Uncategorized | The Conscious Farmer

RUMINANTS – A methane pest or climate change solution?

25 November 2015 / 1 comments

Production systems involving ruminant animals have come under pressure from some sectors of the community concerned about climate change due to the production of methane (CH4, a greenhouse gas) by these animals. While methane has a much shorter life (12 years) in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the reason it attracts so much negative publicity is that methane is calculated to have a 25 greater fold impact on climate change than carbon dioxide. Much of the atmospheric methane is oxidised to carbon dioxide and water, but with general emission levels increasing since the industrial era, (as with carbon dioxide), there is only so much certain systems can deal with. So should we therefore be worried about the impacts of the methane from our livestock on climate change? Continue reading “RUMINANTS – A methane pest or climate change solution?” »

INTERCROPPING – A Winter Crop Example

31 August 2015 / 0 comments

A quandary of many grain farmers is knowing that the rotation to a pulse crop is a good thing for the soil and farming system, but that this choice has often come with an increased risk associated with these crops. This is when some farmers decide to be innovative to solve such problems – as is the case with Nick Shady on his farm near Lismore in Victoria, Australia (West of Melbourne). Nick has moved to low rates of liquid fertilizer and has begun to experiment by combining a pulse crop with another of his grain crops.

This has led Nick to discover the world of companion cropping or intercropping, with his crop that he aptly calls ‘Peaola’ (a mix of field peas and canola). His ideas developed after he planted a field pea crop quite late (as planting was delayed due to wet weather); in a season that rapidly turned dry. The crop that resulted was not worth harvesting, but was rather treated as a brown manure crop and then worked into the soil prior to summer for the associated advantages. Continue reading “INTERCROPPING – A Winter Crop Example” »

HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?

21 August 2015 / 0 comments

We often hear about how changing climate will affect future generations – our children and grandchildren. This is very true, but we should also realise that it is already affecting us – especially as farmers. Agricultural production is highly influenced by weather, so our businesses are likely to be one of the first affected by climate change (as it affects our weather). Information coming from Australia’s CSIRO (the federal government agency for scientific research) supports this. I learnt this and more when I spoke with Mark Howden of CSIRO recently.

What we often think of regarding climate change is an increase in temperature, and this is true with regard to overall climate and long term average temperatures, but climate change also has other effects on climate. Changes in climate have resulted in more erratic weather events that can affect our agricultural production and increase risk of crop loss. Such erratic weather events place crops at risk of damage; think frosts, drought, hail, intense storms, increased winds etc. Continue reading “HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?” »

CONSIDERATIONS FOR EARLY SEASON GRAZING – with Brian Wehlburg

6 August 2015 / 1 comments

How best to manage early season pasture growth is something I was keen to get a thorough handle on, so I spoke with Brian Wehlburg this week. Brian is a Holistic Management educator based on his farm near Port Macquarie NSW, but training in Holistic Management all over Australia. Early season growth was something he talked about when he visited our farm with his training group earlier this year, so I thought I’d follow it up with him.

First, I will explain that when I am referring to early season pasture growth – we are talking about the window when growth really starts to take off. A time when we might double the quantity of plant dry matter in a relatively short period of time. For us here on the Liverpool Plains in NSW, this is well into Spring, when the weather warms up and the days get longer and our summer growing grasses (C4 or subtropical, or warm season grasses) begin to grow.

Should we change the way we manage grazing at this time of year? Well Brian rightly points out that we should always be considering changes to our grazing in response to pasture growth, seasonal conditions, time of year, and monitoring – something very strongly advocated in Holistic Management. There are however, some extra things that can be considered at the seasons’ beginning. Continue reading “CONSIDERATIONS FOR EARLY SEASON GRAZING – with Brian Wehlburg” »

A GROWING DEMAND FOR NOURISHING & ORGANIC FOOD

5 May 2015 / 0 comments

When farming consciously we produce in a manner that we believe in from an ecological and social point of view, and if we can also better our profits by receiving a premium for this product then this is a bonus. The only way we are likely to receive a premium however, is if there is good demand for our product. What I am learning is that there certainly is a demand, and an ever increasing one at that. So I challenge you to ask if there is a way that you can receive a premium for your product, even if it is a commodity and not marketed at the end consumer. There have been several people lately, comment to me that they find it really difficult to source the organic grain that they need to use in their businesses.

