Farm science.

Buford T. Justice XIX

A little bit about the two broadly different organic matter components in soil.
https://agsci.source.colostate.edu/as-a-way-to-fight-climate-change-not-all-soils-are-created-equal/

Brown Podzol

http://capreform.eu/role-of-the-land-sector-in-meeting-eus-climate-targets/


DECEMBER 30, 2019 BY ALAN MATTHEWS
Role of the land sector in meeting EU’s climate targets

Castlekeeper

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

A small trial result on the introduction of chicory and plantain to an existing sward and a bit about management changes needed to facilitate good establishment.
https://www.foodandfarmingfutures.co.uk/PrestoMobile#/details/ZWVhNzBlY2QtZWJjNi00YWZiLWE1MTAtNWExOTFiMjJjOWU1LjIxNjgz

There's a degree of ignorance about the set up and methodology and but at least the conclusions seem to show that they might have learnt how to conduct a proper establishment trial the next time, even though they still seem missing out on the absolute need to check the existing PRG. Light cultivation, flail mowing, grazing hard with drystock or sheep for a week, taking a cut if silage any or a combination of these would help a lot.

Buford T. Justice XIX

A site with pics of the root systems of plants.
https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/search

Castlekeeper

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

https://onpasture.com/2019/11/18/why-grass-finished-beef-marbling-is-difficult/?fbclid=IwAR0zykJjtMSAJ7nqOtEMglYjt37Pk4TO_U-gO9XkVrS0PaqUMnqO43hvFwA

Interesting article on marbling

Interesting, whether breed related or not, any research I've seen into grassed beef showed higher conjugated linoleic acids, CLAs, and higher levels of the Omega 3? fatty acids, both of which were beneficial for human health.

bogman_bass

A way of wasting a wet afternoon

https://calculator.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk/admin/content/emissions/add/sequestration?edit%5Bfield_parent%5D%5Bwidget%5D%5B0%5D%5Btarget_id%5D=68&destination=/calculator/68%23panelCalc9

Castlekeeper

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AgClimatiseSurvey

Not sure why the link above isn't live but today, 10th, is the last day to submit on the Dept of Ag climate consultation .

Buford T. Justice XIX

This is the first study I've come across the measures soil loss under tillage. And it's quite different to George Monbiots proclamation:pac:
https://www.soil-journal.net/5/253/2019/soil-5-253-2019.html

yosemitesam1

https://www.farminguk.com/news/new-study-shows-willow-trees-could-optimise-lamb-production_54716.html?fbclid=IwAR17ngKcE6Dw_tQYV6Im-elL9ZB8L0w4Dlj0Ov8JKFbKqGSU2V0_iYXiKd0

Interesting bit on the potential of using willow to meet lamb mineral requirements

Buford T. Justice XIX

An interesting perspective on N utilisation in the food system. While 43% of applied N is consumed by crops, only 8% of applied N reaches food for consumption so a whole food chain change needs to be examined.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-019-0001-5

Upstream

Quote: 148multi
Can you explain the s***e bit.

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

That information is as old as Methuselah with research that has been independently trialed and indeed proven in commercial use.
Reminds me of the Dáil printer...for €100k an hour I could (and thousands more) give better insight into multi-species benefits in pasture swards. No mention was made of the newer fesque and cocksfoot varities etc?
Nice work if you can find it, and closer to home than NZ. One can see how close the Swiss land and climate is to the massif of Kilkenny or the high alps of east Cork...
Teagasc would be better employed paying for new research and not rehashing something that’s researched to death...

I just watched Dr Helen Sheridan interviewed on EcoEye on the Regenerative Agriculture episode. In fairness to her, she said exactly what you said Gawddawggonnit, "it's not new".
At the same time - to a lot of her peers in mainstream agriculture, this is radical, almost heresy, completely different to what they were educated to.

The wheels of change move more slowly in academia and corporate circles, having a proper piece of well researched academic study might be enough to inform decision makers and change the direction of agricultural policy.

