Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Say my name

Castlekeeper wrote: »

In my limited experience, heavily N fertilised PRG swards do not build soil carbon levels, rather, they diminish them.

There was a Scandinavian study on soil carbon and farming systems going back to the 70's I think.
I found it on biochar fb forum.

Every one of the farming systems they had lost soil carbon over that time. Bar one.
Vegetable production. Lost carbon.
Tillage, cereals. Lost carbon.
There was a few more systems but the one that stayed the same and increased slightly was livestock pasture and tillage. Mixed farming.
Now that was the only system with livestock, as scandi farms don't have just pure pasture farms but carry some tillage.

I was going to link it here but their recommendation was to chop the straw on the tillage ground. To see if something could be done.
And with the talk here at that time. I just said "nah".

You till soils. You release soil carbon to carbon dioxide. With that soil carbon gone the nitrogen that was bound to that carbon is free to move around. Free to move into a plant or free to move into a waterway.

You will build up carbon levels on ryegrass but you will have to feed the soil life to do so. (And feeding soil life could mean just tramping and grazing and leaving and dunging). But you can get to a stage where there's a consequence of action that the carbon levels are building but actually sucking away nitrates from the ryegrass. So the plant will look yellow and sickly.( That actually happened me last year when i added a little ormus into a foliar mix. The soil was building carbon. I added dung in the autumn no real change in the grass. It was only when I brought out the roller this year that it stopped the process and allowed the nitrates in the soil and fert to go into the grass.)
Then you need to do something to slow or stop that train or you'll have no plant and no income.

straight

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Livestock numbers are increasing each year, but only due to the demand of humans to eat meat of course, but I’ve no intention to change my diet anytime soon

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#global-meat-production

What about the 1.5 million wildebeest roaming around the serengeti

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Water John wrote: »

Or a wetland.

Not really I think.

Wetland or bogland works by storing carbon in anaerobic conditions. If you add nitrates to that you'll either burn off that carbon or release the N as a gas.
They'd both be climate change pollutants.
I think?

FintanMcluskey

straight wrote: »

What about the 1.5 million wildebeest roaming around the serengeti

Delicious barbecued I’d say

Say my name

green daries wrote: »

Tell me more ther

Carbon and nitrogen are besides one another on the periodic table.
Carbon holds nitrogen (and phosphorus).
If the carbon becomes a gas. The nitrogen and phosphorus move in liquid.

A bed of woodchip or biochar (carbon) will trap the nitrates in water. Till the woodchip starts to rot and that carbon goes to carbon dioxide and then it releases the nitrates back again. The only difference with the char is it won't rot.

Soil life are both made of Carbon and nitrogen. But it's just when the life dies. And the air reaches that carbon it oxidizes off and you're left with free nitrates to move around in the soil.
It was the idea of making the plough to capitalize on this process to use that free nitrogen but there comes a time when you're not giving the soil life much chance to grow and no carbon, no nitrogen, no crops.

Gawddawggonnit

Castlekeeper wrote: »

There's a couple of misunderstandings, mentioned here, that come up regularly when the environmental topics kick off.
One is "double counting" carbon emissions ie food exports and oil imports all counted here. They're not double counted, their are just counted once, where the emissions occur.
Another is the notion of carbon sequestration. Unless one has a verified system of recording increases in soil carbon through the profile over a time period, no such claim can be made.
In many, even most cases, it may be found that carbon levels are declining, adding to farming woes, hence the reluctance of the Dept of Ag and the EPA to go there when questioned on the matter.
Also, I've heard experts discuss inconsistencies and different interpretations of carbon figures with different sampling and analysis methods to the extent that it's far from easily established.
In my limited experience, heavily N fertilised PRG swards do not build soil carbon levels, rather, they diminish them.

Thanks.

I’ve seen some ridiculous claims on Twitter etc.

Other claims that are made...’if we don’t produce the milk, some other less environmentally friendly countries will produce it’.
Look at all the money we’ve invested.
Look at all the jobs involved.
Etc etc etc.

It’s fairly simple really. The unregulated mining of the environment is coming to an end, fast. Ye’ve been warned for years. What I can’t understand is the pressure against the process from farmers. Why not embrace it and gain the higher ground? Sewage treatment needs to clean up its act in a similar way.
The milk platform is the ground zero of the issue. Protecting that would be a seriously good result...but continuing the way things are isn’t helping. The Dutch pushed too hard against compliance, and that didn’t end well.