I’m going to use organics as an example of the growing demand for consciously produced products – as data for this is more easily measurable and reported on. Continue reading “A GROWING DEMAND FOR NOURISHING & ORGANIC FOOD” »

FEED CHOICE AND ABILITY TO CHOOSE IS IMPORTANT FOR LIVESTOCK HEALTH

27 April 2015 / 0 comments

Have you ever watched a group of animals put into a fresh and diverse paddock of pasture – especially one that might have some odd flowering species or ‘weeds’ among the mix? You will see them eat plants that you might not have expected them to – a ‘weed’ among a beautiful soft pasture or a completely unpalatable looking cotton bush.

Biodiversity of plants creates choice and the ability to choose feeds, which is critical for animals to meet their needs for nutrients and to self-medicate.

This is the third principle of Fred Provenza’s observations of animal behaviour and feeding and it fits so nicely (from the biodiversity point of view), with lots of other things that we know are important for a healthy farm and landscape. Continue reading “FEED CHOICE AND ABILITY TO CHOOSE IS IMPORTANT FOR LIVESTOCK HEALTH” »

FLAVOUR FEEDBACK SYSTEMS IN ANIMALS

20 April 2015 / 0 comments

Animals receive feedback via their organs and organ systems – digestive system, lungs, heart, and so forth. The feedback comes from the forages they learn to eat that help them to become locally adapted and in tune with need. A palate in tune with the landscapes it inhabits.

This is the second principle identified by Fred Provenza and that I discussed with him and wrote of in an introduction to the topic of animal behaviour and feeding a few weeks back. In a diverse pasture or native plant diverse area, animals have access to a huge variety of phytochemicals in the grasses, trees, forbs and shrubs that they feed and browse on. The levels and type of primary compounds of energy, protein, minerals and vitamins and secondary compounds of alkaloids, polyphenols and terpenes will vary from one species to the next – while also varying depending on the age of the plant and the part of the plant. This creates a need for animals to be experienced about these feedtypes, as some of these compounds can be nutritious, while others can be toxic. The likelihood of toxicity will depend on many variables of the plant, like soil, age, season etc., as well as variables of the animal, such as age, experience with eating that plant and the combination of plants it has consumed with the toxin.^{1 Continue reading “FLAVOUR FEEDBACK SYSTEMS IN ANIMALS” »}

LOCAL ADAPTATION AND ANIMAL PERFORMANCE

14 April 2015 / 0 comments

Experiences in utero and in early life are important for animals to become locally adapted to their surrounding social and physical landscapes.

Drawing on Fred Provenza’s observations on how wild and domestic animals live and forage, our animals can make the best use of the pastures we have (whatever they be), if our animals are locally adapted to the area. For a breeding herd this is easier to achieve because the animals are not being brought in to unfamiliar territory and feedtypes. There should still however be some thought put into grazing management of pregnant mothers, as well as cows and calves with regard to differences of soil type and feed type across a farm. For those who are trading, backgrounding animals (from a different area) or who have animals on agistment from a different area, there may be impacts on performance if not locally adapted – depending on how different the environments are that they are being moved across. Continue reading “LOCAL ADAPTATION AND ANIMAL PERFORMANCE” »

NATURAL CAPITAL ACCOUNTING – coming our way!

30 March 2015 / 2 comments

It seems a little sad that we need to consider our farm assets of soil, water, plant life and nature in the context of traditional monetary terms (Natural Capital) in order for its true value to be recognised and for it to be treated appropriately. That it needs to be valued to this point for corporations, Governments and societies to treat it with the same level of importance as business products and inventory is troubling.

In the past, the effects of business on the surrounding ecosystems have been considered ‘externalities’ – “the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.”¹ If you take smoking, for example – the health costs (externalities) of smoking (which are currently absorbed by all of society in Australia, through our health systems and taxes), could be internalised and made a cost of each cigarette packet and payed for by the consumer of that product. This may have some impact on product choice.

