Educator Mark Tupman
EducatorForum Replies Created
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The most important thing is getting them in the ground soon. Everything else is a bonus.
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Where do you start 😏
Some good ones on here.
https://johnkempf.com/johns-recommended-reading-list/
johnkempf.com
John's Recommended Reading List
“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson I believe constant learning is an imperative, and should be enjoyable. I find learning something new about life and living processes to … Continue reading
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Hi Eric,
Cheers for your input. I couldn’t agree more that the “don’t graze it down too much theory” leads to selective grazing. I’ve done the total grazing course with Jamie Elizondo and got a lot out of it. I’m seeing great benefits from putting the principles into practice in terms of soil health, diversity of species, generation of biomass and animal wellbeing.
I particularly enjoy seeing the thick layer of carbon and manure on top of the soil after they knockdown the vegetation that was stockpiled over the green season, and how well perennial species are going under this sort of management.
🙂
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Who wouldn’t want some of this when everything is drying out.
Plantain, well and truly recovered as confirmed by the yellowing lower leaves.
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Hi Dan,
Liquid fertilizer analysis’s can be done through Environmental Analysis Laboratory in NSW.
https://www.scu.edu.au/environmental-analysis-laboratory—eal/
scu.edu.au
Environmental Analysis Laboratory - EAL - Southern Cross University
EAL main page and services provided
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That’s a great point Kate and I’ve done much deliberating on that matter :-/
What I’ve come to is that, yes, we can use grazing to prolong vegetative growth of annual species to some degree but it all happens pretty quickly in spring and we can only apply this strategy for a limited period of time.
The bottom line is that we want our plants to be fully recovered by the time they start going to flower, if we are going to make hay or graze them! Up to this stage, fully recovered plants can still put on another decent flush of growth. We don’t want our plants to be setting seed when they haven’t fully recovered as this is somewhat akin to grazing unrecovered plants – reserves are exhausted, and regrowth and forage quality is poor. If we feel like the paddocks we are grazing in the green season are getting close to this point, it’s time to move on onto the stockpiled/sabbath paddocks. More on that another time.
If we follow the principles of not overgrazing through the season, we can definitely prolong the vegetative growth of our pastures and we will be rewarded with much richer and faster regrowth. In spring, a stressed (unrecovered) plant is a bolting plant 🙁
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I think cocksfoot and prairie grass would be a good perennial species to try and get going on pastures here.
The tricky thing is establishing them.
The main obstacle, besides our infertile, sandy soils and dry summers :-/ is that common grazing practices have to be changed. Most perennials need a longer period of time for establishment before grazing and cannot be re-grazed as often, especially in the beginning. They need to make a full recovery, that is to the point where the lower leaves are shaded out and start to yellow off, before re-grazing
The other thing is we have to get our mob density high enough to finish an area within three days because if they are left there any longer they will go for the new shoots on the best plants over finishing off the other stuff. Most perennial species don’t last long with this sort of treatment.
Changing our grazing practices is not necessarily a sacrifice, to the contrary, better utilisation and longer recovery time actually make for better production per hectare and do wonders for the soil. This does however involve regular moves!
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Plantain in established in pasture before snd after the sheep were let at it. The yellowing of lowest leaves indicated it was fully recovered and ready for another graze 🙂
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Hi Laura,
that’s a great question.
Firstly, oxygen is definitely needed in the soil for respiring microbiology and plants but we need both good oxygenation and restricted oxygen environments in our soils to support different microbe groups and processes. This happens with good soil aggregation, where air flows freely between the gaps of, but not so much into, soil aggregates.
Secondly, the amount of energy in our soils is in a state of flux as energy is generated and used. We must ensure that sufficient energy in the form of carbohydrate’s are being generated by plant photosynthesis to fuel good aerobic activity.
In this case, it’s not really the excess oxygen that’s the root of the problem, it’s the lack of carbohydrate production and we need to try and improve the situation with better plant cover, diversity, growth etc… this is essentially a reduction process which is the opposite of oxidation I.e. energy gain instead of loss.
