fields in the last 10 years, including reseeding in that period. We now have several fields in the high teens, bordering on 20%.

Most of the grazing block and a fair proportion of the cutting ground is in herbal leys now. The management is a but different but they are incredibly productive - 75-100KG/Ha/day growth is fairly usual and they are much better in summer and the autumn than a ryegrass based ley.

I'm quite keen on multi-species cover crops for winter grazing. I've been talking to cotswold seeds (expensive, but they do know their stuff) and I reckon I've worked out a pretty good mix to have a go with in late summer, with 13 different species, including clovers, grasses, brassicas and cereals. One day I hope to be able to work out a system where I can milk over winter without housing.

This is what im talking about. Keep on with the good work, how long do you expect your herbal lays to last. Which species do you use in your summer grazing mixes?
How did you calculate your sequensing figure? Do you know how much carbon is emitted per l produced on you low input system? I.e. ( How much of a carbon negetive system are you?)

 

[Hill Dairy]

Does anyone have figers for higher input systems where lots of slurry is being applyed to silage ground how much of the inported feeds (carbon) are sequesed into the soils on these farms do you end up with very high soil om as well or is it taken off again?

 

[Agrispeed]

This is what im talking about. Keep on with the good work, how long do you expect your herbal lays to last. Which species do you use in your summer grazing mixes?
How did you calculate your sequensing figure? Do you know how much carbon is emitted per l produced on you low input system? I.e. ( How much of a carbon negetive system are you?)

Thanks

The oldest herbal ley was planted in 2004, and is starting to look a bit ropey now, although a lot of the hens became more dominant in the dry summer this year. Our current mix is one we have developed after growing various standard ones and seeing what worked, there can be quite a saving once you find out what herbs do wet or not on your land as they tend to be the most expensive part of the mix. We keep adding more cocksfoot and chicory to the mix, but haven't found out what is too much yet. We no longer put ryegrass in, but we don't need the early growth due to our calving pattern. I will have to look up the specific mixtures though.

We do soil testing and paper based auditing to reach our figures, the two do tally reasonably well, but there can be quite a variation on the soil testing between fields. We are currently part of a project that is measuring 30m grids on OM, Soil carbon, soil quality and how they move over a few years, which should help give us a better idea of how management effects this.

Our figure of 3kg/l is inclusive of emissions, but as I said this will likely drop.


This is our newest herbal ley, established autumn 2016. Picture from early June last year. Cows were doing 18l+ OAD at this point.

 

[Homesy]

Thanks

The oldest herbal ley was planted in 2004, and is starting to look a bit ropey now, although a lot of the hens became more dominant in the dry summer this year. Our current mix is one we have developed after growing various standard ones and seeing what worked, there can be quite a saving once you find out what herbs do wet or not on your land as they tend to be the most expensive part of the mix. We keep adding more cocksfoot and chicory to the mix, but haven't found out what is too much yet. We no longer put ryegrass in, but we don't need the early growth due to our calving pattern. I will have to look up the specific mixtures though.

We do soil testing and paper based auditing to reach our figures, the two do tally reasonably well, but there can be quite a variation on the soil testing between fields. We are currently part of a project that is measuring 30m grids on OM, Soil carbon, soil quality and how they move over a few years, which should help give us a better idea of how management effects this.

Our figure of 3kg/l is inclusive of emissions, but as I said this will likely drop.


This is our newest herbal ley, established autumn 2016. Picture from early June last year. Cows were doing 18l+ OAD at this point.

I'm wanting to do something like this but how do you plant these leys under a no till regime. Once you plough it releases all the carbon as well as destroying the soil structure. I've tried an Aitchison and a Wox but not overly impressed with either.

 

[In the pit]

I've been doing this by mistake as I realised last year when I used a plate meter for the first time! My spring calving jerseys are averaging 5800 at 5.3 and 3.9 off 1.2 tonne of cake.
Ours are going in at 3000 kg DM plus and not taking it any lower than 2500. Usually pre now once in May and June to tidy it up

I normally go into covers of 2800/2900 and take them down to 1500/1700
If I go into covers of more than 3000 the cows don't milk aswell but I wonder if it's because I'm trying to get the covers down to 1500 rather than pulling out at 1700/1800

 

[jerseycowsman]

I normally go into covers of 2800/2900 and take them down to 1500/1700
If I go into covers of more than 3000 the cows don't milk aswell but I wonder if it's because I'm trying to get the covers down to 1500 rather than pulling out at 1700/1800

It's a hell of a balancing act between loosing milk yield as forcing the cows to eat it down, or loosing grass quality as maybe not eating it down properly. But I view it as being easier to reset the grass quality with a bit of pre mowing

 

[vantage]

It's a hell of a balancing act between loosing milk yield as forcing the cows to eat it down, or loosing grass quality as maybe not eating it down properly. But I view it as being easier to reset the grass quality with a bit of pre mowing

Agree with that,but a grazing purist may not,indeed in my group some see pre mowing as uneccesary,even an admission of failure!

 

[Hill Dairy]

Our figure of 3kg/l is inclusive of emissions

Thats a brilliant news story for our industry the more of us who can say we are net carbon importers the better.

 

[Agrispeed]

I'm wanting to do something like this but how do you plant these leys under a no till regime. Once you plough it releases all the carbon as well as destroying the soil structure. I've tried an Aitchison and a Wox but not overly impressed with either.

I've never tried to establish herbal leys thought DD. Ploughing does release carbon, but Rothamstead discovered it releases a lot less (less than 1/3 from memory) if there is legumes sown in the mix afterwards. Ploughing to establish a long term ley does seem justifiable to me, but we would plough less than once every 10 years. I've moved to a plough-rye - DD brassica - Mintiled grass rotation to get more productivity from less ploughing. I will probably be adding some more diversity into those crops though.

 

[Agrispeed]

Thats a brilliant news story for our industry the more of us who can say we are net carbon importers the better.

Importing carbon is building organic matter, and eventually soil, so it's win-win.

Someone estimated that we have gained something like 1.5mm of soil, (not including having fluffier -an actual scientific term- soil due to better condition) so every year we have more of our most important resource.