Pasture, Soil and Vegetarianism Info

[davieh3350]

That is what the aim is here once I get a turner made.
Went to see a fella not too far away doing exactly as you describe - rows about 300 metres long and covered with breatheable covers not much unlike what you guys would call landscape mat?
The turner they had was like a mower conditioner, minus the cutterbar, and they would crawl down the row at very slow speed aerating it whenever the temperatures got above 65° to prevent cooking the microbes. Sometimes added water via a tanker as well.

I have a vision of making my own machine with a truck diff as a gearbox, and some heavy steel pipe like a culvert, when I can find a length to suit.
The paddles ideally almost skim the ground and direct it inwards to keep the pile in a pyramid.
I knew I wouldn't get a chance for the first couple of years so used some pea straw to hopefully have a higher N for a starting point to mitigate the losses will put the fresher manure from this muckout into a row and then put the older heap on top, as I have some used bits of silage sheet to help cover it this time the older manure has composted relatively well but I really want to make the most of it, add some other goodies and get it out before it loses its zing
I leave mine indoors until it is almost completely dry before mucking out in the autumn, it doesn't overheat this way.

Too complicated. An old beast of a 360 with a forward facing dung grape (like a face shovel) pick it up and shake it out on the ground to the side of you. You still get the workshop project to build the grape

 

[davieh3350]

@Farmer Roy had a neat design for a composting reactor that had some good points - breathes all the way around, and had half a dozen tubes going in which were carefully removed once the thing was stacked up.
I thought of the bodgeineers and baleage wrap tubes, would be a way to increase aeration.
Also you could put down a big row of unusable straw/hay as a base for the pile?

Branches less than the thickness of your thumb a foot deep is what frank Newman turner used.
Feed the cows in a corner of a field on a big mat of straw then use that. I used to do that, but then failed to make the best use of the muck by just piling it up.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

like this but without all the glitz and wheels and crap.

 

[davieh3350]

View attachment 647350 like this but without all the glitz and wheels and crap.

Ah, I had visions of a muckle big beast of a thing. Still looks complicated and only (very effective looking) good for turning compost.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

would make a mess of your rushes Davie

 

[davieh3350]

would make a mess of your rushes Davie

360's getting the drains fixed, then it'll load the well broken down (not rotted) muck into the spreader, which will get spread into the rushy parts, which will then disappear as the soil is dry and can breathe, then it'll get cut for hay and the bales stacked using the same 360 into the hay shed.

I win!!!!

 

[hendrebc]

I think @holwellcourtfarm has hit the nail on the head there. Fsrmers have been encoursged to blanket treat for everything vecsuse it makes money for big ag companies. Everything revolves around money and there isnt any inputs being used there is no money being spent and the shareholders lose out. Cant have that can we lets invent a new spray/injection/fertilizer that all fsrmers need to fix a problem and sell it to them. Then when it causes other problems further down the line we can invent something else and sell that to them. Its going to f**k everything up but who cares were making money

Ive been trying to get a big 360 in to tuurn muck over for a while but its i usually dump it at the top of a hill then anything that leaches out at least flows down the field.. or thats the theory anyway dont pile it up just leave it in the heaps as it came from the trailer. Not ideal but better than a big pile on concrete like we used to do.

 

[Muddyroads]

View attachment 647350 like this but without all the glitz and wheels and crap.

I used to use a rear beater spreader with a modified cowl on the sides and top for turning windrows when I was trying some worm farming. The local donkey farm used to do much the same thing for a while, very effectively. It now just goes off to an AD plant instead.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I used to use a rear beater spreader with a modified cowl on the sides and top for turning windrows when I was trying some worm farming. The local donkey farm used to do much the same thing for a while, very effectively. It now just goes off to an AD plant instead.

That would be really effective, I was thinking chain flails like the old side delivery muckspreaders used, off a modified Bedford diff, with a small ram to adjust the angle..
sounds dangerous, I simply have to do it

 

[Barleycorn]

A few good books to read are
Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner.

