No worms in DD land

[delilah]

I heard that the huge amounts of compost applied are affecting the number of worms in a bad way

'Compost' covers a multitude of sins. Many will use the word to include sewage sludge, with the micro-plastics in it knocking worms out as they have to work harder to pass the plastic through their body.

 

[shakerator]

When i was doing some soil samples i took some from a neighbouring deciduous woodland that has had hundreds of years of leaf litter, thought it would be interesting. Results were pH was lowest of lot, and so were P/K indices! There were also virtually no worms in the top 6 inches. I believe fungi do most of the nutrient cycling in woodlands?

 

[Bury the Trash]

Probably should post this under the DD categories but felt it may not be viewed by non DD folk.

Been soil sampling on a couple of large direct drilled farms recently and consequently dug a lot of holes. One of the farms was about 1200 acres, been direct drilling for about 15 years. Stubbles looked very poor, ground like concrete but what I noticed was hardly any worms. Probably saw 5 in the 600 holes I dug.
Another DD farm was a very similar picture but for the first time this year they've done some heavy cultivations and a bit of ploughing on some blocks.

Tested about 200 acres on a farm the same week, who plough every field, every year and nearly every time I dug a hole, I saw a worm or accidentally cut it in half.
Comparing the soils, I know which one I'd prefer to be a worm in.

Worms like moisture.


The waterproof cap on that direct drilled ground would keep out all but the heaviest of rainfall.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Lots of soils don't have worms. Native American souls had none.

 

[Bury the Trash]

And anyway It s the Micorrhyzal fungi one needs ....and they, ...well they are a bit harder to see

 

[farmerm]

I think regenerative type farming methods, or lots of muck if you can get it or preferably both. We are trying to make them better with chicken muck, no till, cover/catch/companion crops CTF etc and reducing the amount of fert and Chem we use but it’s a long term thing really. Dad has always used chicken muck and whatever else he could get so ours have never been in really bad shape but we have a couple of contract farms that really need improving.

There is not enough muck to go round is there... more muck requires more livestock which requires more land to produce more feed and more bedding....

 

[farmerm]

And anyway It s the Micorrhyzal fungi one needs ....and they, ...well they are a bit harder to see

I can see mine in the grass.... they show up as large green, lush cirular outlines.... when conditions are right they produce a nice crop of mushrooms, harvested several kilo from a few sites this year! if we can just work out how encouraged them to spread out evenly across the field in both grass and arable situations...

 

[farmerm]

I believe slug pellets have been a major fact in the decline of worm numbers on many farms. I know by what I see around our us. We have used very few over the last 20yrs . Even on potatoes. We have more worms than ever. Manure. chopped straw. Cc . All help.

Have hardly used a bag of pellets here in the last 10 years so if it is pellets the residual damage is long term...

 

[ollie989898]

I will be shot down for saying this, I always thought glyphosate used repeatedly in a season has some effect on worm populations. I have no scientific evidence to back up my thoughts it was just my observations when I used to be farming.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the metabolites of break down products from many pesticides eventually have an effect on soil life somehow.

 

[farmerm]

I have no doubt whatsoever that the metabolites of break down products from many pesticides eventually have an effect on soil life somehow.

so fudged if we use them and fudged if we dont

 

[ollie989898]

Also on the digestate front, someone who spoke at the base conference a few years ago said that anything over 20 cube nuked all the earthworms

I have seen massive worm deaths after hefty applications of digestate.

 

[som farmer]

back in early apr, started drilling forage rape, 2/3 acres a time, in one field. First 2 blocks ploughed, p/h drilled, 3rd, deep tine, p/h drilled, last, d/d, over than slow growth, due to drought, first 3 blocks, fine, the other very very slow.
been working the ground again, the ploughed, and tined, fine, the d/d, hard as nails, and a job to get the tines, seagulls happy on the first, not present on the last, suggests some thing.

 

[ollie989898]

so fudged if we use them and fudged if we dont

Well, as someone else pointed out in another thread, there is a sizeable human population on Earth and they all want to be fed something. We are kind of stuck with using pesticides and fertilisers. The bulk (all??? these days?) of agrochemicals are based on organic chemistry and we know soil fauna can consume and eat organic molecules over time (even crude oil if you wait long enough) so it's probable that soils can clean themselves up in time.