When the Troika were in town we were the best Germans in the class to swallow austerity...now might be a good time to be best in class.
Water quality is the metric.

Gawddawggonnit

This is what’s happening in utopia.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/new-zealand-rivers-pollution-100-per-cent-pure/13236174

Say my name

Whelan you were asking one time about Louth and the teagasc water catchment.

https://twitter.com/TeagascACP/status/1393235242329198595?s=20

Mooooo

Water quality is the metric, latest report showed a slight improvement I think. Issue is measures take time to create improvement. Whilst we can only compare against our own previous results we have I think the 3rd best water quality in the EU.
On Holland ues they pushed back but they were a different kettle of fish. Country the size of Munster with more cows than us as well as population of 17 million people. When Inwas over there, the grass an inch from every water course was as green as the the stuff in the middle of the field, even the stuff growing in the bank...

jaymla627

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Thanks.

I’ve seen some ridiculous claims on Twitter etc.

Other claims that are made...’if we don’t produce the milk, some other less environmentally friendly countries will produce it’.
Look at all the money we’ve invested.
Look at all the jobs involved.
Etc etc etc.

It’s fairly simple really. The unregulated mining of the environment is coming to an end, fast. Ye’ve been warned for years. What I can’t understand is the pressure against the process from farmers. Why not embrace it and gain the higher ground? Sewage treatment needs to clean up its act in a similar way.
The milk platform is the ground zero of the issue. Protecting that would be a seriously good result...but continuing the way things are isn’t helping. The Dutch pushed too hard against compliance, and that didn’t end well.

When the Troika were in town we were the best Germans in the class to swallow austerity...now might be a good time to be best in class.
Water quality is the metric.

Its akin to explaining to a toddler why he's not allowed sweets....was North of 7 million spent locally by a group here on a tillage farm for conversion so they could set up their fourth unit and push on past the 3000 cow mark, local residents weren't overly impressed with the 1000 odd cows that where going to be landed in on the planning application and an taisce put in a objection, and now a tillage man has it for rent for the next few years while the dust settles...
I'd be very surprised if derogation is green lighted by Europe for another 3 years once it ends this year in its current guise, the cat will be among the pigeons then

GrasstoMilk

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Thanks.

I’ve seen some ridiculous claims on Twitter etc.

Other claims that are made...’if we don’t produce the milk, some other less environmentally friendly countries will produce it’.
Look at all the money we’ve invested.
Look at all the jobs involved.
Etc etc etc.

It’s fairly simple really. The unregulated mining of the environment is coming to an end, fast. Ye’ve been warned for years. What I can’t understand is the pressure against the process from farmers. Why not embrace it and gain the higher ground? Sewage treatment needs to clean up its act in a similar way.
The milk platform is the ground zero of the issue. Protecting that would be a seriously good result...but continuing the way things are isn’t helping. The Dutch pushed too hard against compliance, and that didn’t end well.

When the Troika were in town we were the best Germans in the class to swallow austerity...now might be a good time to be best in class.
Water quality is the metric.

Like everyone else I'll ask you aswell, what's the av family farm in Ireland to with c 100 acres to live off, 70 -80 cows with a family to feed and educate supposed to do ?

No one seems to think of them, we don't have big ranches of land here like everywhere else in the world where you wouldn't miss having a 10 or 20m buffer strip along drains and rivers

It's going to take a while to see the changes made so far, ground water entering rivers can be from rain that fell 20 or 30 years ago its not as black and white as is being made out

It's also not all down to dairy either like is being portrayed so much
The Agricultural catchments programme the dept are running has found massive run off from tillage land in my area, but that's not talked about

Don't want to be making it dairy v tillage but some balance would be nice

We're also being given zero allowance for our hedges and woodland- 100 ac fields and no ditches are fairly common in mainland Europe they can calculate our emissions but can't calculate what carbon we're capturing

The Dutch had the sane amount of cows as us in the area the size of munster amd 10x the amount of pigs we have, so I don't buy that line Dawg

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Like everyone else I'll ask you aswell, what's the av family farm in Ireland to with c 100 acres to live off, 70 -80 cows with a family to feed and educate supposed to do ?

