Regenerative Agriculture

[CornishTone]

I haven’t seen a stubble cruncher or crimp roller being used over here. There are several who use prickle chains or disc chains to knock down/chop up long or tough stubble but for the most part knife point and press wheel seeders will cope with most “normal” stubble loads. If it saves a pass over the field most wont bother unless absolutely necessary.

There does seem to be a few going round with what are being termed “Speed Tillers” this year. Couple rows of shallow discs with a D ring roller on the back. They pull them at about 25kph, produce vast clouds of dust and leaves a level, partially tilled seed bed. Personally I’m not sure what they are achieving over other methods, especially in the dry state things are in at the moment. One grower in particular has run it over the entire farm. Took him a bout 3 weeks and an awful lot of diesel!

 

[Farmer Roy]

I have a "speed tiller"
I agree pretty much with everything you say @CornishTone
I bought it for chopping up sunflower stalks originally & for contracting.
In the right conditions it can do a great job, but a lot of the time ( I have to admit I prostitute myself & take the money if that is what people want to do ) it just makes a lot of dust . . .
Also not really a fan of the heavy disc chains, they can pack the soil hard, create a lot of dust & in the case of sunflower stalks, they seem to work their way through with little impact . . .

My speed tiller, I have set up with seed spreader plates behind the discs, in front of the roller ( in conjunction with my front mounted airseeder bin on tractor ) to potentially use for seeding pastures etc - haven't proven it yet though, hasn't really rained for what seems like a year . . .

If I ever get my vetch planted after cotton picking ( I just noticed today some f u king Tick faced sh!t k unt was chasing pigs through my cotton & driving through it. K unt. ) I was going to try it at shallowest setting with all the weight on the roller, to see how effective it is to terminate the cover

 

[CornishTone]

If I ever get my vetch planted after cotton picking ( I just noticed today some f u king Tick faced sh!t k unt was chasing pigs through my cotton & driving through it. K unt. ) I was going to try it at shallowest setting with all the weight on the roller, to see how effective it is to terminate the cover

If only you could catch them in the act ay?!

I remember you showing pics of it now... sorry, didn’t mean to be quite so disparaging! :cheeky:

 

[Farmer Roy]

I remember you showing pics of it now... sorry, didn’t mean to be quite so disparaging! :cheeky:

Haha - no worries. I agree with everything you said about them. They work good in the right conditions, but a lot of time you're better of leaving them parked up

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I was going to get pictures of some beet this afternoon but chose a nap instead, sorry Cornish Tone

But here is an interesting comparison of how pasture productivity can be improved by subdivision and heavy trampling.

This paddock, been grazed as a whole paddock each grazing this year, 3 year old pasture, weedwiped with salt last month and has grown like this:

fairly average light conditions but still quite open, patchy, because they were undersown under oats they never really got to properly cover the soil.
Second paddock, sown, grazed, weedwiped and subsequently grazed the same days... BUT... was deferred around xmas time and strip grazed with bulls (about the beginning of the thread)

not hard to see the effects of daily shifts and hoofs!

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Err, " stubble crunchers " were popular here especially for smashing up canola stubble prior to planting wheat or similar narrow row spacing crops. In the right conditions ( hot, dry, brittle stubble ) they broke the stubble into short lengths and allowed " conventional " planting equipment to plant into the stubble without too many problems.

Standing stubble. DEFINITELY easier to plant into standing stubble as opposed to stubble flat on the ground. Standing stubble does provide reasonable ground cover, shelter from winds & evaporation & also allows pathways for rain to infiltrate the soil, but from a soil biology point of view, doesn't add much apart from the physical benefits listed above. All of that standing plant material eventually just oxidises, rather than adding much carbon to the soil. By knocking stubble flat, in contact with the soil & causing some physical damage to the stubble allowing easier access for the microbes & moisture, it does speed up the decomposition process & add to the carbon flow.
The cover breaking down quickly probably isn't an issue depending on the frequency of your planting / Cropping rotation, as you will be growing more cover

Yes, flat stubble creates more issues with planting, but not insurmountable.