Farming And Gardening For Health Or Disease by Sir Albert Howard

The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour (not finished it yet)

If anyone hasn't found it the 'Soil and Health Library' ( https://soilandhealth.org/ ) is an excellent resource and contains many similar books, but not Newman Turner's as they have been republished by ACRES.

 

[Old McDonald]

A few good books to read are
Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner.

Farming And Gardening For Health Or Disease by Sir Albert Howard

The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour (not finished it yet)

Read them all at least twice, and dipped in on many other occasions. All highly recommended, also the rest of Howard's books and Rayner's (forget the title) but something along the lines of "trees and toadstools" .

The link @Barleycorn gave also has many more informative and interesting works and I have downloaded quite a few over the years.

The following extracts (spread about in something I once published) are worth bearing in mind before reading the books you listed; or before you read the books a second time:

I have seen it stated that inorganic fertilisers can never produce any humus. One million tons of artificials will not add one ounce of humus according to Friend Sykes in Humus and the Farmer. But if you use inorganic fertilisers to grow a crop, that crop always leaves a residue of roots and usually some top growth too. These residues are either already in or become incorporated into the soil. Therefore the fertilisers have produced OM in the soil, part of which will become humus so inorganic fertilisers always produce humus.

I will not go so far as Sir Albert Howard whose composting method became known as the Indore system after the place in India where he developed it. He decided that properly made compost, that is some animal manure but with much more vegetable matter than is normal in FYM (extra vegetation being brought onto the farm from other land) and made into compost in accordance with specific directions, then used to grow crops and grass that were in turn fed to people and animals, produced specimens that were more or less immune to all diseases. He also held the opinion that if the animal manure was missing and only vegetable material composted, the crops grown with it were more susceptible than usual to disease. I do not know what he thought happened to the animals and people who consume those crops; presumably they succumb very quickly too, but I cannot accept either of his theories.

The people who followed Howard’s Indore system sometimes reckoned 5 tons an acre was sufficient. I think they were wrong, and Howard himself was in favour of using a lot more, because in a quotation, obtained in a convoluted way from Newman Turner’s Fertility Farming, referring to a letter by Howard in a 1946 edition of The Farmer and Stockbreeder, Howard gave some advice on growing field beans and said they needed at least 20 tons to the acre of properly made compost or good short muck.

One writer from the 1940s and early 50s, and who also considered the importation of nutrients to be essential was F. Newman Turner. In Fertility Farming he said that every time you sent a vehicle into town it should return with sewage sludge, sawdust (these two were the main components of his compost heaps) wood shavings, vegetable waste from greengrocers, or even old hessian sacks, all of which he used in his compost, making it in the Indore style. Turner was self-sufficient in feed, growing cereals, and his own protein sources through beans and comfrey, but brought in a lot of the raw materials to build his huge compost heaps that provided the food for some of his soil. A talented man Mr. Turner. He was a Consultant to the Society of Medical Herbalists and did a lot of work with farm animals and humans – apparently clearing up a Vitamin B12 deficiency in some vegan patients through the use of comfrey tablets.

It would appear from Newman Turner’s book that despite his great efforts he was unable to make sufficient compost to supply all his 180 acres. My experience concurs with his.

Even Lady Eve Balfour in her book The Living Soil went so far as to suggest that the plant nutrients in the subsoil “are to all intents and purposes inexhaustible” and Friend Sykes claimed that the seven elements he thought essential for plant growth were in “unlimited quantities” and also referred to the “inexhaustible supply” in the soil, saying we did not need to apply them, but merely have to make them available to the plants.

Lady Eve was firmly of the opinion that organic farming with Indore Compost was the answer, but she was prepared to let her views be tested, realising that other biological farmers were not open minded for she wrote “When they become convinced that their biological approach to the soil is right in the interests of the soil itself, any soil treatment which runs counter to this becomes such heresy to them that they cease to be capable of a detached and purely scientific attitude to the problems involved.”

