Sustainable?

[teslacoils]

This came from a chat with 2 local big co tractors talking about how things are changing, mini.al passes, cut fuel and man hours, minimise compaction etc to then seeing the opposite end of the spectrum happening in the same postcode. That's all.

That's all well and good, but if it's raining etc then those contractors will get the plough / cruel drag out of the nettles / leave 8" ruts to get the crop off one way or another. Because you need a crop in. And you need to get it into the shed.

Many a year has gone by when it's too wet / not enough idea days. Out comes the plough. Furrows and scrapers progressively dropped off. 930 fendts on 4 furrows. Etc etc.

Sustainable, carbon footprint, eco this and that. It's a load of filler word blurb that happens to be trendy. Profitable is sustainable.

 

[Overby]

All depends on the soil type ,some need a lot of working down
And if the field is white that's probably lime

Nope

 

[Steevo]

That's all well and good, but if it's raining etc then those contractors will get the plough / cruel drag out of the nettles / leave 8" ruts to get the crop off one way or another. Because you need a crop in. And you need to get it into the shed.

Many a year has gone by when it's too wet / not enough idea days. Out comes the plough. Furrows and scrapers progressively dropped off. 930 fendts on 4 furrows. Etc etc.

Sustainable, carbon footprint, eco this and that. It's a load of filler word blurb that happens to be trendy. Profitable is sustainable.

Spot on. I have the last two seasons ploughed at least 50% of our cropping, despite not having ploughed since selling my plough in the early 2000s, purely on the basis that it allowed me to get a winter crop planted. No mess made, but DD just wouldn’t run when the plough would.

Both of these years my ploughed crops look far better than those DD’d. Yield last year was little different, and I expect similar this time around.

Without the ploughing, my grainstores would have been much more empty....and filled with barley rather than milling wheat. As said this would have worked out much less sustainable.

What will I do next year..? That depends on the season. However I will DD early if I can.

 

[Courier]

.................
You have to be economically sustainable before you can be environmentally sustainable.

Never was a truer word spoken......

 

[davidroberts30]

Nope

nope,what?

 

[Steevo]

Never was a truer word spoken......

This is one reason farming will sadly always struggle. It reminds me of a post by @Lowland1 in another thread.

If someone gave you £10 million to go farming i am sure you could spend it and i am pretty sure you could make a profit. It might not be a big profit but it would be a profit. The hardest thing in farming is doing things on the cheap because you don’t have enough money. Something i know a lot about.

It's also the reason why "celeb farmers" can make it look so easy by just splashing the cash. Same for other industries that just *buy* their sustainability credentials through offsetting. Great post on here the last couple of days about exactly this - buying up land to plant with trees, then carry on as normal.

 

[Two Tone]

This is one reason farming will sadly always struggle. It reminds me of a post by @Lowland1 in another thread.




It's also the reason why "celeb farmers" can make it look so easy by just splashing the cash. Same for other industries that just *buy* their sustainability credentials through offsetting. Great post on here the last couple of days about exactly this - buying up land to plant with trees, then carry on as normal.

Are we as farmers allowed to count the Photosynthesis that all our crops produce in our CO2 footprint and Sustainability calculations?
Whether we can or not, some don’t. Such as Supermarkets heading towards CO2 neutral food on their shelves.
What the hell do they mean by this when every farmer that produces anything that is green or was green when it was growing, is way more than Carbon Neutral anyway?
Doesn’t it make an absolute mockery of it all when companies such as Jaguar Landrover think they can offset the Carbon it takes to make their products by buying those credits?
How the feck is that sustainable?

 

[Two Tone]

Spot on. I have the last two seasons ploughed at least 50% of our cropping, despite not having ploughed since selling my plough in the early 2000s, purely on the basis that it allowed me to get a winter crop planted. No mess made, but DD just wouldn’t run when the plough would.

Both of these years my ploughed crops look far better than those DD’d. Yield last year was little different, and I expect similar this time around.

Without the ploughing, my grainstores would have been much more empty....and filled with barley rather than milling wheat. As said this would have worked out much less sustainable.

What will I do next year..? That depends on the season. However I will DD early if I can.

Spot on!
I’m in early days of trying DD. But there is no way I will get rid of the kit to do it conventionally and risk not getting a crop in the ground.

