The Drought

[ajd132]

Are you farming your own land, either as owner or tenant?

The answer matters a great deal. Whose money do you spend?

You are a young man who cannot have much more than10 years' total experience, if that, of running a farm, yet you are adamant that your approach is correct. Dangerous.

I have owned and farmed five properties in four countries in both hemispheres and lived long enough to know that you need to live on and work land for a while before you can begin to judge even for yourself what is best for it - and then can still be wrong even with decades of experience. You cannot tell someone whose land you have never seen how he should be farming it.

That’s really not what I said, you have jumped to some wild conclusions here. I am actively trying to get livestock into the system, I know the benefits.
Boss farmer said it should be illegal to have a farm without livestock which is ridiculous, I just suggested a couple of ways you can build soil that don’t involve animals.
I farm our own land aswell as rent and contract farm, I spend my own money and am tasked with spending others. Soil health and profit is our priority, if I can prove a business case to re-introduce livestock then I will do it.

 

[Old McDonald]

You softcocks wanna try 3 months of strong winds & above 40 C temps ( following on from 3 years of maybe 1 third of your annual rainfall & above average temperatures, with no income ) before you start whinging about the wind drying things out

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As you know, I am familiar with your arrea, having farmed not too far away for a while. I used to avidly follow your posts when you used to be less aggressive towards UK farmers. Your attitude over the las few months (year+??) has rather put me off. Have you ever farmed opn your own account anywhere in the UK?

If not, I tend to agree with @Henarar that you should just get on with it and stop telling UK farmers what they should be doing.

If it had not been for this retriction of movement I would have completed my sale and been retired about 2 weeks ago, and as of this moment probably sitting with a fishing line in the Atlantic off the coast of Pico, Azores waiting for my dinner to come along. I just have to accept that I may die before I retire. Take it as it comes.

 

[Old McDonald]

That’s really not what I said, you have jumped to some wild conclusions here.

Then please tell me what you did say and to which wild conclusions I have jumped.

I do agree that @Bossfarmer is going a bit far to want to make all arable illegal, but that is him, best to just skirt around remarks like that.

 

[7610 super q]

I really don't know why we can't discuss weather on this forum without being called " sad c-unts " and have our system of farming ridiculed. OK, 3 weeks dry weather isn't life threatening, but it does hit the bottom line buying in fodder, and lower grain yields. Why are we not allowed to talk about things which affect UK farming on a UK farming forum ?

 

[ajd132]

Then please tell me what you did say and to which wild conclusions I have jumped.

I do agree that @Bossfarmer is going a bit far to want to make all arable illegal, but that is him, best to just skirt around remarks like that.

I said you can build fertility and soil with techniques like cover and companion cropping. That of course animals help but there is other ways. Root exudates build soil.
everything else I’ve said is about how we conserve moisture in these dry springs. Posters are deploring about it being so dry so I shared what we have done that helps mitigate that, it’s a forum after all. some seem to take a lot of offence to stuff like that because it’s different to what they know.
to say that zero till drilling direct into cover crops and stubble conserves moisture is just fact, to say that drying out seedbeds with cultivation passes pre spring drilling loses all the moisture is again just a fact. I don’t get why people take such offence to reality.

 

[2wheels]

As you know, I am familiar with your arrea, having farmed not too far away for a while. I used to avidly follow your posts when you used to be less aggressive towards UK farmers. Your attitude over the las few months (year+??) has rather put me off. Have you ever farmed opn your own account anywhere in the UK?

If not, I tend to agree with @Henarar that you should just get on with it and stop telling UK farmers what they should be doing.

If it had not been for this retriction of movement I would have completed my sale and been retired about 2 weeks ago, and as of this moment probably sitting with a fishing line in the Atlantic off the coast of Pico, Azores waiting for my dinner to come along. I just have to accept that I may die before I retire. Take it as it comes.

i do hope you get to enjoy a good few years fishing. retirement is ok if you make a job of it.