No one seems to think of them, we don't have big ranches of land here like everywhere else in the world where you wouldn't miss having a 10 or 20m buffer strip along drains and rivers

It's going to take a while to see the changes made so far, ground water entering rivers can be from rain that fell 20 or 30 years ago its not as black and white as is being made out

It's also not all down to dairy either like is being portrayed so much
The Agricultural catchments programme the dept are running has found massive run off from tillage land in my area, but that's not talked about

Don't want to be making it dairy v tillage but some balance would be nice

We're also being given zero allowance for our hedges and woodland- 100 ac fields and no ditches are fairly common in mainland Europe they can calculate our emissions but can't calculate what carbon we're capturing

The Dutch had the sane amount of cows as us in the area the size of munster amd 10x the amount of pigs we have, so I don't buy that line Dawg

Land area for Ireland as a whole is irrelevant, npk loading on the area farmed by dairying is the only real measure, then you have the situation on farm where the milking block is getting poisoned with both fertiliser and slurry in most cases as the cost our effort to draw it to outfarms is to much....
The epa water quality maps for the area here are pretty horrendous and its the 3000 plus odd cows on farms bordering the river thats the main culprit all within a 5 mile radius

mahoney_j

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Thanks.

I’ve seen some ridiculous claims on Twitter etc.

Other claims that are made...’if we don’t produce the milk, some other less environmentally friendly countries will produce it’.
Look at all the money we’ve invested.
Look at all the jobs involved.
Etc etc etc.

It’s fairly simple really. The unregulated mining of the environment is coming to an end, fast. Ye’ve been warned for years. What I can’t understand is the pressure against the process from farmers. Why not embrace it and gain the higher ground? Sewage treatment needs to clean up its act in a similar way.
The milk platform is the ground zero of the issue. Protecting that would be a seriously good result...but continuing the way things are isn’t helping. The Dutch pushed too hard against compliance, and that didn’t end well.

When the Troika were in town we were the best Germans in the class to swallow austerity...now might be a good time to be best in class.
Water quality is the metric.

After reading thru pages and pages of some good valid points ...and other stuff you’ve hit the nail in the head ,we have to change our ways when it comes to stocking rates ,chemical fertiliser /sprays and the environment .etc I can see this an taisce appeal succeeding or else push the completion date for the new plant so far out that the other investor involved will back out .lads in that catchement area seriously need to think of the financial implications ,I don’t see lads making much changes yet and chancing it .other coops can’t take the milk and milk will have to be dumped .slowing lads down driving in with second and third units etc might be no bad thing when it comes to milk price ...

jaymla627

mahoney_j wrote: »

After reading thru pages and pages of some good valid points ...and other stuff you’ve hit the nail in the head ,we have to change our ways when it comes to stocking rates ,chemical fertiliser /sprays and the environment .etc I can see this an taisce appeal succeeding or else push the completion date for the new plant so far out that the other investor involved will back out .lads in that catchement area seriously need to think of the financial implications ,I don’t see lads making much changes yet and chancing it .other coops can’t take the milk and milk will have to be dumped .slowing lads down driving in with second and third units etc might be no bad thing when it comes to milk price ...

Aware have bought a plant recently in Belgium i think with a milk pool of 300 odd million litres, that big tillage farm that sold in the Midlands recently for 10 million was ment to be converted to a 1000 cow dairy unit, an taisce put in a objection and now its on ice with a tillage man having it rented on a four year lease, lads where losing the running of themselves to be honest

mahoney_j

jaymla627 wrote: »

Aware have bought a plant recently in Belgium i think with a milk pool of 300 odd million litres, that big tillage farm that sold in the Midlands recently for 10 million was ment to be converted to a 1000 cow dairy unit, an taisce put in a objection and now its on ice with a tillage man having it rented on a four year lease, lads where losing the running of themselves to be honest

This stalling of the Glanbia plant is going to cause major financial issues at farm level for affected farmers .going to be a huge problem next year and probably for a few years after at least ,bad enough to be penalised at peak but to then be stung for dumping milk as well ......
Things have to change the processing capacity at peak is near max at every coop ...lads still expanding and Tegasc still shoving spring milk model ...situation is going to get worse unless there is change

GrasstoMilk

jaymla627 wrote: »

Land area for Ireland as a whole is irrelevant, npk loading on the area farmed by dairying is the only real measure, then you have the situation on farm where the milking block is getting poisoned with both fertiliser and slurry in most cases as the cost our effort to draw it to outfarms is to much....
The epa water quality maps for the area here are pretty horrendous and its the 3000 plus odd cows on farms bordering the river thats the main culprit all within a 5 mile radius

Tbf we have been putting a fair chunk of slurry on at home here this last while and just buying P & K for silage ground but we've gone and hired 2 tanks for Tuesday and Wednesday this week and we're going to spend 2 days drawing it there

Had tried to get land nearer us at home this year for silage and slurry but tillage rules thus area and they're paying 350 an acre plus entitlements freely, stone wall mad!

whelan2

Are glanbia still taking in new entrants?