As indicated above, externalities can also be positive, such as the bee keeper who produces honey, but who also pollinates the neighbouring crops. Continue reading “NATURAL CAPITAL ACCOUNTING – coming our way!” »

THE PRACTICALITIES OF COVER CROPPING – crop termination

7 March 2015 / 2 comments

Multi species cover cropping always raises quite a bit of interest when I talk about it, and the potential that it has for improving soils and resiliency in a cropping enterprise. It doesn’t matter how great the expected outcomes of a technique, if it isn’t practical to incorporate into current systems then the idea is likely to be discarded. So, I want to share with you some practicalities of cover cropping.
To begin, if you haven’t already done so, I suggest reading blogs The ‘New’ Cover Cropping and ‘Experiences from the U.S. – Cover Cropping’,which are about the many REALLY wonderful benefits of multispecies cover cropping and the experiences of a couple of pioneering Americans.

The two main things that may prevent the adoption and implementation of cover cropping are:

Ensuring the successful termination of the cover crop
Planting the cash crop into the bulk material of the cover crop.

This week I spoke with Jeff Moyer, who is the farm director at the Rodale Institute in the U.S. The Rodale Institute is a non-profit organisation committed to research in organic agriculture and to improving the health and well-being of people and the planet. Jeff was a speaker at the Acres USA conference that Derek and I attended in December last year.

What I love about Jeff is he is very practical. His interest in cover crops comes from the need to control weeds in an organic zero till production system, while avoiding the destructive constant tilling of the soil (the traditional way of controlling weeds for an organic farmer). Continue reading “THE PRACTICALITIES OF COVER CROPPING – crop termination” »

CONVERTING CROPPING COUNTRY TO PASTURE

19 February 2015 / 0 comments

As I mentioned last week, I have been asked by a subscriber that has visited our farm about how we transitioned country from full zero till cropping to perennial pasture. We have two alluvial self-mulching black soil paddocks that have had two quite different approaches, with different outcomes in the short and long term. Sharing these examples with you may offer some helpful learnings. The outcomes – after a few dry years are worlds apart right at the moment.

In 2008, Derek and I decided that we wanted our business to be solely grazing based. This decision was made after Holistic Management training and discussion about what we really wanted out of life (but that’s an aside in this article). I would like to share with you how we took two different paddocks from cropping to pasture, and the current outcomes of each.

When we chose to take land from cropping to pasture Derek and I considered the best way to go about it. We were aware of situations where farmers had left country and allowed natural succession of plants to occur in order to establish a pasture, while more often others choose introduced pasture mixes, planted at considerable expense. We did a bit of both. Continue reading “CONVERTING CROPPING COUNTRY TO PASTURE” »

SEQUESTERING CARBON IN THE FIELD WITH MELANISED FUNGI – will it work?

1 December 2014 / 0 comments

I wrote a few weeks back about the impressive initial outcomes of research undertaken with melanised endophytic fungi (MEF) by Sydney University. The trials resulted in soil carbon increases of up to 40% in the university pot trials. What we want to know however is if the findings will translate to the field and can such fungi strains be isolated and packaged to farmers for inoculation of our crops and pasture.

You may recall that researchers proposed a process by which the fungi place stable carbon into the soil – depositing carbon rich aromatic melanin compounds into the anaerobic interior of soil aggregates. The significance of this is that when placed there, the carbon is protected from loss by oxidation or from decay by microbial enzymes. So, it has potential for increasing ‘stable’ soil carbon in cropping systems.

