Hey so I know it’s a touchy subject. But I have a 40 acre piece of land I am converting to pasture and am rethinking it to try “regenerative†methods. Quotations for obvious reasons.
My point I am aiming for: I want to track the soil as I go along. Organic matter and carbon content changes, infiltration, general health, nutrient availability etc. I would like to know in numbers what happens over time. I have failed in the past to do this, and I am a soils nut, so I hope to rectify it in the future. Hindsight and all that.
Who should I hire or involve to do this soil tracking properly? Most agronomists are all about traditional methods etc. I need someone with a certain degree of interest in a project like this.
The first few acres I “seeded†by unrolling hay and intensively grazing when we first got the sheep a decade ago, has shown ridiculous soil improvements. At least visually. No fertilizer since, always moist to wet regardless of rainfall because of the trampled grasses and unrolled hay etc., and it is a beautifully productive little chunk of land. My hope is to expand this to the new piece.
Initially I was looking to seed perennials. But I’m looking to intensively manage it with annuals. The current thought is 11 different species of warm and cool season crops, and mob graze it HARD, trying for hundreds of thousands of animals per acre kind of thing with daily or twice daily moves for example. Winter feed on the piece by unrolling hay. Repeat. And see what happens over time. By the numbers. See if Gabe Brown is true. Lol.
I also have a long term (40 years plus) perennial pasture that was formerly Hayed, and it looked like it was what the old guys called “sod boundâ€, or at the least, out of nutrients. It was poor. But I started unrolling hay on it in the shoulder seasons, before spring growth, and late fall early winter. The improvement in productivity is unreal. I missed the boat on tracking that piece by the numbers as well. Too bad because it’s more a lower organic matter dark grey soil. Anyway, I’m sick of not knowing how the numbers would match up with what I see visually.
Reason not perennial is to allow for potential grain growing in some years, corn grazing, swath grazing etc. Gives a person way more flexibility in land use.
Anyway. If anyone has suggestions as to the answer of the question in bold, let me know. And then I would share results on here over the years to come. Thanks.
Sorry for a long post which is likely boring to some. Didn’t know where to post it. Rural issues seems more used than commodities these days!
My point I am aiming for: I want to track the soil as I go along. Organic matter and carbon content changes, infiltration, general health, nutrient availability etc. I would like to know in numbers what happens over time. I have failed in the past to do this, and I am a soils nut, so I hope to rectify it in the future. Hindsight and all that.
Who should I hire or involve to do this soil tracking properly? Most agronomists are all about traditional methods etc. I need someone with a certain degree of interest in a project like this.
The first few acres I “seeded†by unrolling hay and intensively grazing when we first got the sheep a decade ago, has shown ridiculous soil improvements. At least visually. No fertilizer since, always moist to wet regardless of rainfall because of the trampled grasses and unrolled hay etc., and it is a beautifully productive little chunk of land. My hope is to expand this to the new piece.
Initially I was looking to seed perennials. But I’m looking to intensively manage it with annuals. The current thought is 11 different species of warm and cool season crops, and mob graze it HARD, trying for hundreds of thousands of animals per acre kind of thing with daily or twice daily moves for example. Winter feed on the piece by unrolling hay. Repeat. And see what happens over time. By the numbers. See if Gabe Brown is true. Lol.
I also have a long term (40 years plus) perennial pasture that was formerly Hayed, and it looked like it was what the old guys called “sod boundâ€, or at the least, out of nutrients. It was poor. But I started unrolling hay on it in the shoulder seasons, before spring growth, and late fall early winter. The improvement in productivity is unreal. I missed the boat on tracking that piece by the numbers as well. Too bad because it’s more a lower organic matter dark grey soil. Anyway, I’m sick of not knowing how the numbers would match up with what I see visually.
Reason not perennial is to allow for potential grain growing in some years, corn grazing, swath grazing etc. Gives a person way more flexibility in land use.
Anyway. If anyone has suggestions as to the answer of the question in bold, let me know. And then I would share results on here over the years to come. Thanks.
Sorry for a long post which is likely boring to some. Didn’t know where to post it. Rural issues seems more used than commodities these days!
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