 

[Bossfarmer]

Nonsense, you can introduce diversity into arable rotations through cover and companion cropping g. Root exudates build soil carbon.
Of course animals help but you don’t need them to build soils and fertility.

that wont build soil up itll help it decline slower but no comparison to ploughing up grass leys/muck every year on the stubble

 

[Bossfarmer]

I said you can build fertility and soil with techniques like cover and companion cropping. That of course animals help but there is other ways. Root exudates build soil.
everything else I’ve said is about how we conserve moisture in these dry springs. Posters are deploring about it being so dry so I shared what we have done that helps mitigate that, it’s a forum after all. some seem to take a lot of offence to stuff like that because it’s different to what they know.
to say that zero till drilling direct into cover crops and stubble conserves moisture is just fact, to say that drying out seedbeds with cultivation passes pre spring drilling loses all the moisture is again just a fact. I don’t get why people take such offence to reality.

to say that drying out seedbeds with cultivation passes pre spring drilling loses all the moisture is again just a fact

completely wrong if its ploughed a day or 2 before its sown and rolled behind the drill with a heavy grass roller that will trap all the moisture in, worked for us in 2018, same approach this year, ploughing in all that much helps with moisture too

 

[Sharpy]

I really don't know why we can't discuss weather on this forum without being called " sad c-unts " and have our system of farming ridiculed. OK, 3 weeks dry weather isn't life threatening, but it does hit the bottom line buying in fodder, and lower grain yields. Why are we not allowed to talk about things which affect UK farming on a UK farming forum ?

We are being lectured by a man working on 4ft of moisture retentive topsoil which according to him needs to flood to get to field capacity. He farms with big dry spells ( which crack ground and help structure) and hopefully big rains. He hasn't had a proper crop in the last couple of years due to lack of rainfall.
We work with short dry spells as a rule and long damp spells, but the climate is changing, and we need to as well, but it takes time. His system has failed too......

 

[ajd132]

that wont build soil up itll help it decline slower but no comparison to ploughing up grass leys/muck every year on the stubble

It won’t decline if you aren’t oxidising through ploughing and deep cultivation’s.
I agree that arable farming in general has been very damaging to soils, but it doesn’t need to be and there is many who are proving this.

 

[Brisel]

Totally agree, I am not denying that at all. I was just rebutting bossfarmers idea that it should be illegal to have a farm without animals! You can build soils without them, but they obviously help a great deal.
We are actively looking at ways to integrate livestock into our system and are going to work with a local sheep farmer to start with.

I’m sure you already know him, but a chat with @Romney_Rob would help you meet the right person

 

[Bossfarmer]

It won’t decline if you aren’t oxidising through ploughing and deep cultivation’s.
I agree that arable farming in general has been very damaging to soils, but it doesn’t need to be and there is many who are proving this.

your cover crops dont grow properly up in scotland and the weathers often too wet for direct drilling to be reliable

 

[ajd132]

I’m sure you already know him, but a chat with @Romney_Rob would help you meet the right person

We already have someone, were meant to graze covers this year but they weren’t very good and I chickened out

 

[ajd132]

your cover crops dont grow properly up in scotland and the weathers often too wet for direct drilling to be reliable

I know people in Scotland doing it

 

[Still Farming]

Rock hard here.
Alway dry when need rain ,and when don't need rain,it rains for months?
Wise guy said other day ,just make hay now???
Some dick heads about.

 

[Brisel]

I really don't know why we can't discuss weather on this forum without being called " sad c-unts " and have our system of farming ridiculed. OK, 3 weeks dry weather isn't life threatening, but it does hit the bottom line buying in fodder, and lower grain yields. Why are we not allowed to talk about things which affect UK farming on a UK farming forum ?

I think you’re taking this far too literally. Derrick knew it would wind up the Aussies who certainly know what a drought looks like!

 

[som farmer]

over the years of farming the same patch, you learn what is best for your soil type, and then the next generation think you are barking ! They learn, we have 2/3 acres, either side of a thick hedge, that is not only steep, but you cannot get a grip on it, lad came in to plough for us, 220hp tractor, nice plough, ploughed up to the 'awkward' bit, and could neither keep his plough in the ground, nor his tractor on the slope, that did get me a remark. But it is a case if knowing your ground, and looking after it. Personally, I think some of the problem is, moving the soil to often, and by doing so, you do not give the bugs and fungi, a chance to recover, whether min til will over come this, I don't know, we are d/d grass, rather than plough, or, using a sumo type, which doesn't invert the soil, heavy applications of slurry, seem to soak in well with that, but fym. would need to be ploughed in. Trouble is, it will be many years before we know.

