Regenerative Agriculture

[Kiwi Pete]

Yes - I believed it happened around 1965 in other parts of the world the realisation that the new methods were completely unsustainable and causing massive degradation and loss of the topsoil resource.

I think in our parts of the world, where you don't "see the dust" it is easier to pretend that it isn't being lost?
(We are pretty "green" here but the water leaving the farm is cleaner than the water flowing in from the neighbours - it really isn't difficult at all.)

In the next few years you will observe a massive massive change to agriculture, in a rush to make up for lost time... exciting times for some, but many will go down with the ship.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/a-tale-of-two-expos/

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

• Yes - I believed it happened around 1965 in other parts of the world the realisation that the new methods were completely unsustainable and causing massive degradation and loss of the topsoil resource.
  
  I think in our parts of the world, where you don't "see the dust" it is easier to pretend that it isn't being lost?
  (We are pretty "green" here but the water leaving the farm is cleaner than the water flowing in from the neighbours - it really isn't difficult at all.)
  
  In the next few years you will observe a massive massive change to agriculture, in a rush to make up for lost time... exciting times for some, but many will go down with the ship.

  Many will go down before they actually even notice the change

 

[New Puritan]

Off on a slight tangent, but here's an interesting song I heard on BBC6 Music a little while back:

 

[hendrebc]

Finally finished Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner last night. Well worth reading even though some of it is irrelevant to anyone who isnt a 1950s dairy farmer. Going to read chapter 4 to 10 again it took so long to read it i forgot exactly what it said
Concept was sound though. No ploughing ground cover and farming to build fertility (or carbon) in the soils.
Have one of his other books Fertility Pastures which might be more relevant to me. Will have a read of that too eventually

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Finally finished Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner last night. Well worth reading even though some of it is irrelevant to anyone who isnt a 1950s dairy farmer. Going to read chapter 4 to 10 again it took so long to read it i forgot exactly what it said
Concept was sound though. No ploughing ground cover and farming to build fertility (or carbon) in the soils.
Have one of his other books Fertility Pastures which might be more relevant to me. Will have a read of that too eventually

Good stuff

Any insights you would like to share with us?

 

[hendrebc]

Good stuff

Any insights you would like to share with us?

Theres lots in chapter 4 to 10 i have forgotten byt will probably remember as soon as i read it again
He really valued weeds as a free green manure then just disced them in. Seemed to only use a set of discs and a seed drill and thats it for everything. There was no such thing as no till drills then but he does say he would like one if/when the technology is available.
The biggest thing i read was how the health of his cattle imporved after stopping the chemical merrygoround. He stopped vaccinating and stopped an abortion storm in his herd all through imporoving his soils and better feeding. There were some potions he cooked up with garlic and stuff as well and his cattle got a lot of fasting and enemas it seems
Herbal leys with a lot of deep roots were very important as was fresh green fodder at all times of the year for the health of his cattle. He really didnt like feeding for milk yeild and was relying on genetics to do that for him. But on the fresh and varied diet his cows still yeilded more milk than they did in a conventional system with high amounts of concentrate in the diet. I doubt very much he would approve of todays dairy cattle fed a TMR of chopped silage and cereals and soya and housed all year. Though he did like silage for his cows. A "normal" dairy farmer of today would think him quite mad
But his system worked and worked really well and made more money than a conventional mixed dairy and arable farm of his time. He even puts figures up to prove it. Why this wasnt more widely adopted back then i have no idea. Maybe because there is no money in it for anyone but him to promote it. If glyphosate had been invented then and he was a fan of it for killing weeds before a crop instead of his disc harrows maybe he would have had the backing of Monsanto and his way of farming would have been pushed more. But there was no money in his system for "big ag" so he quietly carried on farming and doing well and fell into obscurity.
Sad that money comes before everything else in this world

 

[Kiwi Pete]

The hard sell is usually on weapons of mass destruction, there's far more money to be made in the killing of 99% of life than growing 99% of what wants to live, anyway.

It is a shame in many ways that good old biological aspects of topsoil management were all largely abandoned in favour of technology = burnt diesel and wrecked soils
Nothing can do what animals can do, and farmers even manage to make that as false as possible, they have been taught that overstocking and compaction are numbers problems - when they are time problems

Chemicals just allowed us to push the problem along, as we have always done, learning little along the way about the causes of all the symptoms that we try to "fix" (with the wrong tools)

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

The hard sell is usually on weapons of mass destruction, there's far more money to be made in the killing of 99% of life than growing 99% of what wants to live, anyway.