While progressive farmers like yourself might be ahead of the curve there are a lot of followers that might be able to change direction by following her example.

yosemitesam1

Upstream wrote: »

Quote: 148multi
Can you explain the s***e bit.


I just watched Dr Helen Sheridan interviewed on EcoEye on the Regenerative Agriculture episode. In fairness to her, she said exactly what you said Gawddawggonnit, "it's not new".
At the same time - to a lot of her peers in mainstream agriculture, this is radical, almost heresy, completely different to what they were educated to.

The wheels of change move more slowly in academia and corporate circles, having a proper piece of well researched academic study might be enough to inform decision makers and change the direction of agricultural policy.

While progressive farmers like yourself might be ahead of the curve there are a lot of followers that might be able to change direction by following her example.

If you get the chance read the clifton park system and An account of the work of the Cockle Park Experimental Station from 1896 to 1956. That's the point where todays grassland management evolved from. Clifton park made use of what was there with multi species swards and cockle park went down the route of buying in slag and lime, simplified sward composition over the years and introduced nitrogen later.

Water John

Dr. Sheridan and UCD experimentation whilst good was viewed as being well behind the curve by the audience at the Biological Conf last Nov.
Now John McHugh and his farming methods would be a real challenge for most.
The Ecoeye programme was good.

yosemitesam1

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-most-common-ingredients-western-diet-found-alter-genes-brain/amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

Ruminants filter all this sh1t out. Inflammation causing polyunsaturated fats are changed to saturated fats in the rumen and other undesirable chemicals are also destroyed in the rumen

ganmo

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-most-common-ingredients-western-diet-found-alter-genes-brain/amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

Ruminants filter all this sh1t out. Inflammation causing polyunsaturated fats are changed to saturated fats in the rumen and other undesirable chemicals are also destroyed in the rumen

the rumen saturates fats as part of its function, this results in beef and lamb having relatively large quantities of saturated fats.
unfortunately saturated fats are considered less healthy especially for those with heart conditions.

yosemitesam1

ganmo wrote: »

the rumen saturates fats as part of its function, this results in beef and lamb having relatively large quantities of saturated fats.
unfortunately saturated fats are considered less healthy especially for those with heart conditions.

There's an ever growing amount of people questioning that long held "fact". Inflammation and diets rich in refined carbohydrates are more likely the cause

Buford T. Justice XIX

A link to a short paper on N routes after application. It seems shallow drainage like mole and gravel mole ploughing speeds up N outflows from most soils. Early days yet but it may inform policy decisions in the future.
https://twitter.com/TeagascEnviron/status/1220274258703724545?s=19

Buford T. Justice XIX

Some interesting regional variations on yield responses to increasing C levels of soils.
https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1224963367733006336?s=19

Buford T. Justice XIX

Food production projections 2050.

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/4/386/3016049

Buford T. Justice XIX

With interest in MSS growing, this below link looks at the best ways of adding lucerne to swards.
https://www.nzgajournal.org.nz/index.php/JoNZG/article/view/406

whelan2

Have had 3 lads on to me yesterday looking for calves. Might work out better with marts closed

Buford T. Justice XIX

https://twitter.com/agronomistag/status/1256292646919667713?s=19

yosemitesam1

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

https://twitter.com/agronomistag/status/1256292646919667713?s=19

He shares a lot of info like that, that is based on trials that are far too short for the benefits of more sustainable farming to start to show. It's a big ask for soil biology to go from 0 to 60 in two years, generally 5 years is more realistic for differences to start to emerge

Buford T. Justice XIX

There's a lot of interesting debate atm about carbon sequestration and the link in the tweet below goes into some of the debate.
https://twitter.com/xAlan_Matthews/status/1272110908505042944?s=19

Say my name

We should be looking to the past about how farmers centuries ago built carbon rich stable soils.

https://youtu.be/PLWwMC3kVOE

He doesn't mention it here but in other accounts they mention that the fire waste from homes and industry was also included as fertilizer along with the animal manure.
You'll see it here in this country that the animal manure on it's own doesn't build the soil and carbon stocks on it's own but gets burnt out and used by microbes. It does have an effect but there's something else needed too.
Maybe the peat had an effect like charcoal too in being somewhat stable carbon but charcoal is definitely mentioned elsewhere in accounts of Anthrosol formation.

