Traditional mixed Farming

[Kiwi Pete]

We can talk to ourselves for a while until folks come back with their updated rice yields .
Whats new on the old fashioned front, Kevin?

 

[Kevtherev]

We can talk to ourselves for a while until folks come back with their updated rice yields .
Whats new on the old fashioned front, Kevin?

I think folk are starting to realise more about different cropping systems and rotations with livestock.
What our forefathers did and without N inputs

 

[Hilly]

Nz was far better when it had only two tv channels

The uk was better when it only had the 3.

 

[Kevtherev]

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yes I think the realisation has been made that chemistry and technology just continue to keep pushing the problem into the future - without really fixing the problem of the livestock deficiency on the land.

Have had quite some time away from this thread to reflect, it worries me what happens to "feeding the world" as fuel keeps going up in price and how it affects the viability of running dump trailers and slurry and other tech/brute force if you want to call it that?
It would create other issues with distribution as well but electric road vehicles are more feasible than electric tractoring, to me.
I remember the horse drawn plough, too, quite symbolic of many aspects of the thread - especially the furrow that farming is struggling to climb out of

 

[Kevtherev]

Fuel and chemical inputs need to be reduced but I’ll get shot down for that statement no doubt

 

[Suffolk Serf]

Land is overvalued (in UK) and soil is undervalued, in my opinion. That is a barrier to mixed farming.

 

[Kevtherev]

Tin helmets at the ready

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Fuel and chemical inputs need to be reduced but I’ll get shot down for that statement no doubt

Probably. Change sometimes happens through taking a leap but usually because of being pushed, I think if farmers are simply holding out for better prices then they were born in the wrong century, myself.

Anyway I shall get some sleep as its 4.20 here

 

[Henarar]

so what do dandelions bring to traditional mixed farming ?
they seem traditional here if nart else
soon have to get the combine out to cut them

 

[Kevtherev]

Deep rooted and full of minerals

 

[Henarar]

Deep rooted and full of minerals

spose you could say that about docks

 

[Bury the Trash]

Probably. Change sometimes happens through taking a leap but usually because of being pushed, I think if farmers are simply holding out for better prices then they were born in the wrong century, myself.

Anyway I shall get some sleep as its 4.20 here

yeah should be carefull what we wish for.....


just got some of the highest prices for hogs ive ever had.

 

[glasshouse]

yeah should be carefull what we wish for.....


just got some of the highest prices for hogs ive ever had.

What price?

 

[Bury the Trash]

 

[Kiwi Pete]

spose you could say that about docks

There is a lot of variety that wants to grow, it doesn't know that every species is destined to be directly eaten because nature wasn't designed by farmers.
Some of those deep rooters are purely there to do the same thing as trees: mineral pumps, bring up things from below grass root level and make them available for everything else to use.

Once we make all those type of "weeds" endangered species, then we need to look at spraying stuff on, boluses and injections, because most farmers only listened to what they wanted to hear at school - looking at crops to make money with, not necessarily to save money with.

So much happens that we only understand when we ask "silly things" because they are not oft asked, being inconvenient as they are.

Either way, the more diversity the better an ecosystem improves, plain and simple answer.. if you have 60 different things in your meadow, 61 is still better than 59 as far as nutrient and water cycles go.
Making money is only a human idea for it..

If you google "Jena Experiment" it sort of goes into the subject more, hard to quantify such complex stuff as the role of biodiversity in ecosystem function, but they did it.

Dandelions can (and do) happily reproduce all by themselves but still attract and feed bees, simple act of "samaritanism" really, nothing in it for them other than having some bees come for a look.

Probably the more you understand of the natural world, the less you like people and their own blind selfishness towards it.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

quite rare though , in having your brother and father still working with you on a manageable acreage . We used to keep 160 cattle and lamb a flock of 200 sheep, plus fatten a few pigs for BOCM Pauls!, with my dad and a full time man.
I’m 55 and my back won’t stand turning sheep or lambing these days. Luckily I can grow maize for a farm milking 850 cows and maize/ rye for an AD plant, plus do a straw for muck swap with a local pig farm, meaning I only have to harvest less than half the 400 acres myself .
We’ve become a support farm for other specialist farms

of course you could buy a turn over crate! and the advice now is not to trim feet either!

 

[Hilly]

yeah should be carefull what we wish for.....


just got some of the highest prices for hogs ive ever had.

My mate had his grandfathers accounts out from 1962, grain at £90 ton ewes sold at £120 each, made depressing reading id say.

 

[Henarar]

There is a lot of variety that wants to grow, it doesn't know that every species is destined to be directly eaten because nature wasn't designed by farmers.
Some of those deep rooters are purely there to do the same thing as trees: mineral pumps, bring up things from below grass root level and make them available for everything else to use.

Once we make all those type of "weeds" endangered species, then we need to look at spraying stuff on, boluses and injections, because most farmers only listened to what they wanted to hear at school - looking at crops to make money with, not necessarily to save money with.

So much happens that we only understand when we ask "silly things" because they are not oft asked, being inconvenient as they are.

Either way, the more diversity the better an ecosystem improves, plain and simple answer.. if you have 60 different things in your meadow, 61 is still better than 59 as far as nutrient and water cycles go.
Making money is only a human idea for it..

If you google "Jena Experiment" it sort of goes into the subject more, hard to quantify such complex stuff as the role of biodiversity in ecosystem function, but they did it.

Dandelions can (and do) happily reproduce all by themselves but still attract and feed bees, simple act of "samaritanism" really, nothing in it for them other than having some bees come for a look.

Probably the more you understand of the natural world, the less you like people and their own blind selfishness towards it.

to be honest the plant I really have a problem with is buttercup [please tell me it has a use] the rest of them I can work with/round

we reinstated a hedge a few years ago and mum wanted to put a few gorse plants in it as she likes the flowers, we don't have much on the farm, I think two of the plants died after and few years and a couple are still going so that may explain why there isn't much on the farm

 

[hendrebc]

to be honest the plant I really have a problem with is buttercup [please tell me it has a use] the rest of them I can work with/round

Of course they have a use. Put the flowers against your neck and if your neck looks yellow it tells you of you like butter or margarine
Or thats what my ageing aunty.used to tell me when i was a kid. See mega useful plant