Gabe Brown

[WiltonRanch]

I'm thinking your taking a jab at me for supplying straw to several cow calf guys who I highly value as customers.

I know we agree on one thing for sure regarding vaccinating cattle

"Mining is mining and I have an acute disdain for those who don’t vaccinate their herds and spread their stupid diseases around the country."

Yes it was a good natured jab and I hate unvaccinated cattle. PI calves from BVD are gross and it’s preventable with vaccination. Anyone who advocates different is either a charlatan or dumb. I’ve seen so many know it all gurus sell their wares on speaking tours, articles, books etc. I still always find merit in some of what they say though. I won’t sell my tractor anytime soon or quit using fertilizer.

[foragefarmer]

AB5 your definitely frugal which is so very important to make it at any type of farming operation.

So your getting out of cattle, so many have the past 10-15 years.

To me nothing defines the family farm more then a cow calf mixed farm. Just less and less of them every year.

With cattle you never seem to be able to hit the home run, that's why we switch gears in the late 1990's which was a lucky move with BSE about to hit cattle producers.

Anyways, good luck with your farming!

Did notice Gabe should be wearing a mazsier, must be all those free lunches he gets during his speaking engagements. Most cow calf guys I know are Slim Jims

[AlbertaFarmer5]

AB5 your definitely frugal which is so very important to make it at any type of farming operation.

So your getting out of cattle, so many have the past 10-15 years.

To me nothing defines the family farm more then a cow calf mixed farm. Just less and less of them every year.

With cattle you never seem to be able to hit the home run, that's why we switch gears in the late 1990's which was a lucky move with BSE about to hit cattle producers.

Anyways, good luck with your farming!

Did notice Gabe should be wearing a mazsier, must be all those free lunches he gets during his speaking engagements. Most cow calf guys I know are Slim Jims

That is probably a sign that his methods are successful, not working his tail off.
And by that measure, I must be a failure at eliminating the hard work, slim jim is an accurate description of me.

[chuckChuck]

I posted in number 8 that Bismarck is drier and warmer than a lot of the prairies and that Gabe's management of his resources is what gives him an advantage, not more rainfall.

Management includes finding and developing local markets.

Regenerative ag is now a mainstream term used by firms like General Mills and A and W in their advertising and programming.

The principles of Regenerative have been around for awhile. Regenerative is just a new way of describing the principles and objectives. Allan Savoury and holistic resource management made inroads into western Canada a couple decades ago with similar objectives and principles. Lots of cattle producers adopted intensive rotational grazing systems because of HRM.

The Rodale Institute and organic farming inspired regenerative pioneers like Joel Salutin to establish smaller integrated livestock systems. The goal was to minimize expensive off farm inputs and utilize on farm resources as much as possible by changing management.

How regenerative ag plays out on many farms is unique to what type of farm they have and where they are located.

[tweety]

Lots of farmers make more off of YouTube than their crops. Doesn’t mean I don’t think I can learn anything from them about arable farming.

As with anything scientific you can find scientists that can back up any ideas. Dr Yamily Zavada is a great local one working with CARA. Dr Kris Nichols is another well known scientist that does lots of speaking across Alberta. Either have (what I would consider) great ideas about diversity within the plant stand, biological soil properties, soil microbiology and root structure, among other things, and how they contribute to soil health and fertility.

But perhaps their science is the wrong kind to be considered science? I should take the time to read more dissenting science views until I change my mind?

So basic soil science is dissenting? Diversity - yes. Rotation - yes. Stop tilling - yes. Moisture convservation - yes. Stop grazing till it looks like summerfallow - yes. Always has been that way. But the new religion of regeneration sells unrealistic nutrient build up coming out of nowhere.

Benefits? Yes. But if you aren't replacing nutrients exported and flushed into the ocean, we deplete our soil nutrients no matter your beliefs. It's why we are crying about fertilizer prices - we grow a crop and "feed the world" exporting what we put in. Science is quite clear on that as is experience. We all have seen the plugged fert run. That is your regenerative crop. The better the soil, the longer you can **** it of nutrients. Organic religion is even a fancier religion, the slow bleed - low volume reduces less - but still reduces nutrients if exporting more then replacing. Phosphate doesn't just magically show up externally because you grow tillage radish and 57 other deep root crops, you're just mining deeper. One day that will be gone too. As will the phosphate mines.

Physics - you don't get something for nothing.

And if all that is dessenting science, call me a dissenter.

Example - his claim of increasing SOC by 1% in a very short time. 8" of 1% SOC is 1000 lbs nitrogen per acre. Where did his nitrogen come from? Hoof prints?

[chuckChuck]

So when all the easily mined phosphorous is depleted where is the phosphorous going to come from?

[WiltonRanch]

So when all the easily mined phosphorous is depleted where is the phosphorous going to come from?

Exactly. Last stat I seen was 300 years at current use and projected future use with presently known reserves. That said those stats were 10 years old. Thought they found more in Africa.
Was in on a conference call about fertilizer derived from sewage. Maybe more of that needs to be done to close the loop some.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

So when all the easily mined phosphorous is depleted where is the phosphorous going to come from?

The phosphorus is not being destroyed or consumed. It is being washed down the sewer and into the oceans. It is being exported in our feed grains and ending up on fields in another continent. We just need to close the loop. Easier said than done, but we won't have any choice.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Tweety,
A lot of what Gabe says defies the laws of physics, and needs to be taken with the appropriate sized grain of salt. But that doesn't mean the rest of it has no value.

