What’s the difference between “Regenarative Farming” and traditional “Mixed Farming”?

[Lowland1]

I was gonna say regen farming is a mindset rather than a method, which is perhaps why it's so hard to explain/define it.

At present the science of traditional agriculture is clear where the regen science isn’t partly because it’s newish and partly because it’s hard to work out the direct affect of doing certain things. As such we learn all the time. For me personally we’ve gone from using 20,000 litres of diesel a month when ploughing to 15,000 when we went mintill to about 12,000 on strip till. There are other benefits but saving nearly 100,000 litres of diesel a year has got to be something in favour of woke farming. I’ve still got my ploughs so if it stops working we can always go back. Thing about farming there’s lots of ways to get a similar end result.

 

[CopperBeech]

Round and round and round we go ......

Out of curiosity.... why do some folk have such an issue with the regen thing ?

Constantly hear people moaning about hard times, expensive inputs and lack of profitability......

And yet when some say they are doing things a certain way and making a good go of it....... folk mock it.

Is this because people always fear change ? Or because folk are scared of being left behind ? Just curious.

 

[ajd132]

In the eastern counties min-til IS the predominant system, certainly ploughing is done only as a blackgrass reset, or rotationally say 1 year in 6.
There are lots of Claydon users. A bit of proper DDing as well.

I think he meant no till not min till it is often confused. We need some industry standard definitions!

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Round and round and round we go ......

Out of curiosity.... why do some folk have such an issue with the regen thing ?

Constantly hear people moaning about hard times, expensive inputs and lack of profitability......

And yet when some say they are doing things a certain way and making a good go of it....... folk mock it.

Is this because people always fear change ? Or because folk are scared of being left behind ? Just curious.

I've been thinking about this and I think there are two reasons, maybe others too.

One is that it can be inferred as criticism of what a farmer or farm is doing. If you have been farming in a certain way for decades, you either accept that what you are doing may have its faults, which possibly means admitting to yourself that for 20, 30 or 40 years you have been doing it "wrong", or you convince yourself that anyone doing anything different is wrong.

Another reason is that people feel talked down to because someone else is happy to talk about their new system or drill for instance.

Both these tend to get a defensive reaction. In a lot of ways farming is hard enough without doing experiments which all your neighbours say "definitely won't work". A lot of it comes down to belief in the end.

 

[7610 super q]

A huge amount has been learnt about farming and science in that time. So I would say we should learn from both the good and the bad from the period.

Woke farming has cut my costs considerably which is an immediate reward for changing the system.

I grow cover crops. I can see merit in having something growing in the ground AYR. Mine gets ploughed in though....
I will be getting a no till drill in the future ( something cheap like an ancient Moore drill probably ).
Potatoes in the rotation, so still got to keep the plough I think, unless I buy some sort of big cultivator to level the ground ......and some sort of subsoiler for the headlands.....
I may well save a lot of diesel, but machinery costs are going to be substantial.

And have yields increased since 1985 ?

3 things affect my profitability. Yield.....oh dear. Produce prices........oh dear.........and spending........oh dear.

 

[som farmer]

I grow cover crops. I can see merit in having something growing in the ground AYR. Mine gets ploughed in though....
I will be getting a no till drill in the future ( something cheap like an ancient Moore drill probably ).
Potatoes in the rotation, so still got to keep the plough I think, unless I buy some sort of big cultivator to level the ground ......and some sort of subsoiler for the headlands.....
I may well save a lot of diesel, but machinery costs are going to be substantial.

And have yields increased since 1985 ?

3 things affect my profitability. Yield.....oh dear. Produce prices........oh dear.........and spending........oh dear.

at least you know, oh dear !
but future farming will be guv by regulation, for climate change, whether that is the correct way, that is not our decision. and that is definitely, oh dear.

 

[CopperBeech]

I've been thinking about this and I think there are two reasons, maybe others too.

One is that it can be inferred as criticism of what a farmer or farm is doing. If you have been farming in a certain way for decades, you either accept that what you are doing may have its faults, which possibly means admitting to yourself that for 20, 30 or 40 years you have been doing it "wrong", or you convince yourself that anyone doing anything different is wrong.

Another reason is that people feel talked down to because someone else is happy to talk about their new system or drill for instance.

