Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600132#Comment_122600132

Last year or the year before there was an interview with an award winning regenerative farmer on south east radio. Don't know who were giving the awards or how they entered. The farmer explained his own situation of being a tillage farmer on 60 acres and how his uncle left him the farm. He was planting cover crops and min tilling. That qualifies you as regenerative. He explained how he was in favour of worms and beetles. He explained how he kills the beetles with the harrow and sprays. (He didn't say that bit). Then he said there's too many cows in the country and how if there was more tillage the country would be better. (These brainwashed are placed in different parts now). When asked what his day job was. He replied he worked for Herdwatch.

A kick in the hole is what some people want.

There used to be a report of the Seine river in France of when the current generation of farmers left livestock and pasture due to workload and converted to tillage and tractors and sprays. The nitrates in the waterways went up. The report was taken down most likely from Irish "environmentalists" (livestock vegan cult members). Whatever it was it's gone offline in public. The report recommended grassing the fields again and bringing back livestock. If you want to test nitrates in soil you till soil, expose it to the air, move it around and then add water and test the water. If you want to keep nitrates in soil, you don't apply tillage and you keep plant cover on soil. The whole carbon element is being neglected too. A whole book was written on the subject "Dirt to Soil". What finished the Romans has many similarities to today's farmers and fools like Gibbons mindset.

visatorro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600165#Comment_122600165

even if money is tight keep an eye on done deal, youd pick up secong hand mats for feck all. mightnt be pretty but youd bolt them down cheap. would be better than concrete and you can spend money on mats again. heifers will sit on the passageway aswell because there is no more comfortable alternative

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122599028#Comment_122599028

Wise words, im a qs so as you can imagine i have a lot of tough conversations regularily. only thing id say is always keep the morals.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600165#Comment_122600165

1000€ will get you 50 mats. If you can spare it at all go and get them

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600463#Comment_122600463

I read Dirt to Soil a few years back and was disappointed to find no magic bean formulas. Then it dawned on me that much of what he wrote about was just old common-sense stuff that livestock farmers have always done.

I could be completely wrong on this but it strikes me that soil needs to be depleted (usually thru deep tillage) before "regen" is required. If you're not poaching grassland or spreading 250+kg of N every year, then the amount of regeneration that soil needs is small enough.

It'd make you laugh when you hear the NGO commentators talk about regenerative practises as the way to restore nature after all those nasty cows, when it's cereals and tillage ground (their preferred choice of land use) that needs regen more.

I found Gabe Brown's 5 principles on the website below and a lot of these are practised by default on livestock farms. We just didn't know there was a fancy new name for what used to be called common sense.

1. Limited disturbance. Limit mechanical, chemical, and physical disturbance of soil. Tillage destroys soil structure. It is constantly tearing apart the “house” that nature builds to protect the living organisms in the soil that create natural soil fertility. Soil structure includes aggregates and pore spaces (openings that allow water to infiltrate the soil). The result of tillage is soil erosion, the wasting of a precious natural resource. Synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides all have negative impacts on life in the soil as well.
2. Armor. Keep soil covered at all times. This is a critical step toward rebuilding soil health. Bare soil is an anomaly—nature always works to cover soil. Providing a natural “coat of armor” protects soil from wind and water erosion while providing food and habitat for macro- and microorganisms. It will also prevent moisture evaporation and germination of weed seeds.
3. Diversity. Strive for diversity of both plant and animal species. Where in nature does one find monocultures? Only where humans have put them! When I look out over a stretch of native prairie, one of the first things I notice is the incredible diversity. Grasses, forbs, legumes, and shrubs all live and thrive in harmony with each other. Think of what each of these species has to offer. Some have shallow roots, some deep, some fibrous, some tap. Some are high-carbon, some are low-carbon, some are legumes. Each of them plays a role in maintaining soil health. Diversity enhances ecosystem function.
4. Living roots. Maintain a living root in soil as long as possible throughout the year. Take a walk in the spring and you will see green plants poking their way through the last of the snow. Follow the same path in late fall or early winter and you will still see green, growing plants, which is a sign of living roots. Those living roots are feeding soil biology by providing its basic food source: carbon. This biology, in turn, fuels the nutrient cycle that feeds plants. Where I live in central North Dakota, we typically get our last spring frost around mid-May and our first fall frost around mid-September. I used to think those 120 days were my whole growing season. How wrong I was. We now plant fall-seeded biennials that continue growing into early winter and break dormancy earlier in the spring, thus feeding soil organisms at a time when the cropland used to lie idle.
5. Integrated animals. Nature does not function without animals. It is that simple. Integrating livestock onto an operation provides many benefits. The major benefit is that the grazing of plants stimulates the plants to pump more carbon into the soil. This drives nutrient cycling by feeding biology. Of course, it also has a major, positive impact on climate change by cycling more carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. And if you want a healthy, functioning ecosystem on your farm or ranch, you must provide a home and habitat for not only farm animals but also pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and all of the microbiology that drive ecosystem function.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-06-08/dirt-to-soil-excerpt/

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600848#Comment_122600848

Thanks for that. I'd looked a few months back and couldn't see much on DoneDeal. Maybe fellas are changing them at this time of year and are selling second-hand ones now.

Coolcormack1979

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122600132#Comment_122600132

you forgot to mention how gibbons now has a problem with the head of the environmental group that issued that report.marie Donnelly I think is the name.cause she said there’s no need to cull the national herd as previously stated he wants her gone.gibbons the gobshite that keeps on hating

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122601520#Comment_122601520

I was in the car this morning and heard some "climate researcher" called Sive debate with Jackie Cahill the TD. It was very poor on all sides.

You could easily make ribbons of anything Sive said. It was the usual guff about Ireland not growing enough fruit and vegetables, using CAP "farmer subsidies" to move away from beef production, etc. Jackie Cahill just repeated the usual stuff too about moral obligation to feed the world, Irish farmers being the most sustainable and best farmers in the world, etc.