Hope I've answered ?

Oh yes, stubble crunchers are also good on crops like sunflowers, which leave very long, tough stalks which are a bit of a nightmare

The contract job i did recently was sowing shaftal clover into standing canola stubble. I found my narrower spacing 6.5 inches as opposed to there 10 inch allowed my gauge wheels to pretty well flatten the stubble without hindering the boots from hair pinning. If you want to knock it down and disc seed into it as opposed to points i would consider these

He's just up the road from me

 

[Kevtherev]

Thanks for the tag @Kiwi Pete
As you know I’m full of similar ideas to yourself
Wrong thread
Damn fag packets

 

[Farmer Roy]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10156388591750815

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I'm working my way through this, slowly

Thoroughly recommended reading @Blaithin if you haven't already.

This paragraph immediately made me think of @Kiwi Pete and smile

 

[Kevtherev]

I'm working my way through this, slowly

View attachment 653500

Thoroughly recommended reading @Blaithin if you haven't already.

This paragraph immediately made me think of @Kiwi Pete and smile

View attachment 653502

Pete is the messiah

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Pete is the messiah
View attachment 653512

Well, he did rise again after several car related near death experiences in his younger days

 

[T Bourne]

Hi guys I've posted a couple of pics of the legacy of cultivation over on my thread, a combination of soil movement due to cultivation and erosion has left a drop of about 1.5 metres from one side of the fence to the other. It's not the worst I've seen, in one paddock the soil level on the top side of the fence was eye level, while sitting in a 7720 JD! Irreparable damage.

Well, we've had nearly 60mm of rain on the crops I drilled and they are looking a treat. We're digging spuds flat out at the moment and I can't help but feel bad about the damage that is being done to the paddock's. It's kinda a one way street where we accept a degree of degradation as inevitable. Here's the legacy of decades of cultivation. If it's not obvious there is a difference of soil height either side of the fence of about a meter and a half due to soil working down the hill.View attachment 653708 View attachment 653710 It certainly encourages me to do the best I can to regenerate my farm. Cheers.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I'm working my way through this, slowly

View attachment 653500

Thoroughly recommended reading @Blaithin if you haven't already.

This paragraph immediately made me think of @Kiwi Pete and smile

View attachment 653502

I need to get reading, as has been said a book club would be a great thing

An excerpt from Doug Avery's book, "The Resilient Farmer":
' Doug, did you know you can train a flea?'
'No, I had no idea you could'
'A flea can jump 100 times his own height'....'imagine if we could'

'You can put a flea in a bowl and cover it with clear plastic wrap' he said.
'The flea will jump and hit the clear wrap. He will jump again, and again, and after a while he will stop, never to try again. He has learnt that jumping can no longer create a result, so he has given up.
You can remove the wrap and the flea will never try to jump out.'

'Fleas are like people - so many of us try things and give up because we hit the same ceiling.Those who win give that jump another go. When they're sitting in the bottom of the bowl, they are planning and plotting.. maybe one day the ceiling will change, they think.
They get ready for that possibility.'

 

[phillipe]

I need to get reading, as has been said a book club would be a great thing

An excerpt from Doug Avery's book, "The Resilient Farmer":
' Doug, did you know you can train a flea?'
'No, I had no idea you could'
'A flea can jump 100 times his own height'....'imagine if we could'

'You can put a flea in a bowl and cover it with clear plastic wrap' he said.
'The flea will jump and hit the clear wrap. He will jump again, and again, and after a while he will stop, never to try again. He has learnt that jumping can no longer create a result, so he has given up.
You can remove the wrap and the flea will never try to jump out.'

'Fleas are like people - so many of us try things and give up because we hit the same ceiling.Those who win give that jump another go. When they're sitting in the bottom of the bowl, they are planning and plotting.. maybe one day the ceiling will change, they think.
They get ready for that possibility.'

Getting a bit deep there pedro ,good but deep,
Me its always move forward never back

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Getting a bit deep there pedro ,good but deep,
Me its always move forward never back

I see the same thing often, on here;
..... why I can't try rotational grazing because I don't have enough grass,
.....why I can't put away the plough because the soil gets so wet...

