Sfi/elms

[steveR]

Lower overheads accordingly and sell the carbon too and you will be way better off than with bps!

 

[steveR]

Can you sell the carbon for bumblebird yet? I though there had to be a harvestable crop? Maybe that was just the person i spoke to mind

Not a clue, and TBH, not really interested at present. My days of being at the "bleeding edge" of tech and ideas are gone now...

 

[Courier]

Sit tight. It has changed massively from what it looked like a few months ago, and will change again beyond recognition before it substantively replaces the BPS.

So once again spend a significant part of your working life (the next 6 years or so) trusting that Defra ( or Defra’s Masters) or whoever will have your best interests at heart.

 

[Farma Parma]

So once again spend a significant part of your working life (the next 6 years or so) trusting that Defra ( or Defra’s Masters) or whoever will have your best interests at heart.

They deffo dont iam afraid, but in order for quite a lot of us were going to get our arms twisted by bribes id pretty much call them to embrace these ever increasing schemes to grow less food for humans but instead grow it for the wildlife, as if they dont steal enough for free as it is now.

 

[Cowcorn]

Talk about kettle calling the pot black!

I’m absolutely sure that Janet knows exactly who is trying to influence policy makers with misnomers about the environmental benefits of DD, such as yourself.

Carry on and keep digging that whole (which is also bad for the environment btw).

But, what are you going to tell the farmers in the future who went bust, who were put off from adopting a system that could have kept them solvent by the likes of you?

Ah come on now lighten up !!! Youre starting to sound like an ex smoker who managed to quit and now smugly lectures the rest of us who cant or wont kick the habit ....
But good luck to you with the DD and dont worry if it fails a few years down the road we wont make you eat your words !!! Im giving DD a go with a couple of fields of spring beans this year .. The hardest part of change i suppose is the start but based on your figures for time and fuel savings i think its worth a lash .. Will get a contractor to drill for the first go and take it from their .
But i still think ploughing will continue to be the most reliable method for those of us in wetter areas but i stand to be corrected !!

 

[ajd132]

Ah come on now lighten up !!! Youre starting to sound like an ex smoker who managed to quit and now smugly lectures the rest of us who cant or wont kick the habit ....
But good luck to you with the DD and dont worry if it fails a few years down the road we wont make you eat your words !!! Im giving DD a go with a couple of fields of spring beans this year .. The hardest part of change i suppose is the start but based on your figures for time and fuel savings i think its worth a lash .. Will get a contractor to drill for the first go and take it from their .
But i still think ploughing will continue to be the most reliable method for those of us in wetter areas but i stand to be corrected !!

Spring beans are probably the hardest crop to DD from my experience so if your aim is to put yourself off the idea you have made a good start!

 

[Banana Bar]

Can think of farms in our region where they shouldn't have any stewardship, and others which should be 100% in stewardship!

I drove over the Wolds during new year, not much there that needs to be in a scheme.

 

[Grass And Grain]

I drove over the Wolds during new year, not much there that needs to be in a scheme.

Exactly what I was thinking. It's £15k/acre for a reason, 1/2 inch of autumn rain and still drilling the next day, drought resistant, and I believe often 4-5t/acre of wheat. It's why @Drillman can afford lots of sparkly new kit and his tractors are 15 years younger than mine.

Drop down off those hills into the Vale of York and find some reasonably good land, but some poor sand or wet heavy stuff just a few feet above sea level - perfect for stewardship.

 

[Banana Bar]

In the intermediate level of SFI where cover is required from Dec - Feb, would you assume that Feb means 1st Feb? I hope so, late drilled spring crops are hopeless here.

BB

 

[Drillman]

Exactly what I was thinking. It's £15k/acre for a reason, 1/2 inch of autumn rain and still drilling the next day, drought resistant, and I believe often 4-5t/acre of wheat. It's why @Drillman can afford lots of sparkly new kit and his tractors are 15 years younger than mine.

Drop down off those hills into the Vale of York and find some reasonably good land, but some poor sand or wet heavy stuff just a few feet above sea level - perfect for stewardship.

