Just how big are your cows?

[grassfarmer]

Cowman, The piece of land I mentioned got depleted by ignorant grain farming. Previous owner sold grain/hay crops off it for 25 years and used no fertiliser in that time - occasionally it got some manure but even that was stopped about 10 years ago. A point to bear in mind when you talk of land that is good enough to grow grain - the farming has to be good enough to sustain it or it will deplete even quicker than a pasture system.
Our land is predominately black loam, sandy in places with a little grey wooded on the fringes.This land is the only part I have reseeded and is a meadow brome/orchard/clover/cicer milk vetch/quack/fescue mix.
I'm not against using chemical fertiliser but see it's role as a top up of the natural fertility created by animal manure and grazing management. I put on around 40lbs of N per acre which is the maximum level that doesn't "burn up" the organic matter.
Your ongoing argument that land that can grow 100 bushel grain crops shouldn't carry grass and cattle doesn't really mean much to me - it's like saying land that can wean 650lb calves shouldn't be growing grain. Without evidence of relative profitability of the different enterprises there is no argument -merely comparing apples with oranges.
Although my Hutterite neighbours grow excellent grain crops I would say this area here is better suited to grass growing than grain - in my mind it is climatically marginal grain land with late wet springs and early frosts.

[nerves]

Grassfarmer this type of system is what we have also adapted to. If we need organic matter we will swath graze. All our cows are wintered on the crop land. We like to see all the energy that is produce off the land go back into the land. Our pastures are clover, Alfalfa, and orchard grass. Most of the neighbors can"t believe that we don"t hay them. Put the organic matter back into the ground and these pastures don't seem to weaken.

[cakadu]

Isn't the truth of the matter that we have been pushing the land to do what it was never meant to do i.e. grain production. Granted, we have just been trying to do sustainable grazing management for a short time - and of course we tried to start doing it in a drought and then the grasshoppers - but it seems to me what I've learned is that we need to let the land do what it can do best.

I'm curious to know if the land could grow 100 bushel crops on it's own without inputs? The thing I look at is that this continual, almost monoculture, cropping can't be sustainable for much longer especially with the costs of all the equipment and the other inputs such as chemical fertilizers.

[cswilson]

A lot of mixed farmers retired pretty well off in this neck of the woods-they maybe grew some canola and wheat to sell but fed most of what they produced on farm. Rotated some forages through their land and silaged out the weedy spots. It's starting to go back that way abit except everything is on a much bigger scale.

[cowman]

Well perhaps you are all correct. The only problem is what in the heck do we do with all this darned beef? Seemed to be working pretty well when the border was open but not so good now. I don't think we could convert all of Canada over to grass?
And Linda, without those crop inputs, we couldn't grow a lot...at least not how we've been doing it. I actually went to a seminar thing that had an organic farmer up by Camrose(Little Red Hen Farms) who was growing some pretty fair crops using no chemical or manure inputs! However he was making it by getting some pretty premium prices!
I have also visited a guy who was doing a rotational grazing thing with 100 cow/calf pairs on 90 acres and his figures were pretty impressive!
In the big picture why do we keep producing more food so we can sell it for less? Put more inputs into the land and recieve less profit per acre? Collectively we are cutting our own throats? Something isn't quite right here?
And cswilson, I make a poor plow jockey! I truly enjoy field work...for about two days a year! Just hate going around and around for very long! Now I will admit that I do enjoy those two days, but after that it starts to wear!I like running the combine or hauling grain too...for a few hours!
Variety is the spice of life, and I knew at a young age, I would never be cut out to do any one thing! However I will admit I love working in the shop and building things and I think I could have been content doing that all my life.

[cowman]

Oh, one other thing grassfarmer:Perhaps the previous owner did all right on his 25 year old business venture? I mean he probably bought the land fairly cheap, milked it for all it was worth and sold it for a considerable capital gain?
Might not be the best thing for the land but maybe the best thing for his pocket book?
I know you don't look at it this way as you obviously have a love of the land kind of thing, but maybe he was just in it for the money? People look at these things in many ways and have many motivations and I think that is a good thing? It would be a pretty boring old world if we all thought the same?