Work at the university involved inoculating soils with subterranean clover in pot trials – the treatment with some strains of which resulted in significant increases in soil carbon. Guy Webb, agronomist at Forbes, picked up on this work and wanted to test this inoculation of broadleaf crops in the field, along with determining if there were any resulting increases in soil carbon over untreated plots. This is with the view that if ongoing field trials are supportive of MEF sequestering carbon, that there may be opportunity to develop a ‘farmer ready, soil carbon sequestration inoculum package capable of reliably, rapidly and significantly increasing soil organic carbon and reducing nitrous oxide emissions in cropping soils”.1 Continue reading “SEQUESTERING CARBON IN THE FIELD WITH MELANISED FUNGI – will it work?” »

PASTURE SEEDING THROUGH GRAZING

22 November 2014 / 0 comments

As regenerative farmers we are trying to increase our pasture quality and diversity for the benefit of animal performance and for the benefit of the land. Ensuring plant recovery between grazings and planning of our grazing helps to assure this, but we can also speed up the pasture productivity or diversity with no, or virtually no associated costs.

We can do this in a couple of different ways.

Existing pastures that have seeded

We know that livestock can spread weed seeds, but we can also use this to our advantage to move desirable seeds around. At times, opportunities arise where a grass or a desirable broadleaf is seeding and we can plan some strategic grazing to move this to an area that lacks that species.

Livestock can spread seed both on their coats – which works well with fluffy, fine grass seeds. It can also be spread through their manure. When seeds are spread in the manure, they are sitting in a nutrient rich environment – just perfect for the growth of the plant once it germinates. Strategic grazing of different paddocks can quite easily allow this to happen – improving pasture with no seed or planting costs. Continue reading “PASTURE SEEDING THROUGH GRAZING” »

TRACTOR EXHAUST EMISSIONS AS A SOIL PRIMER

20 September 2014 / 0 comments

If we can omit a negative from our farm businesses, then this is a good thing, but if we can turn that negative into a positive, then even better still! This has been the experience of growers who have taken tractor exhaust emissions are directed them into the soil.

Three negatives are eliminated:

The release of carbon into the atmosphere
The use of certain artificial fertilisers that can harm beneficial soil microbes, leach into waterways and aquifers and create mineral imbalance in the plant.
The use of fungicides as seed treatments – which can also harm beneficial fungi in the soil.

The exhaust emissions become a desirable thing – as they stimulate soil biology, fumigate planting seed and provide carbon and micronutrients to the soil. The emissions are not designed to be a plant fertiliser in themselves, but rather are there to prime the soil microbiology, so that THEY can make available the necessary nutrients for the crop or pasture. Continue reading “TRACTOR EXHAUST EMISSIONS AS A SOIL PRIMER” »

MAGNIFICENT MYCORRHIZAE

12 September 2014 / 0 comments

We found a mushroom in our black soil country this week, which was very exciting for us. This country has been in perennial pastures for 4 years now, but before this, had a history of years of chemical use and fallow periods. We think this is a pretty good indicator of the soil health improving as Derek has never seen one on this black soil farming country before… ever. My Dad talks of taking box trailers full of mushrooms to the Sydney markets, which he picked as a kid from the pastures in their paddocks at Yass, in southern NSW (Australia). Whilst there are still mushrooms about, they are not of this quantity that they once were and it got me thinking about fungi, which led me to mycorrhizal fungi.

It’s pretty clear that mycorrhizal fungi are a wonderful advantage to have in soils – you will even hear the benefits of it touted in conventional farming circles! Let’s examine it a little more though – because when we understand the potential benefits of something, is when we begin to value it enough to encourage it and work out how we can incorporate it into our farming systems.

Unlike mushrooms, mycorrhizal fungi exist in obligate symbiotic relationships with plant roots. What does this mean? This means that the mycorrhizae are entirely dependent on the plant roots for their survival – they cannot exist without the plant roots. They rely on the liquid carbon containing exudates from the roots of their host plants. You will no doubt be familiar with the appearance of fungi – with the strand like threads of hyphae that they produce. These hyphae grow into the tips of the roots and extend out into the surrounding soil – seeking nutrients like N, P, S, Zn and Boron, as well as moisture. It seeks and supplies these things for the plant in exchange for the carbon rich root exudates which it feeds on for energy. Continue reading “MAGNIFICENT MYCORRHIZAE” »

PLANTS HELPING PLANTS

15 August 2014 / 0 comments

Plants helping plants! This is interesting stuff. Competition between plants is well known and documented, but what if the opposite could also happen, that plants of different species could actually help other plants. There is nothing particularly new about this – it can be something as simple as a tree providing shelter from direct sunlight and heat, allowing a plant underneath to do better than it otherwise would. But it is more than just this.