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://smilingtreefarm.com/blog/carbon-mooooves

 

[Crofter64]

I think @holwellcourtfarm has hit the nail on the head there. Fsrmers have been encoursged to blanket treat for everything vecsuse it makes money for big ag companies. Everything revolves around money and there isnt any inputs being used there is no money being spent and the shareholders lose out. Cant have that can we lets invent a new spray/injection/fertilizer that all fsrmers need to fix a problem and sell it to them. Then when it causes other problems further down the line we can invent something else and sell that to them. Its going to fudge everything up but who cares were making money

Ive been trying to get a big 360 in to tuurn muck over for a while but its i usually dump it at the top of a hill then anything that leaches out at least flows down the field.. or thats the theory anyway dont pile it up just leave it in the heaps as it came from the trailer. Not ideal but better than a big pile on concrete like we used to do.

The cheapest thing of all is to rotationally graze multi species permanent pastures or leys- they you have feed,harvester ,medicine, and muck spreader all in one. However,there is little to buy with this system so big Ag isn’t so keen on it. @Blaithin mentioned earlier how she would like to see work being done on multi species crop seeding and harvesting times. Well , the grass system incorporates that also. Different plants respond to different climactic conditions and either do well or not( for example last year was wet and cold here which favoured timothy which I hadn’t seen that much of in previous years), which means there is always something for the animals to eat, you’re just not sure what. And, as they are doing the harvesting you don’t need specialised machinery.

 

[Crofter64]

Read them all at least twice, and dipped in on many other occasions. All highly recommended, also the rest of Howard's books and Rayner's (forget the title) but something along the lines of "trees and toadstools" .

The link @Barleycorn gave also has many more informative and interesting works and I have downloaded quite a few over the years.

The following extracts (spread about in something I once published) are worth bearing in mind before reading the books you listed; or before you read the books a second time:

I have seen it stated that inorganic fertilisers can never produce any humus. One million tons of artificials will not add one ounce of humus according to Friend Sykes in Humus and the Farmer. But if you use inorganic fertilisers to grow a crop, that crop always leaves a residue of roots and usually some top growth too. These residues are either already in or become incorporated into the soil. Therefore the fertilisers have produced OM in the soil, part of which will become humus so inorganic fertilisers always produce humus.

I will not go so far as Sir Albert Howard whose composting method became known as the Indore system after the place in India where he developed it. He decided that properly made compost, that is some animal manure but with much more vegetable matter than is normal in FYM (extra vegetation being brought onto the farm from other land) and made into compost in accordance with specific directions, then used to grow crops and grass that were in turn fed to people and animals, produced specimens that were more or less immune to all diseases. He also held the opinion that if the animal manure was missing and only vegetable material composted, the crops grown with it were more susceptible than usual to disease. I do not know what he thought happened to the animals and people who consume those crops; presumably they succumb very quickly too, but I cannot accept either of his theories.

The people who followed Howard’s Indore system sometimes reckoned 5 tons an acre was sufficient. I think they were wrong, and Howard himself was in favour of using a lot more, because in a quotation, obtained in a convoluted way from Newman Turner’s Fertility Farming, referring to a letter by Howard in a 1946 edition of The Farmer and Stockbreeder, Howard gave some advice on growing field beans and said they needed at least 20 tons to the acre of properly made compost or good short muck.

One writer from the 1940s and early 50s, and who also considered the importation of nutrients to be essential was F. Newman Turner. In Fertility Farming he said that every time you sent a vehicle into town it should return with sewage sludge, sawdust (these two were the main components of his compost heaps) wood shavings, vegetable waste from greengrocers, or even old hessian sacks, all of which he used in his compost, making it in the Indore style. Turner was self-sufficient in feed, growing cereals, and his own protein sources through beans and comfrey, but brought in a lot of the raw materials to build his huge compost heaps that provided the food for some of his soil. A talented man Mr. Turner. He was a Consultant to the Society of Medical Herbalists and did a lot of work with farm animals and humans – apparently clearing up a Vitamin B12 deficiency in some vegan patients through the use of comfrey tablets.

