Records only record what you want them to say, Iām just pointing out how simple it would seem to be to cheat the system, at least with the current system they can be reasonably sure the fields are there!Much like the limited/no input grassland options, it will be evident from your records.
- Thread starter Janet Hughes Defra
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serf
Member
- Location
- warwickshire
5.02 0nwards
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I agree. However, it would be fairly easy to tell on an inspection now, which fields I had DDāed this Autumn, and which were cultivated, just by walking over them and seeing how firm they were.
Proving it conclusively would obviously be a different matter of course, unless there was more evidence than your farm records.
And who is going to carry out these inspections on every farm, Red Tractor?
Gives me some hope that our feedback here and hopefully from elsewhere, has concentrated DEFRA minds. Chopping or reducing the two tiers scope will free up adequate funding for SFI.
I think that the one thing that has encouraged me, is that yes, there are the usual negative responses from the farming community (me included) but there are also a lot of good ideas and thoughts of where SFI can and should go, (yes we can include PP!!) in the future. Simple will be good...
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And not updated very regularly...
Aye, you can aallus dream, as Gilbert the Alien would say...
We've just had Terramapping done on a proportion of our farm. Now I know exactly where to take an OM sample in each field. I knew it would be a good investment.Seems like the benchmark sample for each field would be best taken from an area of low OM - maybe where that load of sand was tipped a few years agoā¦
icanshootwell
Member
- Location
- Ross-on-wye
Grass is the only way to keep sandy ground at a healthy level. no till is also good.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Also the most effective way to stop it washing away in many cases....
puntabrava
Member
- Location
- Wiltshire
The DD land on flint looks like a surface of rubble after a few years. I can only see them having to plough in rotation soon enough, then leaving them at the possible scorn of the payment system.
Payments need to be a level playing field accessible to all farmers whether grass or arable farming on the side of a mountain or a sandy beck.
Payments need to be a level playing field accessible to all farmers whether grass or arable farming on the side of a mountain or a sandy beck.
- Location
- South Shropshire
I think we all have more to learn by looking at what large farms in Canada, the USA, and Australia are doing, than by studying the fine print of rule books drawn up by misguided academics.
Get a stone picker in and flog the flint
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Well yes we could cocoon the land in permanent covers of some sort but with a population of 70 million that land does need to work a bit.
Grass maybe, but the overall agenda seems anti livestock.
I feel though we are āgetting thereā and we will see changes but Iāll be guided by a clear view of what works here rather than a one size fits all points win prizes scheme.
Iām not entirely convinced by grass. Getting stocking rates right to keep pace during the summer but not turn it into an eroding poached pissmire over winter was our biggest problem. Cereal stubbles left over winter seem about as safe as anything with volunteers providing nutrient soak up and additional protection. Thatās fairly simple.
Grass maybe, but the overall agenda seems anti livestock.
I feel though we are āgetting thereā and we will see changes but Iāll be guided by a clear view of what works here rather than a one size fits all points win prizes scheme.
Iām not entirely convinced by grass. Getting stocking rates right to keep pace during the summer but not turn it into an eroding poached pissmire over winter was our biggest problem. Cereal stubbles left over winter seem about as safe as anything with volunteers providing nutrient soak up and additional protection. Thatās fairly simple.
Courier
Member
- Location
- M62 - M1 - M18 triangle
Grass only has an economic use when processed through ruminant animals with an end market valueā¦.Hence grass and the very reason hedges were planted to create fields canāt fit any sort of vegan agendaā¦
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Then we have root crops like sugar beet but avoiding some transient damage is difficult. A good cash crop generally. So whatās it going to be? Nation reduces sugar consumption or import more cane?
I donāt see a lot wrong with the compromise we have now to be honest. Even erosion is part of the natural cycle but obviously we donāt want to lose the soils we depend on.
However, around about 1980, my father scraped 2 foot of clay topsoil off an acre of land and used it to marl some sand elsewhere. Heād hoped to create a lake where heād taken the clay away but all there was underneath it was metre of yellow mineral sand, no more clay layers to hold the water. So we just carried on cropping that yellow mineral sand. It had no OM in it whatsoever. Everybody said you will grow nothing on that because itās lifeless subsoil. Well it a crop just as good as the rest of the farm, a respectable 3 t per acre of cereals generally and today itās a lovely brown colour as the OM has built back a bit. There is about 5m of the sand under us, enough to last maybe 100,000 years with present rates of erosion.
Is it really all such a problem?
I donāt see a lot wrong with the compromise we have now to be honest. Even erosion is part of the natural cycle but obviously we donāt want to lose the soils we depend on.
However, around about 1980, my father scraped 2 foot of clay topsoil off an acre of land and used it to marl some sand elsewhere. Heād hoped to create a lake where heād taken the clay away but all there was underneath it was metre of yellow mineral sand, no more clay layers to hold the water. So we just carried on cropping that yellow mineral sand. It had no OM in it whatsoever. Everybody said you will grow nothing on that because itās lifeless subsoil. Well it a crop just as good as the rest of the farm, a respectable 3 t per acre of cereals generally and today itās a lovely brown colour as the OM has built back a bit. There is about 5m of the sand under us, enough to last maybe 100,000 years with present rates of erosion.
Is it really all such a problem?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
And then we look at things like reliance on glyphosate to burn all these covers off. How wise is that? What about disease carryover, fusarium, ergot etc. They all love non inversion techniques and a great big layer of trash to breed in.
Courier
Member
- Location
- M62 - M1 - M18 triangle
Maybe the combine manufacturers can think up an additional option to blow more tailings over the back and spread them over the width of a modern 12 metre header.
- Location
- South Shropshire
It seems to me that the āpowers that beā have forgotten that we all need to eat.
With a constantly rising population not only here, but all around the world, it must be absolute folly to increase our reliance on imported food. Quite the opposite, we should have as a national objective self sufficiency in food wherever possible.
With a constantly rising population not only here, but all around the world, it must be absolute folly to increase our reliance on imported food. Quite the opposite, we should have as a national objective self sufficiency in food wherever possible.
Hi thats not totally clear.If you have one field of 50 hectares ,is it 50 tests for SOM.
YOUR WRITTEN DEFRA .GOV STATEMENT SAYS
" land parcel is a field."
info detail on SOM says,
SOM"applies to all land parcels(ie fields from above) in the standard.
I think the current wording is unclear and needs to be rewritten to clearly state what you require,
do you want SOM per field entered ?
or once for whole hectareage ?
or for a certain number of hectares.?
many thanks
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