The bible is almost entirely preposterously unbelievable impossible fairytales with no basis in reality.
But that doesn't mean that the golden rules have no merit.

[shtferbrains]

These guys have been around for a couple of generations. Some have come and gone. Most end up running some type of mentor type program where people pay come and do thier work for them.

They all have some usefull ideas if you have time to sift through it but most is a rehash of someone elses. Allan Savory was an early one.


Saw one article on Gabe that said he increased his topsoil 2 inches.

Another said he had 5000 acres. 2 inches of topsoil on 5000 acres is no small feat. Think of the tonnage.

I should qualify by saying I rotational graze and have an understanding of nutrient transfer.
I think I have fed 50000+ bales here but no miracles yet.

[Blaithin]

So basic soil science is dissenting? Diversity - yes. Rotation - yes. Stop tilling - yes. Moisture convservation - yes. Stop grazing till it looks like summerfallow - yes. Always has been that way. But the new religion of regeneration sells unrealistic nutrient build up coming out of nowhere.

Benefits? Yes. But if you aren't replacing nutrients exported and flushed into the ocean, we deplete our soil nutrients no matter your beliefs. It's why we are crying about fertilizer prices - we grow a crop and "feed the world" exporting what we put in. Science is quite clear on that as is experience. We all have seen the plugged fert run. That is your regenerative crop. The better the soil, the longer you can **** it of nutrients. Organic religion is even a fancier religion, the slow bleed - low volume reduces less - but still reduces nutrients if exporting more then replacing. Phosphate doesn't just magically show up externally because you grow tillage radish and 57 other deep root crops, you're just mining deeper. One day that will be gone too. As will the phosphate mines.

Physics - you don't get something for nothing.

And if all that is dessenting science, call me a dissenter.

Example - his claim of increasing SOC by 1% in a very short time. 8" of 1% SOC is 1000 lbs nitrogen per acre. Where did his nitrogen come from? Hoof prints?

I don't pretend to believe Gabe's claims any more than I believe the claims of the fertilizer salesmen or the chem salesmen or anyone else trying to sell me their products. Anyone's numbers when proclaimed as a marketing ploy are going to be exaggerated, rose coloured glasses numbers. Realistically numbers will be different. Doesn't mean the principles discussed in a regen conversation can't be beneficial.

Plants are like icebergs, their largest portions are under the ground. All we see are their solar panels. If 80% of the plants are in the soil, why is it assumed we're taking away so many nutrients? (This is not in reference to short rooted, annual, mono crops bred to grow a top heavy balance of seeds.) You look at any naturally functioning grassland and you don't think "Oh eventually that's going to run out of phosphorous and become a barren wasteland", is someone going to try and say the herds in the African Savanah are dying at a high enough rate to keep the grasslands as fed with phosphorus as farmers applying it for crops? I'd be skeptical of that claim. So why do they not run out of these nutrients being mined? Because animals grazing the tops off the plants are not removing all that much, most of the nutrients the plants need are kept in the roots. The roots when kept in the ground are keeping that elusive phosphorus with them.

Which is the tip of another iceberg of complexity. The structure of soil, losses in erosion and a microbiological community that lives within soil and acts in symbiotic relationships. You say phosphate doesn't magically show up yet we know we can get nitrogen to magically show up if we use the right plants.

Soil science is such a, to be cliche, undiscovered frontier, that it's more exciting to see the things they're discovering there than it is to pay attention to space discoveries these days.

No, don't fall for the hooks the speakers use as tag lines, be realistic, but that shouldn't mean regenerative ideals can't be beneficial. I've yet to hear anything about Gabe even having a slightly off year since trying his methods which makes no sense, even the soundest of methods have rougher years.

Take Gabe out of the scene. Or Joel. Or even Allan. Stop mentioning names so people stop bringing up sales profits and silly, exaggerated numbers.

Instead, just look at the 5 principles they're all trying to focus on.

Don't disturb the soil.
Keep the soil surface covered.
Keep living roots in the soil.
Grow a diverse range of crops.
Bring grazing animals back to the land.

You try and work those into your system as frequently as you can and you should start to see changes. Maybe it's just changes in soil aggregates and it's structure. Maybe it's changes in OM levels. Maybe it's water retention. Maybe it does end up requiring less inputs.

I would personally say the key word in that last part is LESS inputs.

People focus on the no inputs part as much as they focus on the unrealistic numbers. There's always room for improvement, you will probably always have a piece of land that could be benefited by some sort of input, be it herbicide, micro or macro fertilizer, or just some intensive bale grazing with bought in bales.

So Tweety I guess clarification here would be needed. Are you dissenting the science or dissenting the claims of a few? Those are two totally different things.

I (and probably Sheepwheat, maybe others) would say the science is pretty sound. The implementations are what's not for everyone. The numerical claims of the gurus, those are completely open to interpretation and dissension and skepticism.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I should qualify by saying I rotational graze and have an understanding of nutrient transfer.
I think I have fed 50000+ bales here but no miracles yet.

No miracles yet? You'll never make it on the speaker circuit with defeatist language such as that.

But on that topic, are the bales processed, then the cows eat for a few hours, then go back to ruminate in the nearest clump of trees, taking all the manure and urine with them?

And even at that, I still find piling manure, letting it compost, then hauling it out to be far more effective than feeding it directly. Enough to justify the cost even.