Yes, we are told that once you start DD, you have to keep going with it, get through the pain barrier of lower yields in the first few years and get the soil right so that yields will come back again. But unless you are an early driller (I am) the last two seasons have proved that DDing on difficult land will yield far less than the extra metal and fuel will cost.

Sustainability must start with the ability to be financially sustainable. I’d like to be able to eventually become a totally DD farmer and I hope I do. But there is no way I will risk remaining financially sustainable at the so called expense of the Environment unless I am compensated to do so by the likes of ELMS.

 

[Lincsman]

Lets decide come harvest shall we?

£20 of cultivation can translate to £100 of barley.

 

[Courier]

Lets decide come harvest shall we?

£20 of cultivation can translate to £100 of barley.

Biggest problem with spring barley nowadays is that it is usually not the traditionally planned crop 'cos were that the case then with timely overwintered ploughing with frost induced weathering would achieve 75% of the seedbed preparation.

 

[teslacoils]

DD, overwinter plough, light spring working........all sb looking pretty shitty sadly.

 

[Steevo]

Biggest problem with spring barley nowadays is that it is usually not the traditionally planned crop 'cos were that the case then with timely overwintered ploughing with frost induced weathering would achieve 75% of the seedbed preparation.

Very true. Plus it's hard enough getting wheat planted in the autumn, let alone having time left afterwards to plough the land ready for spring.

Oh, and the fact that spring barley almost always leaves behind barley for the following wheat crop which makes growing wheat after it a bit more tricky, especially if aiming for milling.

I haven't even mentioned these spring droughts either.

 

[Two Tone]

Words like Sustainable Farming and Conservation Agriculture are admirable. But when it comes to Sustaining and Conserving me, there is one word that overrules but of these. It is called Flexibility.

Actually, that means 2 words: The ability to be able flex (switch) to whatever is needed, or is the best option at that time.

 

[teslacoils]

Profit and yield are what drives my sustainability.

 

[Two Tone]

Profit and yield are what drives my sustainability.

Profit yes, but not necessarily yield. Yield is not necessary king any longer.
It helps though!

CoP/tonne is what creates maximum Profit.

 

[Lincsman]

Profit yes, but not necessarily yield. Yield is not necessary king any longer.
It helps though!

CoP/tonne is what creates maximum Profit.

Not profit / farm though 1t/ac with a CoP of £40 is not as good as 5t/ac with Cop of £45, maybe the DD ers haven't noticed this yet?

 

[Two Tone]

Not profit / farm though 1t/ac with a CoP of £40 is not as good as 5t/ac with Cop of £45, maybe the DD ers haven't noticed this yet?

I don’t quite follow you, but on the whole think I get the gist of what you mean. On the whole you are right.

However, there is a big difference between farming land that is capable of regularly achieving 5t/acre and that which can do so but only occasionally, with averages close to 3&1/2 because of it limiting factors, usually being the weather.
On such land, you certainly have to be a lot more careful on how much you invest in growing a crop to ensure that a profitable yield is possible.
For instance, putting too much fertiliser on by aiming every time for 5 tons and your yields will go down! Because in most years, you have gone well beyond the N response curve and it ends up as a poison.
More fertiliser, encourages more disease and you end up spending more on fungicides.

It’s all just a question of balance, depending on the capabilities of the land we each farm.
That comes down to individual experience and gut feeling.


When we have learned how to control the weather, farming will be easy!

 

[B'o'B]

Not profit / farm though 1t/ac with a CoP of £40 is not as good as 5t/ac with Cop of £45, maybe the DD ers haven't noticed this yet?

Trouble is when you fully benchmark businesses CoP are very often £140-£150/t

 

[teslacoils]

Profit yes, but not necessarily yield. Yield is not necessary king any longer.
It helps though!

CoP/tonne is what creates maximum Profit.

Yes. Once I plant a winter crop most of my costs are known. Shaving a few £££ off on fungicide rates is marginal. Soon as it's in, I really have to push it to what it's capable of. CoP is lowest where yields are maximised.

Of course, elms may mean maximum profit comes from zero food yield.

 

[Lowland1]

In the sustainability stakes my 30 year old Ford 7810 plus 25 year old plough plus 50 year old (at least rolls ) plus 25 year old combi drill will beat any new Quadtrac/Challenger/Fendt plus new direct drill.