Mattdhg

Say my name wrote: »

We should be looking to the past about how farmers centuries ago built carbon rich stable soils.

https://youtu.be/PLWwMC3kVOE

He doesn't mention it here but in other accounts they mention that the fire waste from homes and industry was also included as fertilizer along with the animal manure.
You'll see it here in this country that the animal manure on it's own doesn't build the soil and carbon stocks on it's own but gets burnt out and used by microbes. It does have an effect but there's something else needed too.
Maybe the peat had an effect like charcoal too in being somewhat stable carbon but charcoal is definitely mentioned elsewhere in accounts of Anthrosol formation.

I read an article somewhere that said "renewable" forestry isn't truly renewable because the ash is not being returned to the plantations so you'll eventually have a nutrient deficit there, so youre definitely onto something. it came with the big caveat though that coal soot/ashes are potentially toxic and will lead to an accumulation of metals in the soil and make it unsuitable for growth. have anecdotally seen this too,I used to throw ashes from the fire into the corner of a hen run so they could dustbathe in it - that patch has become a pure wasteland

Say my name

Mattdhg wrote: »

I read an article somewhere that said "renewable" forestry isn't truly renewable because the ash is not being returned to the plantations so you'll eventually have a nutrient deficit there, so youre definitely onto something. it came with the big caveat though that coal soot/ashes are potentially toxic and will lead to an accumulation of metals in the soil and make it unsuitable for growth. have anecdotally seen this too,I used to throw ashes from the fire into the corner of a hen run so they could dustbathe in it - that patch has become a pure wasteland

You'll see hardwood forests and they drop the leaves back down and feed themselves that way. Actually the same with pine trees only they like poor soil with no competition and the needles acidify the soil.
What you'd have to remember though is with ash. Is that all those nutrients (bar nitrogen and phosphorus?) that were in that big tree are now concentrated so tightly in that small bit of ash. They don't burn off (well not really, nitrogen burns off in an instant in smoke and i think phosphorus does too?) But i think the rest stays.
So it's the same with any nutrient. Too much and the plant won't grow.
And then there's the pH of ash. Ash would be up around 13. Most plants just like either side of or on neutral which is 7.
Grass likes it 6.2, 6.3 but even at 7 it not the end of the world.
But at a soil pH of 13. Nope. Nope.

Another fact that could have been useful in the lockdown is that soap was made from wood ash and animal fat.
The wood ash being alkaline. Any dairy farmer with detergent knows all about that and the slippery feeling on the skin.
And the animal fat made the whole thing set and neutralized it a bit.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Another piece of the GHG emissions puzzle coming out in favour of ruminants.
https://twitter.com/fleroy1974/status/1275499332318486530?s=19

Buford T. Justice XIX

A different perspective on soil carbon and where the focus on it's presence may best placed.

https://twitter.com/agronomistag/status/1280986680741126145?s=19

ganmo

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62314-2
Other Tb testing

Say my name

It reads like science fiction but this is science fact.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-crispr-calf-is-born-its-definitely-a-boy/

Researchers and Gene editors in California have created a calf by a process called CRISPR gene editing. The purpose was to create a guarranteed bull calf even if the calf had female genes.
Then they inserted a glow in the dark gene with the crispr genes to enable them to see how the genes developed.
There's a whole lot more and they had to induce the cow to calve as cows don't seemingly recognize calves inside them from gene editing and when to calve.

