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Stable-Man
Participant@jac 19417 wrote:
Stableman the high rainfall over here combined with the heavy Holstien means the land would poach if the herd was left out all year.. but winter housing is still a better option than the 24/7 housing idea…
JohnDon’t know if you’ve seen this but it’s a Documentary for the BBC about oil reliance and permaculture and at one point they mention planting grasses for a tough turf for year-round grazing…although I don’t remember if it was for sheep or cattle. That would make a big difference which it is. It’s a little more interesting in the sense that the girl’s family is farming and not just trying to rip typical agriculture from “the outside looking in.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8Participant@lancek 19396 wrote:
back in the 70s it was 3500.00 per year or at least that is what my dad sold our lake lot for for me to go! but it looks likr they made a lot of inprovments since I left I wonder if they ever fixed the boiler so you had hot water when it got below zero!! lol
Now it’s over $16,000 a semester. I was just approved in state tuition for Chadron State and it’ll cost about five grand for two semesters if I don’t get additional scholarships.
ParticipantI’d come away depressed too. You’d think people at a sustainability conference could come up with a better solution. Rather than pushing a cow harder, how about reducing fuel? An increase in milk would just lower the prices more and make dairying even more difficult. Aren’t steers just sold for slaughter? They could be put to use if the farmer is willing. There’s a farm a few counties from me that using intensive grazing rather than grain feeding, though I don’t know anything about their fuel consumption. I figured in the UK temps were moderate enough that a cow could be grazed almost year around on good quality grass, thus reducing the diesel for haying.
About diet, I believe in the US we could definitely reduce both milk and meat eating. Instead of trying to fit methane filters on a cow’s rear or feeding cattle these weird diets, just sell fewer cattle! The prices would go up for meat and milk, and there wouldn’t need to be the constant expansion. Reduced consumption would mean that we pay more but for fewer lbs./gallons it might even out. You’d have smaller spaces to heat, etc, with a smaller herd, and therefore less to worry about with carbon sequestration.
ParticipantI thought about going to this school but would be in debt for a long time. Good for those that can afford it, though.
ParticipantThe deer are really used to people around here. I’ve gotten maybe 15ft away from a few, nearly stumbled over a fawn while hiking through a field, and of course they eat our plants. Ironically their population booms in suburbs with the added grass.
ParticipantRight on. I visited SDSU in Brookings, very nice area around there. You’ll find good people and discussions here. Oh, and if you know somebody that needs a farm hand….
ParticipantNobody’s posting…but I’ll add some more anyway: Aside from the plant inside of the seed, there is the endosperm and the seed coat. Even if part of the endosperm and all of the seed coat returned to the soil, you’d still come up with a “net loss” because in this perfect system people speak of all of that seed would return to the soil, but my guess is it takes more than it gives. This is where manures, worms, and insects would come in as amendments along with any composts thrown in.
Cases for and against tillage regarding moisture content, tilth, are out there. Hard to tell if there’s a better or worse option.
ParticipantOk, I’ll expound a little more: There’s a fall crop of rye flowering, I suppose it’s called, about the time that someone would plant wheat or corn, but you don’t have some expensive no till piece, so it’s broadcast into a standing crop, which I’ve read is done out west. In this crop mix is the main crop and prairie clover. Then the cover crop is crushed with a board or a crop crimper, increasing seed/soil contact, creating a mat overtop the seed to hold in some moisture.
I observed over the winter the remarkable alignment of downed grasses in abandoned field by my place; most point the same direction, and I suppose provide some insulation for the seeds that fell off in the fall when the grass still stood. The spring planting would resolve the death of seeds that couldn’t overwinter.
This is all theoretical….
ParticipantLooks kind of sketchy.
ParticipantNot with farmland that I know of, but it probably is happening. An uncle of mine lives in CO and the houses in that little town were bought cheap 15 years ago and the owners just leave them vacant while the people that actually live in the town have to build economical housing because all the investment and interest in the community drove up rent/property taxes. In general land is just going up due to subdivisions. A popular thing around here is for rich people to buy decent sized acreage, build their mansion on it, and stable some horses. I’d like to see more of that land in production.
ParticipantYeah, I don’t particularly like it, but the US uses probably hundreds of millions of gallons of oil a day, just from searching around online a bit, to fuel our hundreds of millions of cars and tractors and to form plastic, etc. The impact of all these refinements and processes is no doubt way more than this spill. The fact is we’re stuck with oil and it’s up to the people to get rid of the dependence.
ParticipantWith a little mechanical knowhow and a hardware store I think somebody could make one of these at a cheaper price. The most complex part would be gearing it somehow so that one treadle would make 2-3 revolutions. I suppose it wouldn’t be all that different from a treadle lathe except with a big barrel and something to knock the seeds off.
ParticipantMan, all the way out by the bay. Looks like a cool place anyhow.
ParticipantWell, I don’t know about horses exactly, but diatomaceous earth is one of the options for sheep and cattle. Maybe it’ll work on horses too. I’ve also read about mixing powdered garlic with some other things and using a syringe to inject it into the animal’s mouth (again, for sheep). Garlic powder is much cheaper than fluid garlic or cloves.
Participant@jac 17081 wrote:
However… As long as the world has cheap goods and steel from Asia I dont see the populace changing much. Like it or not the percieved wealth of the western world is built on other countries working for a lot less money than we do or in extreme cases outright theft. British Empire being a prime example.Change isnt going to happen overnight and im sad to say no one on this form might see the big change but if I have passed the skills and mindset over to my daughter then Im a happy man… In many ways this latest recession has slowed the change down.
I rarely buy new electronics or anything that needs to function anymore because almost all of it is junk. My parents’ TV blew out after 2 years, and I’ve had several things that don’t work out of the package or last only a year or so. I expect anything less than $100 to not work for long. Making almost all our stuff elsewhere helps those countries some but when it’s not economical to ship things halfway across the world maybe we’ll get some sense.
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