Pounding posts question.

[freewheat]

No offense but I hope to never see another fence on this farm except for the tiny 25-30 acre pasture of native grass and bush that is already fenced.

No offense taken. I look forward to lots of fences, the more the better on my farm. Weaning myself off the parasites and the futile looking future of commodity farming under water, is downright exciting to me.

I can't build them fast enough, or get enough animals fast enough to satisfy me though! lol

[grassfarmer]

Yeah, same with us Freewheat - put up 14 miles last year. One of the few inputs that brings a great and immediate return. Once you have the watering and fence infrastructure set up to control the animals the sky is the limit in how fast you can build topsoil, organic matter and production using the free inputs of solar and water. Its a different kind of agriculture but its exciting and dynamic as you say, not the depressingly worrysome and high risk type folk talk about here on a daily basis.

[farmaholic]

.....but I'm lazy!

[AlbertaFarmer5]

With all the heavy rains we've had this late summer/fall, there is constant standing water all over the pastures, and nothing right across the fence in cropland. Hayland being somewhere in between.

I did some winter time trenching, 8 feet deep a few years ago. Canola stubble was easy digging, got to old abandoned farm yard, even areas with very little traffic in years past, and digging was impossible, I assumed it was from the canola sucking up all the moisture, and therefore less frost, the nearly native grassland was still full of moisture and frozen deep. The difference was drastic.

Grassfarmer, I like your thinking, and practice rotational/intensive grazing here. Most pastures are now down to twice a year for a few days each. The hard clay soils still don't grow any grass. The theory is good, but there needs to be enough material growing to leave a layer of thatch and to make roots for it to work. My theory behind deep ripping pastures is to get the water to go in, oxygen in and allow roots to go down. Then let nature take over from there.

In this area, pasture season is typically always too wet, and cows feet are very effective packers. I think adding snow shoes to the cows feet would solve the compaction problem........ IF there were a way to keep cows out of pastures when wet, the results would be much different, but many years we would never get to use any pastures.

[grassfarmer]

Grassfarmer, I like your thinking, and practice rotational/intensive grazing here. Most pastures are now down to twice a year for a few days each. The hard clay soils still don't grow any grass. The theory is good, but there needs to be enough material growing to leave a layer of thatch and to make roots for it to work. My theory behind deep ripping pastures is to get the water to go in, oxygen in and allow roots to go down. Then let nature take over from there.

I know that problem of getting enough to grow to kind of kick start the process by trampling and laying down litter. Was a problem for us out west on some land. I posted on the beef forum an experiment we are doing with sweet clover that I think may work to overcome this. Its looking even better now than when I posted that.

[URL="https://www.agriville.com/threads/32048-an-experiment"]http://https://www.agriville.com/threads/32048-an-experiment[/URL]

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Haven't grown sweet clover on purpose before, County used to use it for road ditches, but then decided it was a weed and sprayed it out. It seemed to grow in any conditions, have to check if it is classified as an invasive species or allowed? Anything with deep roots would be helpful. FIxing N a bonus.

[grassfarmer]

It's non-native and invasive but isn't considered a weed in any jurisdiction I know of. Was used widely in the US in rotations for plough down prior to chemical fertilizer becoming available. Cut at the right stage it can give you silage of the highest quality. It doesn't suit haying and I think that's probably what has held it back from wider adoption by cattlemen.

[freewheat]

What do you guys think of seeding annual cereals/mixes for grazing rather than grass for part of the grazing season. Rye or Winter wheat as an option to graze, and then get a crop off the next year to offset some costs?

[grassfarmer]

Can work as part of a rotation freewheat. Might give you some different seeding/harvest window options. Seeding rye in Sept, grazing through fall then an earlier harvest means you wouldn't be touching it at normal seeding time. You might have time to double crop - millet or a tillage radish type mixture after the crop is off. Uses a lot of moisture which in your situation would be a good thing but would be a constraint in many areas. I really like that you can have something growing from the first possible day in spring to last possible day in fall(kinda like grass) thats good for the soil.