When are they going to develop a calf with wings is what I want to know.?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Soil carbon level increases are positively correlated to increased stocking rates.
https://twitter.com/SUMjournal/status/1289111053222187008?s=19

Buford T. Justice XIX

Painting eyes on cows backsides leads to hugely reduced losses from lion attacks.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/study-confirms-that-painting-eyes-on-cow-butts-helps-ward-off-predators/

I wonder if it would work on lambs?

Water John

I see somewhere a few days ago that a mixed pattern confuses horse flies, less bites.

Birdnuts

Buford T. Justice XIX wrote: »

Painting eyes on cows backsides leads to hugely reduced losses from lion attacks.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/study-confirms-that-painting-eyes-on-cow-butts-helps-ward-off-predators/

I wonder if it would work on lambs?

Interesting - I spent a wonderfull few weeks about 10 years ago on the Oj Pejeta ranch in central Kenya which is famous both for its "Big 5" safari experience and its award winning 5k beef herd. I asked the stock man how they managed both, and he simply said we just put the herd in makeshift bomas over night with a couple of watchmen and no trouble is had from the Lions, Hyenas etc. cos they only hunt at night. Its a great model really as it sees a much higher return per Ha compared to conventional herding in that part of the world.

Buford T. Justice XIX

A bit of an overview of pasture beef production in the NE USA with beef grown and finished on grass.
https://twitter.com/drsplace/status/1313589864525332483?s=19

SouthWesterly

Buford T. Justice XIX wrote: »

Painting eyes on cows backsides leads to hugely reduced losses from lion attacks.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/study-confirms-that-painting-eyes-on-cow-butts-helps-ward-off-predators/

I wonder if it would work on lambs?

I'll watch out below for lambs with 4 eyes you've nothing to loose.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Not sure if it's any 20 articles free or 20 specific ones but it'll pass away a rainy day for someone, I hope.

https://twitter.com/ejsoilscience/status/1323191007777882112?s=19

gozunda

Buford T. Justice XIX wrote: »

Painting eyes on cows backsides leads to hugely reduced losses from lion attacks.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/study-confirms-that-painting-eyes-on-cow-butts-helps-ward-off-predators/

I wonder if it would work on lambs?

Jeez lambs attacking cows now! Who'd have thunk it eh? :pac:

yosemitesam1

http://www.dungbeetlesforfarmers.co.uk/

Interesting website

Banana Republic 1

Water John wrote: »

I see somewhere a few days ago that a mixed pattern confuses horse flies, less bites.

Like a zebra crossing 🦓

yosemitesam1

https://www.thegwpf.com/8-january-2021-europe-just-skirted-blackout-disaster/

Renewable energy pushing national grids towards greater instability

yosemitesam1

https://onpasture.com/2021/01/25/is-compost-tea-good-for-soil-health/?fbclid=IwAR2uk9gYtBQ6m2Bqsh-_Vi0T-oejn9JNXh60v8H0nggwVLrurBHs8QHJaEU

Good non biased overview of compost tea trial. Focus should be on the things that we know are most important for soil health like fert use, tillage, diversity etc before getting tied up in fairy dust applications which will only give results in very specific situations

wrangler

This is written by Kate O Connells father, I don't know about the rest of you but I like it, He designed drainage schemes for half the farmers in westmeath..... any comment...... enjoy
By Michael Newman

As everyone knows you need heat, air and moisture to grow a crop. You also need a good soil.

Long before John Innes with his various soil formulae, everyone knew that Leaimould – the decayed leaves of deciduous trees – was the perfect medium in which to grow vegetables or flowers, especially small seeds like lettuce and onions.

Up to a mere 400 years ago, there was a massive cover of trees over this island and they had produced a massive amount of leaves and each year those leaves fell on the ground and were blown all over the place.

They decomposed and became leaf mould on top of the previous year’s leaf mould, until they accumulated into ‘fen’, ‘fen peat’, ‘bottoms’, ‘blackbogs’, ‘swamps’, ‘bogs’, ‘wetlands’, and because of their nature, they grew massive crops of seed rushes, which in turn died and gave rise to more accumulations. It was all ‘bog’ soft – ’bog’ what’s the Gaelic for soft?