All these reasons why things cannot be any different to yesterday, in short many farmers have tried ' one new thing too many, ' and have learnt that trying brings no new results so they stop looking.

Perhaps they cannot see the problem because it is inside them, behind their eyes and between their ears lies the only real obstacle?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I see the same thing often, on here;
..... why I can't try rotational grazing because I don't have enough grass,
.....why I can't put away the plough because the soil gets so wet...

All these reasons why things cannot be any different to yesterday, in short many farmers have tried ' one new thing too many, ' and have learnt that trying brings no new results so they stop looking.

Perhaps they cannot see the problem because it is inside them, behind their eyes and between their ears lies the only real obstacle?

Also, when you try something and it doesn't work as you expected (most of the time) the reason isn't necessarily what you assume it to be. Don't give up after one try, think about what you did and what could have caused it to fail.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Also, when you try something and it doesn't work as you expected (most of the time) the reason isn't necessarily what you assume it to be. Don't give up after one try, think about what you did and what could have caused it to fail.

Yep, neatly sums things up.
We cannot change so many things about life, but we can always adapt how we react to those hurdles it is much more proactive to be ready than to will the weather or economics to change - how many times do you hear farmers bitching about low prices, when those prices are possibly the highest in the world?

They possibly haven't changed their system far from when inputs and labour was cheap.

 

[phillipe]

Yep, neatly sums things up.
We cannot change so many things about life, but we can always adapt how we react to those hurdles it is much more proactive to be ready than to will the weather or economics will change - how many times do you hear farmers bitching about low prices, when those prices are possibly the highest in the world?

They possibly haven't changed their system far from when inputs and labour was cheap.

But how many keep on doing the same thing every year,and every year they only just get by ,too scared too try something different,i try to learn something new everyday.i am a builder and i have tryed many new products and methods,but 8 times out of 10 we go back to the way we always done it because it worked ,we have improved it but it works ,some of these new techniques will not last a couple of hundred years ,so sometiMes the old way is the better way

 

[Kiwi Pete]

But how many keep on doing the same thing every year,and every year they only just get by ,too scared too try something different,i try to learn something new everyday.i am a builder and i have tryed many new products and methods,but 8 times out of 10 we go back to the way we always done it because it worked ,we have improved it but it works ,some of these new techniques will not last a couple of hundred years ,so sometiMes the old way is the better way

Totally agree, in farming terms it is only in the last blink of an eye it got truly unrealistic and unsustainable- many many of the answers lie not so long ago (in terms of what we can do without:

Many acres bare today, and yet farmers can't work out how they can be more efficient at capturing sunlight

In building terms the foundations and framing simply don't need much adaptation if there was nothing wrong with them in the first place, the same could be said for soil.. or landscapes in general.

If you removed the framework or foundations of every house in a village it is a disaster for that community
and if you remove the structure or plants from the soil it struggles to be a good community for the same reasons - habitat destruction

Some things just don't need broken apart.
Food generation in the future will have to rely on much greater permanence, because we don't have the stored energy left to persue this broken model of the present.

Most still carry on for the day, not the future, so much

 

[phillipe]

Totally agree, in farming terms it is only in the last blink of an eye it got truly unrealistic and unsustainable- many many of the answers lie not so long ago (in terms of what we can do without:

Many acres bare today, and yet farmers can't work out how they can be more efficient at capturing sunlight

In building terms the foundations and framing simply don't need much adaptation if there was nothing wrong with them in the first place, the same could be said for soil.. or landscapes in general.

If you removed the framework or foundations of every house in a village it is a disaster for that community
and if you remove the structure or plants from the soil it struggles to be a good community for the same reasons - habitat destruction

Some things just don't need broken apart.
Food generation in the future will have to rely on much greater permanence, because we don't have the stored energy left to persue this broken model of the present.

Most still carry on for the day, not the future, so much [/QUOte
I dont know too much about this but if the majority keep going the way they are ,they will find it more and more difficult to keep up ?