 

[Sharpy]

over the years of farming the same patch, you learn what is best for your soil type, and then the next generation think you are barking ! They learn, we have 2/3 acres, either side of a thick hedge, that is not only steep, but you cannot get a grip on it, lad came in to plough for us, 220hp tractor, nice plough, ploughed up to the 'awkward' bit, and could neither keep his plough in the ground, nor his tractor on the slope, that did get me a remark. But it is a case if knowing your ground, and looking after it. Personally, I think some of the problem is, moving the soil to often, and by doing so, you do not give the bugs and fungi, a chance to recover, whether min til will over come this, I don't know, we are d/d grass, rather than plough, or, using a sumo type, which doesn't invert the soil, heavy applications of slurry, seem to soak in well with that, but fym. would need to be ploughed in. Trouble is, it will be many years before we know.

Why do you need to plough dung in?

 

[Old McDonald]

I said you can build fertility and soil with techniques like cover and companion cropping. That of course animals help but there is other ways. Root exudates build soil.
everything else I’ve said is about how we conserve moisture in these dry springs. Posters are deploring about it being so dry so I shared what we have done that helps mitigate that, it’s a forum after all. some seem to take a lot of offence to stuff like that because it’s different to what they know.
to say that zero till drilling direct into cover crops and stubble conserves moisture is just fact, to say that drying out seedbeds with cultivation passes pre spring drilling loses all the moisture is again just a fact. I don’t get why people take such offence to reality.

That is not quite what you said, but probably close enough apart from the earlier claim of soil exudates building soil carbon. I just wanted to check I had not missed anything. I still cannot see that I jumped to “wild conclusions” in my first post.

I posted because of your earlier posts in the thread, which led me to the “unwild” conclusion that you believe you, with your very limited experience, are right and others who do not follow your ideas are wrong. You do not make suggestions or merely tell people what you are doing, or would like to attempt. You tell them what they should be doing – on their land.

You also attack other farmers, especially as if they have purposely caused the sudden change from wet to dry. You have no idea how everyone else’s land is affected by a couple of weeks or so of dry winds.

Here are a few quotes from you in this thread alone:

The top is very dry but there is plenty of moisture in the soil, unless you have deliberately cultivated that moisture away.

seems pretty stupid to me to be moaning if you have taken a conscious decision to dry it right out.

We are obviously not very good at managing water on our farms in this country.

you have some deranged anger towards a technique that could help mitigate the affects of very dry springs.

We must look like complete idiots, crops dying because it was too wet 3 weeks ago and now crops dying because we dried the soil out. I’ve spoken to quite a few friends who now understand why I am so adamant that moving soil a few days prior to spring drilling to make a cosmetically better seed bed is such a bad idea.



Nor do you seem to allow for the climatic differences, particularly between where you live and higher ground several hundred miles to the north - @Bossfarmer for instance tells us he is between Perth and Inverness. I assume that means he is not on the eastern seaboard or other low lying ground. I rarely (if ever) agree with his posts but I happen to know the area well, although perhaps not quite as well as much of the higher ground in Northumberland, and I cannot see myself paying a six figure sum for a seed drill if I was farming again in those areas.

You might be interested in my treatment of two blocks of ground on my present property. You might not of course, but somebody else might. They were treated differently because they were different. One was easily grazed and the other would have required fencing which would need to be later removed.

“The worst test I have had was one of 1.3% in a mature olive grove in Portugal that had not received any input of soil nutrients for an unknown number of years.

It set very hard when it dried after rain or irrigation, water filtration and retention were extremely poor. Some weeds grew on it, but not in profusion, and very few different species. All in all the typical symptoms of a soil that lacks OM. The major part of it was in pasture for 4 years and grazed as frequently as possible with well-fed stock in order to increase the organic and soil nutrients content. It is now totally changed in character and is as good as it looks. The OM increased to 4.5% during these four years.

It is appropriate to note that during the time this particularly low OM content land was in pasture, I grew eight consecutive green manure crops on other land and the OM increased by only 0.3% from 2.7 to 3. These crops were well fertilised, well grown and cultivated into the soil.”

 

[Derrick Hughes]

My pond never dried last year , thats weed dying at the start of April,I know there is always someone worse of , but try telling that to a man whos trying to cycle home 30 miles when he thinks his arms broken