Originally posted by GDR
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Not that I don’t like bush being kept. Keep lots of bush! And the Potholes. Stop draining them to seed through.
But temperate grasslands have very little bush. It’s grass and some shrubs here and there. Maybe this is part of why it’s so vulnerable, it seems empty. How many times in life have people heard “I prefer the mountains because there’s things to see†Now don’t get me wrong, I love the mountains, but most times I’ll see way more walking through the prairie.
So something that is seen as empty is easier to transition to a use. You aren’t destroying that birds house or food source. You aren’t taking away shelter for those small mammals. You aren’t killing those endangered snails. Except... you are.
It’s said that when a smaller area is considered, grasslands are more diverse than rainforests. If you were to take an acre of grassland and an acre of rainforest, the grassland could easily have more biodiversity. Just because it’s not as visible doesn’t mean an empty looking grassland isn’t full of life.
It’s almost amazing how much people don’t know about the ecosystem we live and farm in.
Did anyone know that Rough Fescue is one of the only grass species that holds it nutrients above ground once it goes dormant, when most other species retract their nutrition back into their root system. This is why the Bison would winter along the foothills, the grazing was more nutritious. Yet rough fescue, and northern rough fescue, are in decline because they aren’t as “productive†as planting tame grasses (which aren’t usually as drought tolerant and are similar to grazing straw when left standing through winter)Last edited by Blaithin; Nov 16, 2020, 13:17.
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Has anyone seen my chicken?................
Oh shit wrong thead *** fogged up glasses anyway. Sorry.
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Blaithin when Mother Nature took back low spots here in 2014 guess what grew there? Supercharged 5 ft high dock weed and 8ft cat tails. That led to a bunch of extra sprayer passes to keep it under control and then edges worked with a disc.
Guys are putting down 200lbs of N. that doesn't make for great adjacent wetland areas. Doubt if the ducks and moose even liked it. They sure enjoyed my canola field though.
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Originally posted by jazz View PostBlaithin when Mother Nature took back low spots here in 2014 guess what grew there? Supercharged 5 ft high dock weed and 8ft cat tails. That led to a bunch of extra sprayer passes to keep it under control and then edges worked with a disc.
Guys are putting down 200lbs of N. that doesn't make for great adjacent wetland areas. Doubt if the ducks and moose even liked it. They sure enjoyed my canola field though.
If you were to stop farming an acre somewhere as a test, first it’s going to grow the best crop of “weeds†you could imagine. Thistle, pigweed, burdock, dandelion, sweet clover... these are plants that do best in unbalanced and poorly structured soils. They are the scouts that go behind enemy lines to prepare the place for the settlers. As the soil gains quality then more and more other plants will start to appear until eventually you’ll have a grassy acre again. It’s a process that takes years.
Also, if you look into programs like ALUS, there are recommended buffer zones to protect riparian areas from things like that 200 lbs of N. Ducks won’t pay for buffers but ALUS will. But it’s hard to convince farmers to keep the potholes themselves out of use in dry years let alone another 30-50’ out from the potholes. And then once they use them they’re battling weeds... where if they’d just left them alone in the first place they’d have functioning riparian habitats - and in many cases natural swales - in their fields. Instead they have weeds, runoff and mud bogs.
Hind site and all that.
Few farmers are willing to do it because when they talk, it’s those acres around riparian areas that are the only acres keeping them going. There’s no way they could validate owning that land and not trying to get a crop off it. Even when it takes more inputs and manpower (and even equipment damage) to keep in producing.
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There is a quarter near here which was taken out of production 25 or more years agoby a conservation group to protect the sensitive springs within. It was very productive farmland, great deep black mellow soil. After all these years it is still mostly thistles, and a few random trees that they have been planting.
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Crop farming really damages things.
Really even intercropping, cover cropping and most, if not all, crop rotations, do little to mitigate the damage.
It’s really unfortunate.
You can think on, and implement, different grazing techniques with livestock to improve that land but how can someone improve cropping that much. It’s hard. Personally I’d love to see more livestock used in crop rotations but how much would that really fix?
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