It is a shame in many ways that good old biological aspects of topsoil management were all largely abandoned in favour of technology = burnt diesel and wrecked soils
Nothing can do what animals can do, and farmers even manage to make that as false as possible, they have been taught that overstocking and compaction are numbers problems - when they are time problems

Chemicals just allowed us to push the problem along, as we have always done, learning little along the way about the causes of all the symptoms that we try to "fix" (with the wrong tools)

So you HAVE read "Holistic Management" then Pete

That's half the book, right there

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So you HAVE read "Holistic Management" then Pete

That's half the book, right there

No I haven't, but I will, I just thought it was common sense!

What we have is an arrogant, and unknowing/in denial farmer base, often not prepared to learn about much beyond their own specialist fields - and expecting to thrive at any cost
Ploughing is cheap, so how dare folks knock it or make mockery of our methods?

Which is why I have so much disdain and despair sometimes, especially when confronted by our friend from the Narth, "Mr 110% iffishint" and all others like him.

Any other "professional" would make far more effort to learn their business, wouldn't they?

If your dentist operated with farmer mentality, would you let him powerharrow your face and sow new teeth seeds, or prefer he helped manage the ones you have?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

?
If your dentist operated with farmer mentality, would you let him powerharrow your face and sow new teeth seeds, or prefer he helped manage the ones you have?

I do like his analogy about the time issue: Donkey days.

He says if you had to collect your days water from a mile away with a donkey and did it every day for a year the donkey would wear a path which would be bare and erode. If instead you took 365 donkeys on 1 day and collected a year's supply then left it a year you'd still apply 365 "donkey days" of animal impact but the outcome would be entirely different.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://www.progressiveforage.com/f...rbonomics-six-components-to-your-soil-economy

 

[texas pete]

https://www.progressiveforage.com/f...rbonomics-six-components-to-your-soil-economy

Sums it all up pretty neatly.

Energy and resources
Energy drives the system, but it’s often expensive, Keith says, and resources supply the base in which we can expand and grow our economies. “Soil economies are all solar-powered – really, what we are doing is capturing sunlight and producing something with it.

As farmers, we need to plant seeds and grow our own solar collectors. Resources for our economy include carbon (free from photosynthesis), nitrogen (free from biological fixation) and other soil minerals which are ‘mined’ by the soil biology and ‘sold’ to the plant in exchange for carbon. Promoting soil biology is like hiring trillions of tiny workers to mine, manufacture, transport and deliver plant-needed resources.”

There is a Fecking Kiwi somewhere who keeps banging on about this I think??

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

https://www.progressiveforage.com/f...rbonomics-six-components-to-your-soil-economy

Subscribed to that one

 

[hendrebc]

https://www.agronomy.org/science-news/root-exudates-affect-soil-stability-water-repellency

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://onpasture.com/2018/04/16/lets-waste-grass-with-jim-gerrish-part-2/

As posted elsewhere - really makes you think about "drinking the bright green koolade and swallowing the lie" in terms of what "waste" means - is buying more land to mismanage, what our generation be remembered for in years to come?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Have been watching some interesting youtube videos at thegrasswhisperer.com lately quite interesting and they have some good laughs.

 

[The Ruminant]

According to Rothamstead we're all wasting our time!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180228134114.htm

You have to love their ambition:

“Moving from continuous arable cropping to a long-term rotation of arable crops interspersed with pasture led to significant soil carbon increases, but only where there was at least 3 years of pasture in every 5 or 6 years, record the researchers.

"Although there can be environmental benefits from such a system, most farmers find that it is uneconomic under present circumstances," says Powlson. "To make this change on a large scale would require policy decisions regarding changes to subsidy and farm support. Such a change would also have impacts on total food production."

The authors of this study conclude that promoting the "4 per 1000" [carbon] initiative as a major contribution to climate change mitigation is unrealistic and potentially misleading.”

Jeez!!

 

[The Ruminant]

I do like his analogy about the time issue: Donkey days.

He says if you had to collect your days water from a mile away with a donkey and did it every day for a year the donkey would wear a path which would be bare and erode. If instead you took 365 donkeys on 1 day and collected a year's supply then left it a year you'd still apply 365 "donkey days" of animal impact but the outcome would be entirely different.

Presumably you’d need a field that’s 365 times bigger than the one you’ve currently got, to keep all the donkeys in....

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Presumably you’d need a field that’s 365 times bigger than the one you’ve currently got, to keep all the donkeys in....

And a lucrative sideline in donkey rides