Sustainable Agriculture & Reduced inputs

I think skepticism is ingrained in people. Cynicism, negativity... we never want to believe something if we were taught it second. We are far less likely to question something taught us first and by our family. Our grandfathers farmed this way.... that's the right way! Helped along by the fact that majority of people are farming this way and the majority must be right, right?

But what do you think they're lying about? I find some of the claims of higher yield a bit far fetched, but that's because despite what I want to learn and do, I am in monoculture crop world. Claims of one crop yielding higher don't seem feasible to me. Claims of each acre yielding higher in the variety of crops is much more plausible to me. I also find the idea of land turning around so quickly hard to believe, but that could be because many of the books are based in more moderate climates than mine. What can be 3 or 4 growths in some of these areas is lucky if it translates to 1 good growth here.

But what doesn't lie to me and what do I trust equivocally? Nature.

Go walk through even a badly managed pasture, what do you see? Multitude species of grasses, wildflowers, bushes, trees, birds, insects, rodents... even bigger animals. They all live there.

Go walk through the middle of a "well managed" arable mono crop field, what do you see? One plant. The odd weed. A few insects and you hope they aren't the kind that wipe out your crop. Animals don't live in arable fields, they visit them.

Now consider inputs. Many pastures receive very little inputs so you're putting very little money into them. In comparison, an arable field has tremendous inputs to do all sorts of things. Firstly to help the seeds grow, secondly to stop sh!t from eating them, thirdly to prevent other plants from stealing their nutrients.

Why does one support so much life with so little input while the other supports very few organisms but requires so much?

Have you ever, in a natural setting, seen a plant growing in straight lines, separated an equal distance from all other plants with only bare dirt around it in order to grow the best it can? No, because that's not how plants have evolved. Just as sheep and cattle and horses eat different parts of the plants and birds eat different food sources and species differ regionally based on what's available, so do plants. Not all plants require the same nutrients, not all plants require the same water, not all plants require the same sunlight. They aren't all in competition. That's us telling ourselves that all plants are competing for the same food. It'd be like me saying I can't keep my dog in the same field as my cows because one of them would outcompete the other and starve it.

Be skeptical of authors, they're only human and thus as open to their personal interpretations and opinions as we are. But I think if you want to learn, read them, read modern methodology, think on them and then go sit in the middle of an untouched meadow and look at what Mother Earth has done.


I'm not saying their lying but what you don't have the opportunity to do is quiz the old writers so you chances of getting to the nub of the matter may be compromised. I'm not saying you can't be inspired by them. I am too

Put it another way. An old boy was growing vegetables in his garden and the vicar turned up. "Wonderful what you and the Lord have created here Mr Fothergill" said the Vicar. "You should have seen what it looked like when he had it on its own " replied the gardener. My point is we need to be able to extract what we can from the land in a way that suits us economically too.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Still reading "Holistic Management" (y)

Thoughts?

IMG_0880.JPG
 

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
Does make sense - the more soil biology is active and healthy, the less chance there is for less appreciated bacteria to multiply. How much effect it can have on livestock would be more debatable, but in some cases that can be a fairly direct link. (y)

I compared a organic farm to a conventional one both were dairy grazing (organic strip grazed & conventional was 3 day paddocks) and arable - Conventional was biscuit wheat, (Using Glyphosate and a full course of sprays & artificial fertiliser whilst the organic was Triticale following lucerne, (with FYM applied) and the organic farm was unsurprisingly higher in both bacteria and fungi, whether this was the management system or the organic aspect I am not sure. The project I was doing ran out of money before I could go further, but I was hoping to compare biodynamic to organic.

Conclusion - Soil treated well is healthier :whistle:
 
The higher you cut the faster the recovery.
View attachment 659324
"The higher you cut the faster the recovery" is true, and here is the reason why.

Plants produce food for themselves and for the microbiome in the soil. Christine Jones says that 30 to 40% of food produced by a plant is squirted out through the roots and exchanged with mycorrhizal fungi and microbes for nutrients that the plant can absorb. Plants can't directly access the nutrients from soil -- the nutrients must be prepared for them. In this symbiotic relationship, life in the soil receives energy from the sun through plants, and plants receive nutrients from the soil through fungi and the microbiome.

As the plant matures, it begins to produce excess energy, and it stores this excess energy in its in crown and roots. The next time the plant is grazed (or mowed), if it is severely grazed (very short), the plant has no option other than to draw upon stored energy to shoot up a few new leaves so that it can produce food again through photosynthesis. During this transition, the roots are not fed sufficiently, which is why roots slough off. Additionally, there is insufficient food for the soil microbiome, and there is die off.

The attached series of grass growth charts illustrates this. Don't take the number of days as hard and fast -- it is just shown as an example. Actual recovery time will vary based on many factors.

To avoid killing off all that life, and to keep grass growth in the fast growth zone (see the Recovery and Growth Curve at bottom of message), it's better to graze/mow taller.

TB-33 Figure 33-1.jpg
Recovery and Growth Curve, eB-8.jpg
 

simmy_bull

Member
Location
North Yorkshire
Unless you are on SDA uplands the environmental options on offer have never really added up for grassland. NELMS must get its act together for grassland or fail miserably IMHO (after all, much more of the UK is grassland than arable)
I’m all SDA PPgrassland and I couldn’t make anything add up with the new schemes. Seams to me like it was all designed to fit into an arable farm setting and force some environmental options “down the hill” and work on the assumption that the uplands were fairly extensive and we would continue to be regardless of payments :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

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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