It would appear from Newman Turner’s book that despite his great efforts he was unable to make sufficient compost to supply all his 180 acres. My experience concurs with his.

Even Lady Eve Balfour in her book The Living Soil went so far as to suggest that the plant nutrients in the subsoil “are to all intents and purposes inexhaustible” and Friend Sykes claimed that the seven elements he thought essential for plant growth were in “unlimited quantities” and also referred to the “inexhaustible supply” in the soil, saying we did not need to apply them, but merely have to make them available to the plants.

Lady Eve was firmly of the opinion that organic farming with Indore Compost was the answer, but she was prepared to let her views be tested, realising that other biological farmers were not open minded for she wrote “When they become convinced that their biological approach to the soil is right in the interests of the soil itself, any soil treatment which runs counter to this becomes such heresy to them that they cease to be capable of a detached and purely scientific attitude to the problems involved.”

Other important books are Andre Voisin ‘s ‘grass productivity’, Edward Faulkner’s ‘Plowman’s Folly’, George Henderson ‘ The Farming Ladder’ I have read many books for free on the ‘ Soil and health Library’ website. It is situated in Australia which has different copyright laws than where I live, apparently. Many english farming books were written after both wars, but especially after world war one, when the British government swore never to ignore Bristish agriculture again( after the food shortages caused by relying on imported feedstuffs which were no longer available) There was renewed interest in farming after the war, you couldn’t buy a farm at any price and there were a lot of good books written. By 1939 England had reverted back to importing lots of food and feed and the neglect began again. After the world war 2 the same promises were made after similar food shortages . However, the reality is that no government , anywhere in the world, seems to understand or care about farming or farmers in their own countries. They just think that farmers in their own countries are a nuisance. Earl Butz the secretary of Agriculture in the States from 1971-76 is the one who told farmers’ get big or get out’. Rural People, land, soil, community or landscape didn’t matter to him or to most ministers of Agriculture anywhere.The foot and mouth business in Britain showed a huge disrespect towards farmers whatever the government says .Everyone seems to be an expert telling the farmer what to do- the banker, the feriliser salesman, the seed merchant, the machinery dealer, the vet, the government, the accountant- but the farmer is the only one who actually FEEDs people and, although I have asked many people, I have yet to find one who doesn’t eat. The farmer is the only one who seems to have no voice and fewer and fewer chances to do what he knows, or feels, or surmises or guesses might be right- ‘cause farming is as much an art as a science, but everyone seems to be pushing the science part and the ‘biy this’ part. . I like to go out into my fields or barn and just watch. I get a lot of understanding of what is going on or should happen from doing nothing but observe Unfortunately for the big players you can’t pelletise observation and common sense.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Other important books are Andre Voisin ‘s ‘grass productivity’, Edward Faulkner’s ‘Plowman’s Folly’, George Henderson ‘ The Farming Ladder’ I have read many books for free on the ‘ Soil and health Library’ website. It is situated in Australia which has different copyright laws than where I live, apparently. Many english farming books were written after both wars, but especially after world war one, when the British government swore never to ignore Bristish agriculture again( after the food shortages caused by relying on imported feedstuffs which were no longer available) There was renewed interest in farming after the war, you couldn’t buy a farm at any price and there were a lot of good books written. By 1939 England had reverted back to importing lots of food and feed and the neglect began again. After the world war 2 the same promises were made after similar food shortages . However, the reality is that no government , anywhere in the world, seems to understand or care about farming or farmers in their own countries. They just think that farmers in their own countries are a nuisance. Earl Butz the secretary of Agriculture in the States from 1971-76 is the one who told farmers’ get big or get out’. Rural People, land, soil, community or landscape didn’t matter to him or to most ministers of Agriculture anywhere.The foot and mouth business in Britain showed a huge disrespect towards farmers whatever the government says .Everyone seems to be an expert telling the farmer what to do- the banker, the feriliser salesman, the seed merchant, the machinery dealer, the vet, the government, the accountant- but the farmer is the only one who actually FEEDs people and, although I have asked many people, I have yet to find one who doesn’t eat. The farmer is the only one who seems to have no voice and fewer and fewer chances to do what he knows, or feels, or surmises or guesses might be right- ‘cause farming is as much an art as a science, but everyone seems to be pushing the science part and the ‘biy this’ part. . I like to go out into my fields or barn and just watch. I get a lot of understanding of what is going on or should happen from doing nothing but observe Unfortunately for the big players you can’t pelletise observation and common sense.