And these ‘wetlands’ sloped down to a little lake which was a tiny lake or pool 15,000 years earlier, and the leaves blew into that lake until it could hold no more and it ‘grew over’ and became part of the rolling landscape – it and its hundreds of comrade lakelets. A trap for unwary deer or elk.

As the bogs grew in area and depth, they went from being natural hollows to becoming natural hills or mounds, because the trees and scrub on them was inaccessible for firewood or other uses.

They were never more than three to five metres above the adjoining swamps – just that bit higher. It was the wettest part of the surface for two reasons (1) the material is/was mainly sphagnum moss/’Puck Turf’, to a depth of one or two metres; and (2) that holds water up to nine and a half times its own weight. All natural peat is 90% water anyway.

That’s your bog and that’s how it came to be.

Bord na Mona set up

In the 1940s, the government decided to set up the Peat Development Board and Bord na Mona was born. It fell to Dr Todd Andrews to set the wheels in motion. His outstanding work created thousands of jobs in Westmeath, Kildare, Meath, Offaly, Longford and neighbouring counties.

The bogs were ‘bought’ from the hundreds of thousands of owners for as little as a euro an acre (€2.50 a hectare). New access roads were constructed – railway lines (by the mile) were laid and Ireland was a mass producer of native fuel.

Power stations that followed burned (milled peat) ‘turf mowl’ colloquially, which generated steam which in turn drove massive turbines to generate electricity.

Villages were built in Rochfortbridge and Derrahawn and several more places to house the families of workers who could have been cycling 10 miles out and back each day.

Many of those workers became fitters, skilled mechanics, electricians as well as learning other valuable skills. There were permanent, pensionable jobs too for graduate engineers.

All these people worked hard and were proud of their independence. They did not have to take the emigrant trail, and paid their rates and taxes and their pension funds or superannuation and ‘bought out’ their company houses.

It was not their business to know that one day the peat might be all gone and only a wasteland left or to wonder what would become of those massive wilderness areas.

The company title exempted it from any responsibility to do other than develop peat. It owned the land that lay under the bogs and when one farmer would only ‘sell’ to the board if he could have his land back when the peat was all gone.

It went to the high court, where Mr Justice Keane found in favour of the farmer.

Tenacity is the only kind word I can think of to describe what ‘authorities’ do to a citizen. It (Bord na Mona) appealed the case to the Supreme Court and won, and that fixed Mr Farmer!

As a semi-state company, it was not liable for tax – actually it got several leg-ups from the state when there was a bad crop of turf or a fall in finances.

In the event of having a million or two to spare, it could ‘create’ one or two new specialised (or maybe 200) jobs – with the same or similar status as the general Civil Service and wasn’t all that great!

Except! Whose job is it to take out from the Shannon (An Sean Abhain “The Old River”) the millions of tonnes of peat sitting on the river bed to a depth of up to three metres? This is in the form of small islands in places, there is so much of it.

Is that why there is so much flooding on the Shannon and its tributaries, the Camlin, the Suck?

Remember Aesop’s fable about the bird and the jar with the sup of water on the bottom which he couldn’t reach? It kept dropping pebbles into the jar until it brought up the water within reach.

Look across the bridge in Athlone and you will see water, lots of it, but it is brown in colour – bog water, stained by the bogs – ‘unmindful of how the dark bog water stains’.

And... ‘The Green Man on the Bike’ has all the answers!

“Re-wet the bogs” - and his mantra is it taken up in chorus by his co-conspirators. All bogs are 90% or higher content of water. Even milk is ‘only’ 87.5 per cent water – try adding water to a container of milk and it will overflow.

The water on a bog gets away by various little cuts and shucks until it reaches the main outfall and on to the Brosna, the Boyne and the sea.