Of course, the impact on soils of you using a multitude of fungicides and getting 10 tonnes of wheat from it is possibly comparable or better to someone growing a crop in Kazakhstan and only getting 0.5 tonne, I don't know. Also consider how cotton, rice or corn are grown in other parts of the world, is the yield and environmental impact comparable, better or worse? I don't think the work has been done yet.

Be easier to let the human population gently decline in time, in many Western countries we are already below replacement rates, and even second and third world countries are changing. Get down to 4 billion people and it would be a lot easier to fathom out.

 

[ajd132]

Loads of gulls after no tilling here the other day however we havnt been doing it that long so it could be that the soil is still in a transition phase? If it goes down like a road then we would flatlift it.
seems good so far though but some fields definitely don’t take to it aswell as others. On another farm I have observed repeated spring crops really not helping matters, and I have observed this year how much better fettle the soil is in after a winter crop compared to a spring (even a good yielding spring crop)

 

[som farmer]

Well, as someone else pointed out in another thread, there is a sizeable human population on Earth and they all want to be fed something. We are kind of stuck with using pesticides and fertilisers. The bulk (all??? these days?) of agrochemicals are based on organic chemistry and we know soil fauna can consume and eat organic molecules over time (even crude oil if you wait long enough) so it's probable that soils can clean themselves up in time.

Of course, the impact on soils of you using a multitude of fungicides and getting 10 tonnes of wheat from it is possibly comparable or better to someone growing a crop in Kazakhstan and only getting 0.5 tonne, I don't know. Also consider how cotton, rice or corn are grown in other parts of the world, is the yield and environmental impact comparable, better or worse? I don't think the work has been done yet.

Be easier to let the human population gently decline in time, in many Western countries we are already below replacement rates, and even second and third world countries are changing. Get down to 4 billion people and it would be a lot easier to fathom out.

things might change, when reality creeps in, man cannot survive without farmers, i fear, at the moment, many think they can, 30 years ago, we were told, we would be unable to feed the world pop, by 2025, now it's, 2040, nearly 1/2 the worlds population, survive on restricted diet, now. And, yet the other 1/2, tell us we shouldn't be allowed to use, the artificial products, we need, to feed them.

 

[Cowabunga]

Worms like moisture.


The waterproof cap on that direct drilled ground would keep out all but the heaviest of rainfall.

If that is true, it must also be true that such land contributes significantly to flash flooding and river overflows.

 

[Scholsey]

back in early apr, started drilling forage rape, 2/3 acres a time, in one field. First 2 blocks ploughed, p/h drilled, 3rd, deep tine, p/h drilled, last, d/d, over than slow growth, due to drought, first 3 blocks, fine, the other very very slow.
been working the ground again, the ploughed, and tined, fine, the d/d, hard as nails, and a job to get the tines, seagulls happy on the first, not present on the last, suggests some thing.

Your next for the glyphosate waterboarding

 

[robbie]

Reading this thread and thinking about my own little lot, two things spring to mind.

A wise ole boy once said "it doesnt matter what land you've got boy, theres no substitute for a#se holes to the acre" and the other thing I think about when debating the merits of whether to plough or not is that would the farmers of yesteryear have spent all day walking along stareing at a horses a#se to plough an acre if it wasnt necessary and they could have just popped a seed direct into the ground and got a crop.[emoji848]

I plough and deep till but also grow covers and use loads of muck. I've been ploughing countless times when me and my nieghbours have been ploughing either side of the hedge. I have thousands of gulls following and they will have non the difference is they farm out of the bag only.
My aim is to plough in or incorporate some sort of OM atleast ever 2 out of 3 years.

 

[Grass And Grain]

I have no doubt whatsoever that the metabolites of break down products from many pesticides eventually have an effect on soil life somehow.

Mycorrhizal fungi expert boffin from Rothamstead (i think it was) spoke at a meeting I attended last year. He said their trials showed that fungicides had no effects at all on the mycorrhizal populations.

 

[SilliamWhale]

If that is true, it must also be true that such land contributes significantly to flash flooding and river overflows.

Easy to test water holding capacity