[clayfoot-sandyman]

Buckwheat always seems to be sold as the miracle fast turn over green manure but my experience is that it’s ‘got issues’ which you’ve hit up against Mitch, it grows fast, provides good cover and is excellent for pollinating insects BUT;
the problem comes with those stems as you’ve found out and it seeds like crazy unless you chop it in straight away as soon as flowers appear which to me always feels like a shame when it’s covered in bees and hoverflies.
I know this isn’t of much use to you in terms of advice as I’m still cultivating with a tractor (my steers are nowhere near up to cultivations yet) but rotorvating twice seems to be the only to get the stuff worked down enough to plough.
It’s an easy crop to grow, but a tough one to get rid of.

Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

It’s not looking far off a desert at present with all this continuing hot spell and our sand-loam…..!

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Got interested in this mob-stocking business now…..and have started reading Joel Salatin’s ‘Salad-bar Beef’.
One thing he talks about is there being a herd size where cattle begin to mob which he sets at about 50 head. Before this he says you’re just fencing them tightly but they haven’t fully enterd into the herd psychology where they graze tightly and quickly and efficiently. He says that when in smaller no’s they tend to express their individualities more, are more erratic in their grazing, are noisier when the strip is grazed etc .
Any experience of this?? I have about 25 acres of grass. Don’t think I’d ever get up to 50 head of cattle…..:confused:

[clayfoot-sandyman]

The EU
The Germans make the rules, the British obey the rules, the French ignore the rules, the Spanish, Italians and everyone else say “what rules”!

The British don’t just obey the rules, we ‘gold-plate’ them. A friend from Germany who visited commented on how many signs we have everywhere….warning signs, emergency signs, first aid signs etc etc…they said in Germany it’s much more low key, just the basics.
And don’t get me onto risk assessments; I’ll be writing risk assessments incase of sneezing soon.
What it all does I think is it diminishes responsiveness and creativity in a given situation, because there’s always some code which must be referred to. Yes there’s a place for some regulation/guidelines on best practise, but not when it is driven by a self perpetuating ‘industry’ of bureaucrats and consultants who create protocol because that’s what they are paid to do regardless of necessity………………..rant over!:)

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Ixy – how do you work out your stocking density for this system and how tight you then keep them – is there a m2 per head of cattle/sheep per day equation, in relation to grass growth (uh oh, that sounds complex!)???
Also how do you fence in sheep, my experience is they’re buggars for getting through electric fences – all that wooly insulation!?

Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Old Kat, don’t know if you read this article by Joel Salatin re; grazing. I found it thoroughly inspiring….http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/May08_Salatin.pdf

Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

I agree, it sounds wonderful what Ixy’s doing, hope to see it sometime. I went for ‘mobstocking’ , backfencing etc after reading Voisin’s ‘Grass Productivity’ but then kind of went off the idea when I realised how tight I’d have to fence my beasts, how much fiddling with electric fences was involved, how little opportunity I’d leave my animals to seek out shade/shelter or particular plants, and how (my) sheep are masterful at getting through temporary fences.
I just opted for a lower stocking density and am gradually fencing/hedging my fields into 1-2acre areas and am upping the stocking rate gradually as I’m able to graze more effectively.
A farming friend once told me an old saying… that ‘a beast shouldn’t hear the church bells ring twice on the same field’ – I guess even in Britain some farmers in certain areas traditionally practised this sort of principle but it’s been lost since a large percentage of hedgerows got grubbed out, between the 1950’s – 1980’s, somewhere in the region of 150,000 miles in the UK is one estimate.

[clayfoot-sandyman]

@Ixy 19455 wrote:

The way I see it is that cattle and grassland have evolved together for thousands upon thousands of years perfectly well without human intervention and we can’t possibly know better than that! We may think that doing X, Y or Z would improve it, but we always overlook some tiny detail that makes it unsustainable in the long term, and we’re always going to have to revert to the default system that nature devised….

….It’s an interesting thought, I can’t help but think though that the ancient wild cattle wondered over vast areas, seeking out forage in specific locations at specific times of year, and weren’t squeezed up into little fields. So many problems associated with compaction, grass varieties, soil fertility etc weren’t there because the land was inherently fertile enough and offered the right forage for cattle to stay for short periods of time and then move on without damaging the ground.
We keep them longer than they’d probably like to stay in a given location and the only way that I know to really deepen the fertility of a field so that it can offer more is through applying compost, which applied at the right time adds humus which as we well know is the foundation of healthy soil. My experience of just allowing the cattle to graze and muck the field as they go doesn’t really add much because one is simply cycling nutrient through the cow eating the grass and returning it directly to the field, albeit transformed and partially broken down but it’s not really targetted as in well composted FYM being applied on a specific field and a lot is lost through exposure to the elements when it’s not been broken down to stable humus. Ultimately if one is aiming for closing the inputs from outside so that a farm is relatively self enclosed for fertility then one is probably just moving ones nutrient budget around the farm to some degree, but I think if you don’t do compost at all then a lot more must be lost through leaching and gaseous release?
But you’ve probably had other experiences and I’d be intrigued to know (the proof being in the pudding!)…..still intending on coming up by the way though will be after students break up, up to my arm pits in paper work at present! Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Thanks for the advice John.
By thick stemmed flowers I mean Ox-eye daisies – they look pretty and must be good for pollinating insects but not sure how much good they do for the hay accept slow down the process!
Looks like the weather may be smiling on us, next week according to the met office looks likely to be sunny – 🙂

