Some inspiration from S America

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
@martian I do worry about the sort of stuff you are watching and reading, you do know that GM is going to feed the world and save the planet, and not this eco biology guff don't you? ;)
It's only going to get worse...the Hidden Half of Nature book has just turned up in this mornings post (and we all know who to blame for that...)

The Syntropy idea is intriguing though. Dwayne Beck is always telling farmers to observe what nature would be growing on your farm if man wasn't interfering. Over most of the UK, that is forest of one sort or the other. So growing a measly crop of wheat, 18 inches high, is not really stretching the land's potential. We'll need another year or two of global warming before we can get a decent crop of bananas, but you can't help but wonder whether the agro-forestry people may be on to something
 

bactosoil

Member
GM/ conventional high input farming that almost all predictions state means soil will be unable to support cropping and feed the planet in less than 100 harvests (studies by the UN and EU) V looking at things differently ,does not mean biodynamic or organic is the only answer but it does need a completely different approach

Even Monsanto ( but for ulterior motives) is changing tack with products 'to work with the environment' http://www.monsantobioag.com/global/emea/Pages/default.aspx

New approaches and working with soil is possibly the only way farms can make a profit. Scientists are brilliant but Farmers are far better at knowing the soil and land in real time than any scientist with a mass spectrometer and a 5 year research grant, and even just trying a few new ideas on your own farm may yield some surprises, if nothing else the farming climate might sharpen the pencil to look for better profitability
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
really interesting video that, bit of a lightbulb moment when they mention pruning increasing biological activity of roots ! Is this explanation of the "golden hoof" that livestock being beyond the soluble nutrition the alos produce ? ie grazing = pruning = more biomass and root biological production ?

even happier my sheep are half eating cover crops now !
 

Old Spot

Member
Location
Glos
My son is on the Hidden Half at Moment, he Has it on audio book.
Says it's not easy but one of the best books he has had on the subject.
Agroforestry (I know) we have even started making enquiries.
 
really interesting video that, bit of a lightbulb moment when they mention pruning increasing biological activity of roots ! Is this explanation of the "golden hoof" that livestock being beyond the soluble nutrition the alos produce ? ie grazing = pruning = more biomass and root biological production ?

even happier my sheep are half eating cover crops now !

Interesting though that there didn't appear to much livestock on those farms in the video. Prunning was done with chainsaws rather than using giraffes / some living pruning machine. I wonder in order to make it more mechanised whether going along the tree rows with a hedgecutter flail / circular saw could make the process quicker.
 
My son is on the Hidden Half at Moment, he Has it on audio book.
Says it's not easy but one of the best books he has had on the subject.
Agroforestry (I know) we have even started making enquiries.

I wonder how on earth you'd deal with agroforestry on the BPS forms. "It's sort of a wood, but we're also growing bannans and there's the odd alpaca wondering around in the field too. What cropping code should I use for that?"
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
really interesting video that, bit of a lightbulb moment when they mention pruning increasing biological activity of roots ! Is this explanation of the "golden hoof" that livestock being beyond the soluble nutrition the alos produce ? ie grazing = pruning = more biomass and root biological production ?

even happier my sheep are half eating cover crops now !
That was the lightbulb moment for me too. I think you are right here...one of the reasons mob grazing works so much better at feeding the soil than grazing animals under a set stocking regime: the grazed plants lose interest in putting too much into the soil when they are constantly being nibbled, compared with beng allowed to grow up tall and then attacked.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Interesting though that there didn't appear to much livestock on those farms in the video. Prunning was done with chainsaws rather than using giraffes / some living pruning machine. I wonder in order to make it more mechanised whether going along the tree rows with a hedgecutter flail / circular saw could make the process quicker.

im thinking of the livestock in this context as pruning devices (mini chainsaws) really rather than there being any direct livestock reference in the film

certainly interesting idea, like rolling crops in the spring forces them to tiller and come back stronger, it mimics the effect of being grazed and is natures way to survive
 
".. Farmers are far better at knowing the soil and land in real time - IF THEY ONLY LOOK INTO THEIR SOIL WITH A MICROSCOPE - than any scientist with a mass spectrometer .."

The main scientific knowledge for a sustainable fertil soil is around since over 100 years.

Ask Raoul H. Francé and Annie Francé Harrar.


(For the south of the earth: plant a coconut tree once and harvest for 100 years without any additional working.)


This is what e.g. algae can do for you:

free plant nutrients from rocks, sand and minerals
produce oxygen to keep the soil aerobic
make a colloid enclosure to protect the algae
make a non-evaporating water reservoir with the colloid
glue the mineral particles together so that they stay in place
feed other microorganisms that benefit the soil

see:
https://mikroskopie-forum.at/index.php/Thread/1637-Mauerschleim/?postID=14312

Look for yourself with your own microscope.
 
Last edited:

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
I went to Wakelyns Farm a couple of years ago where Prof Martin Wolfe is experimenting with agroforestry. Main reason for going was to look at his diverse cereal breeding programs but because this is all done in alleyways between rows of trees, it was a great way to see agrofrestry in action. I can't really explain it, and you certainly wouldn't be able to measure it, but there just seemed to be so much energy about the whole farm. It is an all organic system, but all the trees and crops between them were growing profusely without any help from outside inputs, no fertilisers obviously, nor were there any livestock or much spreading.