Both these tend to get a defensive reaction. In a lot of ways farming is hard enough without doing experiments which all your neighbours say "definitely won't work". A lot of it comes down to belief in the end.

A wise farmer, once taught me ... “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”.

 

[CopperBeech]

I’ve been lucky, I’ve got to see one farms journey. 2500 acres of traditional arable, soils knackered etc, led into regen farming by one smart cookie. Half the dark grassed down with herbal leys, livestock on, high intensity, daily shift mob grazing or cattle and sheep, mobile laying hens, and some very smart stuff going on with the arable. A decade later and the place is transformed and productive as hell.

 

[Sid]

I’ve been lucky, I’ve got to see one farms journey. 2500 acres of traditional arable, soils knackered etc, led into regen farming by one smart cookie. Half the dark grassed down with herbal leys, livestock on, high intensity, daily shift mob grazing or cattle and sheep, mobile laying hens, and some very smart stuff going on with the arable. A decade later and the place is transformed and productive as hell.

It's the livestock that done it.

Mixed farming instead of praire farming.

No fancy buzz words.

 

[CopperBeech]

It's the livestock that done it.

Mixed farming instead of praire farming.

No fancy buzz words.

There’s a bit more to it then that. Just having livestock there wouldn’t have done what’s been achieved. It’s the way the farm has been set up, the livestock run and grazed and the whole system. Also the arable innovations, going from the plough to no till, and using some very very cool kit and advanced tech stuff. Also the kinds of lays and arable crops sewn. But yea the livestock are at the centre.

 

[som farmer]

A wise farmer, once taught me ... “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”.

very true.
but we are now being told, we cannot use/do some of the things we have always done.

There seems to be a lack of forward thinking, new methods, or even old methods, will come into force, not by our choice, but by guv's passing new legislation, to protect the 'world'. We will have extremely limited say in those changes, the green zealots preach a gospel, that they believe to be the only way, to save the world. And they have the ear of guvs, we don't.

It doesn't matter what any farmer thinks, whether something will, or won't work on his/her farm, policy will be dictated by guv, who don't listen to us. I am perfectly sure that the direction farming is going, as our beloved leaders wish, is not the right way, and could well end in tears.
On the other hand, we know chemical aides, are not the 'best' solution to avoid climate change, and we know we ought to reduce use, we just don't know the best way to do it.

Unfortunately, people who think they know, are the ones guvs are listening to, and that view sits comfortably with the gen public, who are convinced farting cows, will kill them all, not quite, but the really polluting businesses, have very cleverly passed the blame to us.

Seems to me, a lot of farmers, don't really believe things will change, l really wish they were right, And a belief that they know, what is best for their farms, and they do. But change will come, from those that rule us, based on deeply flawed theories, and we will have to dance, to their tune, or exit farming.

 

[Martin Holden]

Off topic .
When Velcourt took over running Stowell Park they did the drilling with two Case 1455 pulling Amazone Combi drills.

Velcourt used Bettison 3 D direct drills on the Cotswolds way back in the mid 70’s. Mind you they had to plough some ground in the 80’s as they had too many stones on the surface!! Good old Cotswold brash!

 

[Cowcorn]

I’ve been lucky, I’ve got to see one farms journey. 2500 acres of traditional arable, soils knackered etc, led into regen farming by one smart cookie. Half the dark grassed down with herbal leys, livestock on, high intensity, daily shift mob grazing or cattle and sheep, mobile laying hens, and some very smart stuff going on with the arable. A decade later and the place is transformed and productive as hell.

The other side of the coin what were the at prior to this to knacker the soil ??
With only 200 acres of grain crops spending a lot of money to change to regen DD might lose me a lot of income before it starts to make any real impact on costs .
We have high average yields for both w wheat and sp barley so despite been ploughed and combi drilled for the last 50 years the are still in good fettle .
Plenty of slurry and fym are the special extras imho .
Of course if yields were falling then of course costs would have to come under scrutiny but as long as my wheat yield acre starts with a 4 my 30 year old plough and combi will still rule the roost .
A well respected soil expert over here maintains that if you can still plough with the same hp as you used 20 years ago then your soil is in good fettle .