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Nice photos. Did you get it made in time?

QUESTION; Here the weather broke and my ‘traditional’ hay mix (i.e heaps of thick stemmed flowers) ain’t doing much, with all this cool windy cloud passing overhead.
Just got it rowed up and awaiting the next good bit of weather. Am loathed to make haylage, hate all the plastic, how long do you reckon you can leave hay down for awaiting good weather before you’ve just got to cut your losses and bale and bag it? I’ve read accounts of people leaving it down for up to a fortnight??? Next week’s looking touch and go…..

[clayfoot-sandyman]

I wish I could get someone to combine….we’re a tiny 32 acres; and all my neighbours are atleast 10 times that so all their combines probably wouldn’t even fit down our drive – whenever I mention harvesting 2 or 3 acres of grain they always look slightly distant! I’m more or less resigned to just doing hay and fodder beet for the cattle and sheep and buying in for hens/pigs for the time being – keep eyeing up reaper/binders on e-bay but the level of disrepair on them (a dusty pile of parts usually) is a bit of a turn off and then there’s threshing etc.
Would love to grow some grain down here though.

Whilst we’re on the subject of arable, one supposed ‘transition’ solution is ‘Silvoarable’ combining forestry and arable which proponents claim has many benefits; increased yields, dual cropping etc.
http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/silvoar.html

Maybe one day our fields look like this!

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Thanks Charly,

That clarifies the argument a bit!

Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Thanks for the clarification – looks to me like Ruby Red or North Devon too but I guess having developed a bit differently after breeding for so long away from Devon!
The Ruby Red Devon is almost entirely a minority beef breed now in England, having been (like many of our traditional breeds) a widespread dual/triple purpose breed.
I include a wonderful photo by the photographer James Ravilious who photographed around Dartmoor for 30 years the last generation of traditional Dartmoor farmers. This photo taken in the late 70’s illustrates the Devon’s and a very different way of life quite nicely I think …..Ed

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Which Devons do you guys mean when you refer to Devons? – I see them all the time in U.S Oxen literature – we have two kinds

Ruby Red Devons?
http://www.redrubydevon.co.uk/index.htm

or

South Devons?
http://www.sdhbs.org.uk/

We sometimes refer to South Devons as ‘Orange Elephants’ as they’re big and orange!:D

Your cow’s a beaut by the way Vicki…!

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Hi,

I’ve started fairly recently with Oxen and having researched quite a bit decided upon Dairy Shorthorn – (what you guys call Milking Shorthorns I believe!) – because they seemed like a good generalist type beast; not too dopey but equally not too wild either.
I’m finding them great so far. If I hadn’t of found these guys I probably would have gone for a dairy cross, probably a holstein/friesian type crossed to a Hereford which there’s heaps of around here on dairy farms and they too are quite a good calm sort of beast in my experience.
At the back of Drew Conroy’s book (‘Oxen – A teamsters guide’) he has a list of different breeds and crosses, giving them a ‘tractability rating’ based on their ease of training – I found this useful when thinking about breeds. The big plus for dairy breeds is you can get them as young as day olds which is great for developing the relationship – last year I tried as a complete novice to halter train a simmental/shorthorn cross which was weaned off its mum at 6 months and it was a resounding failure……! I’d say as a novice you have no choice but dairy breeds or dairy crosses because you get the time to acclimatise to the calves pace and learning needs with a young one AND they are immediately at ease with you and respect you whereas an older beast requires you to get straight in and know what you are doing. So beef breeds are a bit of a no-no for beginners because no-one wants to take them off a suckler until atleast 5 or 6 months old.
However I have meager experience so I’m just relating bits I’ve read / researched and the 5 and bit months I’ve put in with my lads – and I have even heard it said that any breed will do providing you train it right (but I don’t believe it!)

Good luck, Ed

P.S. I’ve attached a photo of my two five month old boys – ‘Lark and Sparrow’ sitting in a particularly symmetrical pose!

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