Need to be a bit closer to Driffield to get those sort of yields. were more escarpment land with a 3-3.5 ton acre potential. And about 20% of the farm that’s too steep for anything not fitted with 4 leg drive.

 

[Grass And Grain]

Need to be a bit closer to Driffield to get those sort of yields. were more escarpment land with a 3-3.5 ton acre potential. And about 20% of the farm that’s too steep for anything not fitted with 4 leg drive.

 

[Drillman]

Nah we can’t afford them either

 

[Two Tone]

Ah come on now lighten up !!! Youre starting to sound like an ex smoker who managed to quit and now smugly lectures the rest of us who cant or wont kick the habit ....
But good luck to you with the DD and dont worry if it fails a few years down the road we wont make you eat your words !!! Im giving DD a go with a couple of fields of spring beans this year .. The hardest part of change i suppose is the start but based on your figures for time and fuel savings i think its worth a lash .. Will get a contractor to drill for the first go and take it from their .
But i still think ploughing will continue to be the most reliable method for those of us in wetter areas but i stand to be corrected !!

I might have given up ploughing, but unfortunately smoking is a habit I’ve not been able to kick (yet?)!
I’m quite happy to share my experiences with DD, good and bad. I was a huge sceptic, like you believing that it won’t work on wetter areas, only to have been proved that I was wrong, providing you get the timing right. Even on heavy Warwickshire clay that the make bricks and cement out of.

What I will not accept is that there is ‘no public good’ with DD.
Every scientist will tell you that environmentally, it is by far the better system.
I didn’t go into DD for that reason. I went into it to see if it would work or not and how it would effect establishment costs and yields. I tried on a bit of the farm and from now on, it is all of it.
As you mention, the first thing I noticed was the 7/8ths saving in establishment fuel savings. Then the huge amount of time saving, followed by the halving of herbicide costs (due to having not disturbed the Blackgrass).
The result being that I’ve actually saved more costs than my BPS comes to! Yields are no different than with ploughing, sometimes even slightly better.

However, what just about everybody (the Public) who isn’t involved in farming is most interested in are the huge environmental benefits to the system, which to them are far more important than any other benefit.

Bearing in mind that the first words of ELMs and SFI are Environmental and Sustainable, how can DD not be rewarded under those schemes, when it excels at both?
It’s not the only system that must be rewarded, but it definitely deserves rewarding.
So what possible reasoning that it shouldn’t, can there be other than mis-founded over-influence or greed?
Just because I chose to farm in a more environmentally friendly way that actually is more profitable, why shouldn’t I also receive some extra financial benefit for doing so?
Those that think not and revert to bringing Janet Hughes into the equation (by deliberate use the “@“ in front to “catch” her eye and attention) clearly have their own agenda, exclusive to everybody else. How can this be fair?

None of us like change and rest assured that if I discover that a ploughing based system returns to be the more profitable way of farming, I shall be doing it again. In the meantime, my survival in farming now, is far more likely to be assured using the DD system and the time to have tried it is while BPS is in existence, in case it didn’t work.
So far, I can’t find the/any “catch” in this system, only the 10 positives.

 

[Grass And Grain]

Nah we can’t afford them either

None of us will be able to afford to buy much if new scheme only pays a pittance.

I note what you wrote on another thread about DD (someone near you with similar soil type who's committed said "don't bother"). Maybe they're doing it wrong - don't know. But on that basis let's presume you can't DD and get the higher SFI level, and so payment is lower or mid level of SFI. Not good.

 

[BenAdamsAgri]

Wonder what ELMS mid-tier replacement will look like. Hope it's not less money than currently on offer, which don't seem to have increased for past 10 years or so. In fact, mid-tier on a bit of SSI grassland pays less than it did in the early 1990's, yet as a SSI there's nothing we can do about it. What planet are RPA on? How an earth do they think we can carry on like that.