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Tbf we have been putting a fair chunk of slurry on at home here this last while and just buying P & K for silage ground but we've gone and hired 2 tanks for Tuesday and Wednesday this week and we're going to spend 2 days drawing it there

Had tried to get land nearer us at home this year for silage and slurry but tillage rules thus area and they're paying 350 an acre plus entitlements freely, stone wall mad!

Anymore then 3 mile with slurry and it gets seriously expensive to be fair, will the tillage men not do maize/wholecrop for you and take slurry in on their ground to help boast it back up, its a win win on both sides, the sticking point is usually the dairy man not wanting to have to grow and pay for a crop of maize/beet etc on a set in stone yearly basis with no bollocking taking it one year and not the next

GrasstoMilk

jaymla627 wrote: »

Anymore then 3 mile with slurry and it gets seriously expensive to be fair, will the tillage men not do maize/wholecrop for you and take slurry in on their ground to help boast it back up, its a win win on both sides, the sticking point is usually the dairy man not wanting to have to grow and pay for a crop of maize/beet etc on a set in stone yearly basis with no bollocking taking it one year and not the next

We're okay for fodder for next year, made a good bit last year because we knew we would possibly loose a block
Got a nice bit on first cut, get 2 more like it off that block we'll be well sorted for winter

Contractor will grow maize for me if needed for following year but we'll see what happens, good grass silage is as good as maize I reckon - that's from my own experience of having maize previously

Say my name

jaymla627 wrote: »

Its akin to explaining to a toddler why he's not allowed sweets....was North of 7 million spent locally by a group here on a tillage farm for conversion so they could set up their fourth unit and push on past the 3000 cow mark, local residents weren't overly impressed with the 1000 odd cows that where going to be landed in on the planning application and an taisce put in a objection, and now a tillage man has it for rent for the next few years while the dust settles...
I'd be very surprised if derogation is green lighted by Europe for another 3 years once it ends this year in its current guise, the cat will be among the pigeons then

None of the above is really where we want to be going either.
Public don't like corporate ownership and large scale livestock in a concentrated area. But then if heirs don't want to farm is corporate ownership they way it's going anyway?

I don't want to be going tillage v's dairy either but you have to give and take as well and see the whole unadulterated scientific picture.
That farm going into tillage could possibly have more nitrates pollution now than if it was in dairy.
But that is solely down to how that tillage is performed. If that's ploughed at the start of December and not sowed till Feb March. In livestock parlance it's the same as a slurry tanker being released into a waterway.

I think as everyone has posted here water quality has to be the metric. If there's a problem identified it has to be fixed.

Now saying all that we are in the top ranks in Europe anyway for water quality. But we have to make sure it's kept that way and all farming systems, industry, transport and human sewage are monitored.
But it won't be easy there's still massive spending required on farms for improvement.

Gawddawggonnit

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Like everyone else I'll ask you aswell, what's the av family farm in Ireland to with c 100 acres to live off, 70 -80 cows with a family to feed and educate supposed to do ?

That’s the point I’ve been making for years...it’s the milking platform that’s ground zero. The 16+tDm of grass grown has become a necessity on most farms. That leads to poisoning it with slurry and artificial N...with all the consequences that follow. By fighting against any change it’s going to eventually focus all attention on the milking platform. Maybe if there was to be a collective effort across all sectors NOW, it could possibly buy some time for the milking platform?

Countries that use slurry inevitably end up in bother. The straw chopping grant to tillage farmers was a poorly thought out scheme. Money would have been better spent subsidizing slurry transport and building slurry holding/handling facilities on tillage farms...but then dairy farmers want to keep the slurry and get tillage farmers to sign forms!
Couldn’t make it up.

green daries

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Like everyone else I'll ask you aswell, what's the av family farm in Ireland to with c 100 acres to live off, 70 -80 cows with a family to feed and educate supposed to do ?