What we also need to do is minimise the amount of wasteful oxidation that occurs through practices such as tillage, bare fallow etc…that result in the burning of organic matter (stored energy) that is exposed to excessive oxygen and heat/sunlight, for no biological gain.
in summation, with things like excess cultivation, overgrazing, herbicide use, lack of adequate plant cover etc… our soils are are subject to wasteful oxidation and low energy supply.
To strike a balance, we need to make sure organic matter is being produced at a similar or greater rate to what it is being used or else the system starts to go South – organic matter declines, aggregation isn’t maintained, plant growth is compromised, microbial activity subsides and so on.
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Hi Vanessa,
Yes, it is quite hard to source such mixes ready made. We get custom mixes like this one made up for clients in bulk through Nutrien Ag/Bells but the order has to be over 500kg.
The goodies mix makes for a good base and yes, adding some of the other species mentioned and some clover is a good idea.
The thing is, most types of seed are only be available in 25 kg bags. Goodies do supply daikon radish so you might be able to get that off them by the kilo and you could maybe get a few kilos of linseed, buckwheat etc… from a health food shop?
Upping the legume quota in the mix wouldn’t hurt either.
Theres a real opportunity for more farmers to start growing and selling cover crop mixes and I know goodies are looking to add more into their mixes to come.
Good luck with it all 🙂
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Spot on
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Great stuff Eric. Where are you? So good to have working examples underway 🙂
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Some pics of a stockpiled/sabbath area after a graze. One could argue that there’s wasted feed but the soil microbes don’t think so. I’ll be watching to see what regrowth is like under that mulch. These will be the priority green graze areas next season.
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Hey Kate,
The premise is that unless you have exclusively ryegrass and clover paddocks, the stock won’t graze it down to a nice even hight, they’ll graze the best and leave the rest, so grazing it to a certain hight is kind of a mute point. They’ll also eat the leaves first and leave the stems. This can mean inadequate fibre intake at certain times of year and regrowth with a poor leaf to stem ratio.
The other thing with a more complete and harder graze is that you can set smaller breaks and get better utilisation of the forage which buys time on your rotations for recovery of species that need longer than annual ryegrass.
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Good question Kate! I wish there was an easy answer :-/
Adequate recovery is not as important for annual species because, let’s face it, they are only around for a short time anyway.
We do however want to get as much good forage out of them as we can in a season and hopefully build some soil too, through good root development and exudation.
For starters we want to try and give them enough time for establishment. This makes sense because early in the season they remain palatable and vegetative and to a point, larger/more leaves and roots make for more photosynthesis and nutrient acquisition. They also need well developed roots to avoid uprooting at the first graze.
We can only get one decent graze out of annual forbs with apical growing points, i.e. vetch, so recovery periods don’t apply. To get the most out of these species, you’d let them grow all the way to flowering then graze them completely.
Annual/biennial forbs with lower growing points, i.e. brassicas, serradella etc… do regrow and benefit from recovery. In this case, shading and yellowing of lower leaves, (as long as it’s not a nitrogen deficiency) is a good indicator that it’s time to graze.
Annual grasses like ryegrass take a bit of explaining. Firstly, they also benefit from having adequate time to establish.
Once the older leaves start bending down and touching the ground they are good to go. Ideally tillers should be around 25cm-30 high. The tricky stage comes later in the season when they go into stem elongation. At this stage, the apical meristem (growth point) starts to grow out (see photo) and become vulnerable to removal from grazing. If this vegetative meristem is removed, no more leaves can be generated from this tiller. During this stage of growth, you will see that the development of new crown buds and initiation of new tillers from the crown, slows right down. We need to take care not to graze the apical meristems off in this vulnerable elongation stage otherwise there will be a prolonged period without any regrowth.
When the plants start going into reproduction, (the boot stage when we usually make hay), a second cycle of basal buds starts which will provide us with some vigorous regrowth.
In summation, we need to allow annual ryegrass enough time for establishment, graze and re-graze it during the vegetative state when the older leaves start to bend down and touch the ground, avoid grazing the apical meristems during the elongation stage and then, then when it goes into the boot stage, either make hay, graze it once the new tillers are established or or leave it for stockpile.