When you walk into a conventional field of wheat, you get the feeling that without regular spraying and fertilising, the whole lot would die; but at Wakelyns it seemed like everything would keep growing quite happily on it's own.

I have to say that visit made quite an impression on me and I would happily go out tomorrow and start planting rows of trees all over the farm but I have yet to come up with a decent tree based enterprise that would financially viable on it's own. Coppicing for fuel is the obvious one but with oil at $30 a barrel and still dropping, heating my farmhouse with kerosene is a lot easier and cheaper. So what else, apples, pears, plumbs, nuts? I don't know, they would need to be direct marketed as well to be profitable, sounds like a lot of work to me.
 
I wonder how on earth you'd deal with agroforestry on the BPS forms. "It's sort of a wood, but we're also growing bannans and there's the odd alpaca wondering around in the field too. What cropping code should I use for that?"
Stephen Briggs was campaigning hard a couple of years ago for the rpa to acknowledge agroforestry under the bps. he didn't pull it off and I cant remember the details of why it wasn't allowed. some sort of double funding worry I suspect?
 

Dan Powell

Member
Location
Shropshire
I went to Wakelyns Farm a couple of years ago where Prof Martin Wolfe is experimenting with agroforestry. Main reason for going was to look at his diverse cereal breeding programs but because this is all done in alleyways between rows of trees, it was a great way to see agrofrestry in action. I can't really explain it, and you certainly wouldn't be able to measure it, but there just seemed to be so much energy about the whole farm. It is an all organic system, but all the trees and crops between them were growing profusely without any help from outside inputs, no fertilisers obviously, nor were there any livestock or much spreading.

When you walk into a conventional field of wheat, you get the feeling that without regular spraying and fertilising, the whole lot would die; but at Wakelyns it seemed like everything would keep growing quite happily on it's own.

I have to say that visit made quite an impression on me and I would happily go out tomorrow and start planting rows of trees all over the farm but I have yet to come up with a decent tree based enterprise that would financially viable on it's own. Coppicing for fuel is the obvious one but with oil at $30 a barrel and still dropping, heating my farmhouse with kerosene is a lot easier and cheaper. So what else, apples, pears, plumbs, nuts? I don't know, they would need to be direct marketed as well to be profitable, sounds like a lot of work to me.
Wakelyns is the most beautiful farm I've ever visited and Prof Wolfe is a gent. I'd happily move there now and skip happily through the alley crops. Money be damned. It just feels right. I've been obsessed with coming up with a similar solution for my own farm ever since. I think I'm getting some kind of concept ready to implement, but like you said a lot of work involved in direct marketing. My plan is to integrate livestock into the system too. And possibly tourism...
 

bactosoil

Member
.. Farmers are far better at knowing the soil and land in real time - IF THEY ONLY LOOK INTO THEIR SOIL WITH A MICROSCOPE - than any scientist with a mass spectrometer .."

The main scientific knowledge for a sustainable fertil soil is around since over 100 years.

Ask Raoul H. Francé and Annie Francé Harrar.


Most Farmers are walking analysts who have an encyclopedic knowledge of their land and its history and being able to dig soil up touch it feel it and smell it and react to what is found without any equipment is invaluable .
Microscopes open further worlds but there are just so many influences when you drill down in to it to take into account. When you start to look at mutual vegetative partnerships and the effects on things like bacterial /fungal populations and quorum sensing you could spend a lifetime studying,but all the other influences have to be merged to really create answers and that could be decades away.Its amazing how many things mentioned in the opening video are contained in farming manuals and farm chemistry books I have from the 18th and 19 century , symbiosis and balance though seem to be the key factors in agroforestry
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
Wakelyns is the most beautiful farm I've ever visited and Prof Wolfe is a gent. I'd happily move there now and skip happily through the alley crops. Money be damned. It just feels right. I've been obsessed with coming up with a similar solution for my own farm ever since. I think I'm getting some kind of concept ready to implement, but like you said a lot of work involved in direct marketing. My plan is to integrate livestock into the system too. And possibly tourism...

So what sort of trees are going to plant Dan? Or is it a secret at the moment.
 

Dan Powell

Member
Location
Shropshire
So what sort of trees are going to plant Dan? Or is it a secret at the moment.
An extremely diverse range. Everthing from fruit, nuts, timber to fertility trees, living fenceposts, medicinal and herbage trees for cattle. Even xmas trees. The sky's the limit. You can sell mistletoe for £3 a sprig. The point is as farmers we are sitting on an asset we barely exploit selling wheat at a fraction over the cost of production when there are so many other things people want that will grow with no purchased inputs at all in a perennial system which constantly increases in diversity, complexity, wildlife, beauty and yes potential revenue streams. Packaging all this up in the right way is the trick and I'm not there yet. It might be impossible, but I'm hoping to give it a go. Basically the system would be based around silvopasture and permaculture ideas.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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