No one seems to think of them, we don't have big ranches of land here like everywhere else in the world where you wouldn't miss having a 10 or 20m buffer strip along drains and rivers

It's going to take a while to see the changes made so far, ground water entering rivers can be from rain that fell 20 or 30 years ago its not as black and white as is being made out

It's also not all down to dairy either like is being portrayed so much
The Agricultural catchments programme the dept are running has found massive run off from tillage land in my area, but that's not talked about

Don't want to be making it dairy v tillage but some balance would be nice

We're also being given zero allowance for our hedges and woodland- 100 ac fields and no ditches are fairly common in mainland Europe they can calculate our emissions but can't calculate what carbon we're capturing

The Dutch had the sane amount of cows as us in the area the size of munster amd 10x the amount of pigs we have, so I don't buy that line Dawg

Plus just to add the Dutch being the Dutch had added a significant amount of cows to the system in anticipation of the reg changes they ended slightly lower than where they started

They also just changed tack with their systems and exported young stock to be reared across the border

Gawddawggonnit

jaymla627 wrote: »

Anymore then 3 mile with slurry and it gets seriously expensive to be fair, will the tillage men not do maize/wholecrop for you and take slurry in on their ground to help boast it back up, its a win win on both sides, the sticking point is usually the dairy man not wanting to have to grow and pay for a crop of maize/beet etc on a set in stone yearly basis with no bollocking taking it one year and not the next

The Dutch were transporting slurry 500+km when it all collapsed in a heap.

green daries

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Thanks.

I’ve seen some ridiculous claims on Twitter etc.

Other claims that are made...’if we don’t produce the milk, some other less environmentally friendly countries will produce it’.
Look at all the money we’ve invested.
Look at all the jobs involved.
Etc etc etc.

It’s fairly simple really. The unregulated mining of the environment is coming to an end, fast. Ye’ve been warned for years. What I can’t understand is the pressure against the process from farmers. Why not embrace it and gain the higher ground? Sewage treatment needs to clean up its act in a similar way.
The milk platform is the ground zero of the issue. Protecting that would be a seriously good result...but continuing the way things are isn’t helping. The Dutch pushed too hard against compliance, and that didn’t end well.

When the Troika were in town we were the best Germans in the class to swallow austerity...now might be a good time to be best in class.
Water quality is the metric.

In all fairness dawg you should understand Irelands situation better than most the starting point of farm holdings in Ireland has been a major issue for Irish farms
This situation hasn't happened anywhere else in Europe the 100 acre average farm mentioned probably would have 20 of those acres rented in and that percentage only grows further north and west

lab man

mahoney_j wrote: »

This stalling of the Glanbia plant is going to cause major financial issues at farm level for affected farmers .going to be a huge problem next year and probably for a few years after at least ,bad enough to be penalised at peak but to then be stung for dumping milk as well ......
Things have to change the processing capacity at peak is near max at every coop ...lads still expanding and Tegasc still shoving spring milk model ...situation is going to get worse unless there is change

Why will the farmers have to dump milk?

mahoney_j

lab man wrote: »

Why will the farmers have to dump milk?

Glanbia have said this if farmers just plough on they will be hit with the peak penalties snd if it comes to it and no home can be found for the milk with another processor the milk will have to be dumped

Reggie.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Glanbia have said this if farmers just plough on they will be hit with the peak penalties snd if it comes to it and no home can be found for the milk with another processor the milk will have to be dumped

The auld quotas are back

yosemitesam1

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

That’s the point I’ve been making for years...it’s the milking platform that’s ground zero. The 16+tDm of grass grown has become a necessity on most farms. That leads to poisoning it with slurry and artificial N...with all the consequences that follow. By fighting against any change it’s going to eventually focus all attention on the milking platform. Maybe if there was to be a collective effort across all sectors NOW, it could possibly buy some time for the milking platform?

Countries that use slurry inevitably end up in bother. The straw chopping grant to tillage farmers was a poorly thought out scheme. Money would have been better spent subsidizing slurry transport and building slurry holding/handling facilities on tillage farms...but then dairy farmers want to keep the slurry and get tillage farmers to sign forms!
Couldn’t make it up.

The problem with water quality isnt with seriously polluted waterbodies. But with the constant loss of pristine water while moderate and poor are on the increase.
The effects of one intensive farm on it's own are probably hard to measure but even with best practice spreading fert and slurry, a big area seeing increases in fert or stock density will start to show something. That is most likely what is happening in some areas.

Siamsa Sessions

Will the environmental changes ultimately mean lower milk production?

You can see on here that farmers are mentally preparing for stricter environmental controls but there seems to be a reluctance to come out strong on what’s needed at Government/Teagasc level.

Are they more concerned about curbing exports than the fines coming from the EU for missing climate targets?

Say my name

You can check out your own river water quality status here and attribute then to what's in the area.

https://gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/