Thankfully we've only got a few acres of SSSI, and it actually worked in my favour for a change, as it more or less guaranteed entry into mid-tier, therefore we chose all the options and areas we wanted, and got accepted without too much box ticking. Just hope glyphosate and stewardship seed costs don't erode the margins too much

New CSS payment rates to be published this January

 

[Drillman]

None of us will be able to afford to buy much if new scheme only pays a pittance.

I note what you wrote on another thread about DD (someone near you with similar soil type who's committed said "don't bother"). Maybe they're doing it wrong - don't know. But on that basis let's presume you can't DD and get the higher SFI level, and so payment is lower or mid level of SFI. Not good.

No it wasn’t a local but was a good friend who has considerable experience Of the system. Obviously anything is possible but talking to folks who are trying DD locally I get the impression there taking a hit on yield so not making any saving over what we’re doing.

 

[Cowcorn]

I might have given up ploughing, but unfortunately smoking is a habit I’ve not been able to kick (yet?)!
I’m quite happy to share my experiences with DD, good and bad. I was a huge sceptic, like you believing that it won’t work on wetter areas, only to have been proved that I was wrong, providing you get the timing right. Even on heavy Warwickshire clay that the make bricks and cement out of.

What I will not accept is that there is ‘no public good’ with DD.
Every scientist will tell you that environmentally, it is by far the better system.
I didn’t go into DD for that reason. I went into it to see if it would work or not and how it would effect establishment costs and yields. I tried on a bit of the farm and from now on, it is all of it.
As you mention, the first thing I noticed was the 7/8ths saving in establishment fuel savings. Then the huge amount of time saving, followed by the halving of herbicide costs (due to having not disturbed the Blackgrass).
The result being that I’ve actually saved more costs than my BPS comes to! Yields are no different than with ploughing, sometimes even slightly better.

However, what just about everybody (the Public) who isn’t involved in farming is most interested in are the huge environmental benefits to the system, which to them are far more important than any other benefit.

Bearing in mind that the first words of ELMs and SFI are Environmental and Sustainable, how can DD not be rewarded under those schemes, when it excels at both?
It’s not the only system that must be rewarded, but it definitely deserves rewarding.
So what possible reasoning that it shouldn’t, can there be other than mis-founded over-influence or greed?
Just because I chose to farm in a more environmentally friendly way that actually is more profitable, why shouldn’t I also receive some extra financial benefit for doing so?
Those that think not and revert to bringing Janet Hughes into the equation (by deliberate use the “@“ in front to “catch” her eye and attention) clearly have their own agenda, exclusive to everybody else. How can this be fair?

None of us like change and rest assured that if I discover that a ploughing based system returns to be the more profitable way of farming, I shall be doing it again. In the meantime, my survival in farming now, is far more likely to be assured using the DD system and the time to have tried it is while BPS is in existence, in case it didn’t work.
So far, I can’t find the/any “catch” in this system, only the 10 positives.

Loved it for the smoking !!! I too have still to quit the dreadful nicotine habit before it quits me !! Im a bit of a pariah around here every time i crash the ash .
But like i said im giving DD a go but @ajd132 doesent recomend starting with spring beans .... Christ now he tells me !!! A change of plan to getting a Claydon maybe might be best and then dd the following wheat .

 

[ajd132]

Loved it for the smoking !!! I too have still to quit the dreadful nicotine habit before it quits me !! Im a bit of a pariah around here every time i crash the ash .
But like i said im giving DD a go but @ajd132 doesent recomend starting with spring beans .... Christ now he tells me !!! A change of plan to getting a Claydon maybe might be best and then dd the following wheat .

They really didn’t work for me and were one of the first crops I tried about 8 years ago, it actually set us back a few years by putting us off.

 

[onthehoof]

So what's this new scheme as reported in Sunday Telegraph not Elms or sfi

 

[delilah]

So what's this new scheme as reported in Sunday Telegraph not Elms or sfi

Local Nature Recovery ? Landscape Recovery ? The other two strands to ELMS other than SFI. Did it say they need scrapping ?