 

[colhonk]

I can still plough with the same horsepower as 20 years ago ... Naturally I don`t of course

 

[Lowland1]

I can still plough with the same horsepower as 20 years ago ... Naturally I don`t of course

I was thinking of this when we ploughed with a Ford 4000 we couldn’t go out when it was too wet we couldn’t plough too deep and we couldn’t plough fast enough to use 20 inch furrows. Ploughing isn’t always bad.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I was thinking of this when we ploughed with a Ford 4000 we couldn’t go out when it was too wet we couldn’t plough too deep and we couldn’t plough fast enough to use 20 inch furrows. Ploughing isn’t always bad.

I ploughed with a fordson dexa with spade lugs fitted and phoughed with a 20inch trailing fire break Plough, would turn Gorse over so it could not be seen

 

[Bury the Trash]

What no bike pics yet ?

 

[BrianV]

Seems that fertiliser prices have rocketed in the US as well?
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Skyrocketing fertilizer prices have American farmers on edge​

WAXAHACHIE, Tex. — The mud under his cowboy boots is so thick, John Paul Dineen jokes he's grown "about three inches," since spring has arrived in North Texas.

With it comes the start of the growing season for this 48-year-old farmer.

"I don’t get too excited when we’ve had a dry spell as long as we’ve had," Dineen said looking around his fields.

He is not a third, fourth, or even fifth-generation farmer. He is the first person in his family to take on this noble American calling and like farmers across the country is being hit hard by the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer.

"All of the inputs have gone crazy," he said.
This lifelong Texan farms a few hundred acres of land 50 miles south of Dallas. A crisscrossing patchwork of fields where rows of corn are just starting to make their first appearance of the season. A recent rain was welcomed news to this farmer.

"We have a long way to go before this crop is made and a lot more is needed to do," he said looking around at the rows of corn he recently planted.
But a seven-year drought is far from Dineen's biggest concern this growing season. The prices of the fertilizer he depends on to feed his crops have skyrocketed due to inflation, supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine.

"Without nutrients that plant goes into salvage mode," Dineen explains.

Last year, nitrogen fertilizer cost Dineen about $380 a ton. This year, the same nitrogen he needs is going for $1,200 a ton, about a 215% increase.

"To break even, we’ll have to make a decent crop and that’s not a good place to be in," he lamented.

As a fast-growing leafy crop, corn is pretty low-maintenance. But, a good dose of nitrogen will help raise the level of nutrients in the soil to help create a better growing environment for the plant. Which produces more healthy stalks.

One sprout of corn is so vitally important to the U.S. economy that the USDA is now offering $250 million in grants to increase American fertilizer production.

Brant Wilbourn with Texas Farm Bureau sees the program as a necessary step to protect farmers from problems out of their control.

"Everybody eats and it’s going to impact everyone," Wilbourn said.

Those grants offered by the USDA to increase fertilizer production here in the United States won’t help farmers right now. But increased domestic production of fertilizer over the next few years will better insulate the agriculture industry from skyrocketing production costs in the future.

"If we can have those innovative solutions brought forward it would definitely help," Wilbourn said.
Even as a first-generation farmer, Dineen has learned uncertainty is about the only certainty out here. He’s just waiting for more favorable winds to blow his way.

"It’s economics. What do you think you’re gonna make and will you ever get it all back?"

 

[Bury the Trash]

I can still plough with the same horsepower as 20 years ago ... Naturally I don`t of course

No i don't either , i added 2 cylinders, 10 hp and a furrow

 

[beltane]

There’s a bit more to it then that. Just having livestock there wouldn’t have done what’s been achieved. It’s the way the farm has been set up, the livestock run and grazed and the whole system. Also the arable innovations, going from the plough to no till, and using some very very cool kit and advanced tech stuff. Also the kinds of lays and arable crops sewn. But yea the livestock are at the centre.

I don't know why you poo poo'd the idea that it was the way we used to farm pre industrial revolution, because it was. Just this and what you have been describing in the last few posts.

Maybe people get defensive about that, too. That they feel like it is 'going backwards' and 'yields weren't good enough' except they were.

If people want to get up in arms about what kind of farming we were doing 250+ years ago just read some books, we've been writing about farming for much longer than that.
In any event, the livestock *is* the key ingredient but also it is the field system (basically, the ecology that surrounds the fields you use) that needs to be incorporated and not just erased.

Nothing wrong with learning from our mistakes and making a different go at it.