Next problem! Desiccating!

[SASKFARMER3]

S0 grassfarmer your family must have farmed for 350 years in jolly old england. Well our neighbors moved her 10 years ago and this morning they said this is way worse than home. Maybe since its been 350 years since you been home you should check your facts. The round up bs your spouting yea that's a good one.

[jensend]

ado come and look at the sloughs on my grass and the neighbouring zero till. which would closer mimic native prairie - a drill or my perennial forages? and yeah my cows walk on the land. they aren't getting stuck and now this last week the ground is softening up but even that slows the flow of water with indentations and a rougher surface. they are also fracturing the surface so it absorbs water there. the machinery manufacturers are selling you a line along with the drill. zero till will quickly absorb a limited amount of water and after that it runs. that's what happens when you concentrate o.m. in the top inch. under that it compacts more. this year is showing zerotill is a dryland strategy. do you really think a crop growing for ninety days out of 365 is mimicking native grasses? an extensive root system will do more to reduce compaction than any grain farming practice short of deep ploughing. i'm sure you have higher organic matter levels in the top inch or two because you aren't putting anything any deeper but i doubt your a and b horizons have any more o.m. than other methods. you've been sold a method of production and now you're addicted to glyphosate and fertilizer. ever wonder why 'crop protection' products are all poisonous?

[jensend]

calling grassfarmer an englishman! i'm leaving now.my wife asked a scot if he was from wales. i ran far and fast.

[fjlip]

Took a chemical safety class, learned table salt has a higher LD50 number, it is MORE toxic to humans that glyphosate, and we have that "poison" on our tables? How toxic is pure alcohol? Ya, try drink seawater with NO roundup in it. The point was that everything comes down to "dilution of toxicity", there is NO zero % possible in the environment.

[ado089]

I've seen non inversion deep tillage do far more for pasture than any crop field. Cows cause compaction. Tillage causes a plow pan because the soil structure is broken resulting in the micro-pores being plugged with fine soil particles causing a plow pan. You are correct that there is a stratification of O.M. near the surface but that's present in grass land as well. But what do you think is happening when a crop take CO2 out the air and put is towards root growth? O.M. builds in the b and c horizon as well. Soils took thousands of years to develop and were destroyed in a mere 10's of year of intensive tillage, starting with the removal of sod to build homes. The reality is that undisturbed, even by cattle, native prairie is ideal for water management but saying tillage is the answer is a short visioned, ill-logiced sing of ignorance. Any given soil has a water holding capacity, when it's full, it's full. Disturbing may result in a short term drying of the suface but that's where it ends.

If you want to go down the the chemicals are all poissons route I could argue that eating beef increase your risk of colon cancer and exposes you to e.coli and other nasty things like BSE. Not to mention the contamination of water with phosphates,antibiotics and bacteria.

Just becasue you're standing in shit doesn't mean you need to throw it.

[jensend]

i'm just tired of all the complaining because this year doesn't suit the preferred method of farming. made the point that grain gets compensation; others don't. the private golf course operator doesn't get a handout for a wet summer. the dirt work contractors are having a lousy summer too. the best preventive measure for soil compaction is a healthy root system and that's in properly managed perennials. having cattle on a piece of land for six or eight days out of the year ensures the plants recover and regenerate a root system. annuals don't. they grow any significant roots for about sixty days out of the year. if you want to mimic perennial prairie the annuals don't cut it. as far as poisons go you can compare whatever but man has been eating beef for centuries but only using these chems for a few decades and i'll take my chances on good grassfed beef. did the grainfarming thing for thirty five years including continuous crop zero till high inputs. my land absorbs more water now.

[fjlip]

I was thinking along those lines, you said it first. Toxins from the environment are concentrated in the fat of any living thing, therefore in animal fat, that we eat with meat.
The dilution I mentioned is very obvious comparing cows in a pasture, little impact, 10000 in a feed lot, off the scale water pollution and toxic odors.

[jensend]

well if my neighbours wouldn't drift their spray onto my grass my beef would be even safer.

[grassfarmer]

Folks, there's way more in Roundup than salt.
Try this:

Product: ROUNDUP
Active ingredient: GLYPHOSATE 41%
Type: HERBICIDE, (Systemic)
Other ingredients: 59% includes polyethoxethyleneamine (POEA) and isopropylamine (amount undisclosed); identity of remaining ingredients withheld by manufacture as trade secrets.

How many of the unknown and undisclosed ingredients are carcinogens?

[furrowtickler]

A couple very good post there ado, well done. Jen, relax, zero till has it's place but not compareable to grass land. Conventioal till feilds around here are impasable b/c the water just can't be absorbed through the hard pan - that should be the comparison.
Keep those cows happy on that grass, we need some farmers doing well or this forum would self implode.

[ado089]

Jensend,
I agree with you that there is alot whinning on the grain farmers part and I also do beleive like mentioned before that there should be no special treatment in the form of extra payments. Grass is good,so are cattle, I ate one for lunch. What I took exception to was blaming wet fields on min-til, that's like saying you have shitty hay this year because you're using the wrong twine on your bales. There's alot of hay that wasn't cut, more that's still not baled and even more bales that are going to sit in the field until freeze up because it's too wet to get in the field. There are other problems such as foot rot and bugs that come in wet years that drop productivity. 40 incehs of rain is not good for anyone. One last point is that cow land is usualy cow land for a reason, light soil, hills, poor sub-soil, ect. Some will drain better than others and there are low grass acres that are under three feet of water this year. I realy hope that we don't turn the clock back 25years on soil management because of one wet year.

[Choice2U]

One of the major differences between zero till and cultivation is under zero-till the root system of that year's crop degrades over the winter leaving tiny little "tubes" where water can percolate down as opposed to the compaction that occurs under the shovel which inhibits moisture infiltration. Grasses also die and leave these tubes which zero till mimics so there are similarities. Grasses have the added benefit of diversity versus monoculture and 6 months versus 4 months of growth unless the farmer is letting weeds grow before seeding and after harvest. In extreme situations such as this year, zero till advantages that show up 99/100 years can actually become a disadvantage. I'm sticking with the benefits of zero till over the long haul.

[SASKFARMER3]

Jensend are you the Alberta cowboy from Cupar. Yes the Avonlee golf coarse got money this year yes the city residents flooded got money this year it goes on and on and on. So saying the cowboys didn't get any is BS. All our neighbors got most of their hay up really good crop. Hm why not you. Your out to lunch on your information. Have land this year that I bought that was recreational tillage since 1924. That's the year it was broke. Guess what barely got it swath ruts 6 inches deep all around the field. Yea its a gem.

[jensend]

yeah sf3. i'm from alberta. now who are you? or are you going to hide? our hay is done custom so only a quarter of it got done. we'll still make use of the land but it will be reduced. btw don't you think my grass on the highly assessed land looks better than the crops next door?

[SASKFARMER3]

Yea saw your grass looks awesome, Family member right down road on higher assessed land looks awesome. But wait two years ago when it never rained grass looked sick crop yielded in 60s. This year is extreme that's all I am saying. have a good one. And on the cattle and BSE your experts sold you cattle men out. THats the truth and it hurts.