Massive umbrella

The OPW widened and deepened those waterways and many other rivers so that there was a fall for drainage of the swamps, the bottoms, the moors. By the time of land project people in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, thousands of hectares became the richest and most productive land on the island.

If the refined thoughts of the clown on the bike go this way – (like Trump) a wall will be built – near Trim on the Boyne and almost overnight the waters will rise up to Tyrrellspass up to Ballynacargy on the Inny and everywhere else. That’s what ‘re-wetting the bogs’, as proposed, will mean.

Actually the bogs will not be a spoonful wetter – or drier (if nothing is done) for two reasons: (1) already stated – they are 90% water already; and (2) because of what is called ‘The Cohesion Principle’, and despite what one of ‘our leading scientists’ has stated, there is no such thing in a bog as a water table – in land yes, a bog, no!

The raised bogs of the midlands do not absorb water during heavy rain – they act like a massive umbrella!

The bog-wetters are conveniently ignoring the 200,000 hectares of cutaway, and going to re-wet the uncut remaining high bogs, which as I explained, is the same as trying to add water to a full bucket of milk.

Is this a convenient diversion? A deliberate deception?

Those 200,000 hectares are worth, on the open market, €2 billion. Bord na Mona owns them and they have the potential to be the biggest and best single farm in Europe!

The farmer who went to court knew that 30 years ago and so did Judge Keane, and so does every farmer on the island today.

Bord na Mona enjoyed the ‘protection’ of the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Act of the mid-1800s and had all the power! This land, for land it is, would grow enough sugar and beet and leave us independent of sugar imports and all its byproducts – like molasses for silage making, or treacle.

Each hectare could yield 16 tonnes of refined sugar. We did it before!

The ready-made factory is at Lanesboro. The planting harvesting machinery is all over the place and the best leaves with their photosynthesis would take out all the carbon!

Mr Mussolini, Il Duce, in 1937/8 had the Pontine marshes drained and destroyed for ever. They were the Italian home of the mosquito and the disease of malaria. It is now rich Italian farmland growing mainly fruit, in abundance.

Maybe one of our Irish MEPs would propose to the European Parliament that those marshes be restored. And when he or she is at it, why not restore the polders of the Netherlands and Belgium, why not?! And let the Rhine and the Meuse and the Scheldt back to nature, indeed, why not?!

Holland (De Nederlanden) is just the size of our province of Munster and exports food to the world. Belgium is about the same size. Luxembourg, the size of County Cork, with three big brothers set up the EU.

It’s time we started using our country wisely. With all we have going for us, we can grow trees twice as fast as Britain and 10 times as fast as Scandinavia, because of our climate and God’s central heating system, the Gulf Stream.

To conclude (for now) the amount (the massive amount) of land at the disposal of Bord na Mona is so vast that it obviously cannot figure what it might be used for. So a few years ago it carried out an experiment and dug holes here and there in the desert (the cutaway bogs). It found enough gravel and sand to supply us forever! They even found plenty of silica sand – Ireland’s Silicon Valley.

And hey presto: it is into waste disposal by landfill. Well it has the land and it is state owned and you would have to wait 30 years for a crop of timber to be harvested.

And a parting shot to ‘The Boy on the Bike’: peat is organic, it is not fossil. Coal and oil are fossil. Bord na Mona is the principal seller of coal in Ireland. Look at the bag. There was always more money in dealing than in producing, and no risk, so I suppose Bord na Mona, when it ceases to produce garden horticultural peat, will import it instead from Finland, and of course sell it at a profit.

Poor Dr Andrews would be angry that he fathered such a bold unpatriotic child.

• Michael Newman from Kilbeggan worked with the Dept of Agriculture for 40 years, mainly dealing with land drainage, the land project and later the Farm Improvement Scheme. Same thing different name. He also took a class of Leaving Certificate students or Agricultural Science on Saturdays in St Mary’s College, Mullingar.


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Published: January 30, 2021, 14:46




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