sh!t that was a good post

 

[Cece]

Great posts.

Like OldMcdonald said about Howard not having enough compost, Elliot (I think)said the deep rooters do the rest...

 

[Old McDonald]

The cheapest thing of all is to rotationally graze multi species permanent pastures or leys- they you have feed,harvester ,medicine, and muck spreader all in one. However,there is little to buy with this system so big Ag isn’t so keen on it

Great posts.

Like OldMcdonald said about Howard not having enough compost, Elliot (I think)said the deep rooters do the rest...

@Crofter64 and @Cece Absolutely delighted to read from people on the same wavelength (as the saying goes) as myself. Elliott's "The Clifton Park System of Farming and laying down land to grass" is a must read for you Crofter64. And yes, Cece, he does indeed say that in Ch.2. The book is available from S&H and journeytoforever.org

On this same subject I would also recommend "30 years' farming on the Clifton Park System" by Lamin. I downloaded this from S&H too.

 

[Cece]

Yes I must get to Lamins too eventually.

 

[ginger007]

I must disagree with the notion that we cannot sustain ourselves with solely the nutrients from plants. I've been a veggie my entire life and I'm still alive and healthy! (I'm also a beef farmer before anyone panics. Yes I am very much a contradiction). I do agree that gut flora is crucial and of course no creature on the planet can digest any sort of food without a colony of bacteria in their gut. But healthy gut flora can be built up from many many different sources.

From being on both sides (farming and veggie/veganism) I believe there's a problem with propaganda and lack of education. The two sides rarely meet. Vegan propaganda and scare tactics are almost always untrue and create a huge amount of offense and mistrust between the farming community. It's incredibly upsetting to be accused of abusing animals when your whole live revolves around them. Equally I've known many farmers who assume all veggies/vegans are raving militant hippies who wear hemp and live off kale. I show pedigree beef cattle and wear wellies and overalls so that's not always true.

I wish there was a constructive way of the two groups learning about each other without it descending into a battle between pitchforks and avocados.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I must disagree with the notion that we cannot sustain ourselves with solely the nutrients from plants. I've been a veggie my entire life and I'm still alive and healthy! (I'm also a beef farmer before anyone panics. Yes I am very much a contradiction). I do agree that gut flora is crucial and of course no creature on the planet can digest any sort of food without a colony of bacteria in their gut. But healthy gut flora can be built up from many many different sources.

From being on both sides (farming and veggie/veganism) I believe there's a problem with propaganda and lack of education. The two sides rarely meet. Vegan propaganda and scare tactics are almost always untrue and create a huge amount of offense and mistrust between the farming community. It's incredibly upsetting to be accused of abusing animals when your whole live revolves around them. Equally I've known many farmers who assume all veggies/vegans are raving militant hippies who wear hemp and live off kale. I show pedigree beef cattle and wear wellies and overalls so that's not always true.

I wish there was a constructive way of the two groups learning about each other without it descending into a battle between pitchforks and avocados.

I have respect for folk who choose to lead a life of vegetarianism so long as they respect my choices.

The argument is with those saying the current human population can be easily fed without livestock. Too much of the farmed planet is unsuitable or inappropriate for crop production for that (especially the virgin rainforests being felled to grow palm oil etc).