[cowman]

Nerves: How do you keep the alphalfa in the mix alive or do you have to reseed every so often? If so do you rotate it back to a grain crop? I suspect this method would be the best solution for maintaining maximum production...don't know about maximum profitability?
Another question I have is how do you keep down weed problems, especially Canada thistle and perhaps scentless camomile? The 90 acre rotational pasture I mentioned seemed to be getting quite a few thistles in it even though it was only three years old. This guy was running a straight grass mix so I suppose a shot of Grazeon could fix that up but not if you had any legumes in the mix? He relied on a healthy shot of chemical N every year to keep things cooking!

[nerves]

Cowman the legumes under rotational grazing are very tough we graze them twice a season. First we will hay these pastures for about 4 years I think that helps to kill the thistle. Our thistle problems are along fence lines and tree lines. Some of these pastures have been grazed up to ten years and still look great. I did take a valmar out about seven years ago and put about 5 pounds of alfalfa on and it did help, the pastures still look good today. We feed barley and straw in the winter along with swath grazing. In the spring just before they calve we switch to hay. With weather permiting the cows with calves will finish any pasture that is left to graze. Had very few sick calves last year and cut my mineral bill in half. (just used blue salt loose and selenium and vit A,D,E). Conseption rates were also very good. It seems we are always tweaking something here and there but all in all it works for us.

[cswilson]

WE get some thistle problems in our native pastures(peat moss) we weakened them alot by giving that pasture a years rest(we lost our water supply due to drought). Also grazing too early can cause thistle to get a leg up on grass. Throwing sweet or red clover in your salt can help spread it across pastures. I gueess the difference between a grass farmer and a grain farmer is patience-most farmers seem to just write a bigger cheque at their perceived problem while us tightwad grazers try to figure out a cheaper fix-remember the best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pockets.

[cowman]

Seems like you have a system that works for you. I'd be a little leery of just the salt and selenium thing. Over the years I've done a fair bit of feed and soil testing and in my area we are definitely deficient in some of the trace minerals. Copper for sure, in a big way,but also zinc. The copper thing is so bad we even add copper every fourth year to the grain land. I believe copper deficiency has been linked to Purdys theory on BSE? Now I have no idea if your area is deficient in copper or not, but I suspect your local fertilizer dealer sure would know?
I have found blue salt mixed with a complete mineral mix is fairly economical. Buy the mineral mix from Innisfail Minerals. The guy who owns it is a nutritionalist and can custom blend anything you need as he has a mineral plant right there. He is very reasonable and a good guy to deal with.

[nerves]

This copper thing and mineral deal I find interesting. Back years ago we used to calve about 500 cows in January and we had alot of scour problems and such. I remember my brother and I treated 75 head of calves In one day. Stress levels were high so we called our vet to come out and do blood test on the cows to see if there was mineral problems.(Don Church was the vet at that time) The tests were done and came back that the cows were low in copper so we ordered some stuff that came from Australia. Every thing got shots and it made no differnce everything was still getting sick. We talked to the mineral ouffit that was in innisfail at the time not sure if it was the same people that have it now. But have used thier product up untill the drought hit and had to cut costs. We have been feeding barley and straw and they said we should keep using the same mineral that has high amounts of phospherous and calcium in it. The barley has got high amounts of phospherous in it already why should it be in the mineral? They failed to realize I am trying to cut cost and phospherous is expensive. So we switched to selenium and vit A,D,E and we put micro nutrients such as copper into most of our fertilzer blend, not to sure about how well it works but I don"t think I touched a sick calf this spring. I realize that minerals are important but do the cows absorbe it better through the plants or through the rock particles in the bag? Then I would also have wonder how well does the plant absorbe it from the fertilizer? Probabley depends on the type plants maybe. Right now my moto is if it ain"t broke don"t fix it. Your Advice is good cowman but I always think there has to be a better way.

[cswilson]

WellI did the mineral thing all kinds all amounts-so being contrary I just quit feeding any at all-haven't noticed any difference in production at all. The oldtimers never fed any-I think that maybe commercial fertilizers tie up availability of some minerals in the grass. I guess I shouldn't sau don't feed any-we get a vmr package in our screening pellets when feeding straw but don't feed any on grass.