First, understand that when species interact for the benefit of either one or both of the species, but not to the detriment of either, it is known as facilitation.

What is really interesting and more recently evident from studies however, is that during times of stress such as drought, facilitation can increase. “Positive interactions, such as those that promoted neighbours’ survival, strengthened in influence, and negative interactions, such as those that hindered neighbours’ growth, weakened.”¹

Continue reading “PLANTS HELPING PLANTS” »

ACCOUNTABILITY IS POWERFUL!

8 August 2014 / 1 comments

There’s so much to be said for getting our head in the right space with regard to running a profitable and regenerative farm business. Now I think you’re going to be open to this, because I have generally found that those of us who are brave enough to break away from ‘the norm’ of how things are done in the paddock, are also conscious enough to consider some self-development of the mind. We don’t just aim for our farms to be sustainable, but regenerative right? Well shouldn’t we aim for the same in other parts of our lives? Do you aim for your relationships with friends and spouses to be just sustainable? Of course not, we want them to be regenerative, and so it is true with our minds.

I have personally learnt how to be more accountable in our farm business and it is really empowering as well as helpful for the business. I used to think I was fairly accountable and not one to blame – and in the old way that I defined blame, I probably wasn’t; but I have since realised what it means to be fully accountable when things haven’t gone to plan.

When we fully accept accountability, it is empowering because it puts the ball in our court to be able to fix an issue. When we blame however, we are handing over the power to fix a problem to another person, which makes us feel somewhat helpless. Read this paragraph again.

In handing the power (and responsibility) of fixing a problem over to someone else, they may or may not do something about it – it is out of our control. This is not good enough for our businesses. Let’s face it, in our businesses we want to leave as few things to chance as possible, so being accountable will help us take charge in our businesses and ensure outcomes. Continue reading “ACCOUNTABILITY IS POWERFUL!” »

THE ‘NEW’ COVER CROPPING

11 July 2014 / 4 comments

There is SO much to offer from the huge and exciting variety of applications of this technique – it’s hard to know where to start! What I will be doing is start by focusing on the concepts of cover cropping and addressing the nitty gritty and real life experiences (which is what I love most) in coming blogs, rather than doing one big gloss over. This will keep the blogs to a readable length and will also allow your feedback and input, which we can build on as the later blogs come.

[Talking of feedback, I had some really great and helpful feedback from Cam at Uralla after last week’s blog on animal performance under planned grazing systems. More on Cam’s feedback and comments in the side bar(to the right) of the main page of this blog. Thanks HEAPS Cam. I'm sure that Cam's sharing with us will help give more of you in our Conscious Farmer community the confidence to share your experiences. You will realise that this is a ‘safe’ place in which you can share; either for the benefit of informing others or for seeking input from me and/or others].

Back to cover cropping! There are ALL SORTS of reasons to cover crop, which include incorporating grazing into the system. Certain farmers have worked with this technique and had some amazing success with it and I hope to take this and share it around other parts of the world.

Just imagine increasing your soil infiltration from ½” (25mm) per hour to 8”/hr (200mm)? This is an astonishing improvement achieved by North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown, whose experiences I will share with you next week! On our farm in recent years, we have experienced longer dry periods between which we have more intense and heavier rainfall events compared with the more even nature of our annual rainfall of last decade. I hear these observations echoed by North Americans with regard to their areas. (I am interested to know if the South Americans and Africans are experiencing similar). What this means however, is that CAPTURE and STORAGE of rainfall are now more critical than ever.

The amount of rainfall that we are able to INFILTRATE during these less frequent falls becomes paramount; more important than our actual yearly rainfall. Not only this, but how much we can then hold in the soil to stretch us through to the next rainfall event is equally as critical.

What is cover cropping?

Traditionally I would have thought of cover cropping as the planting of a legume or oats crop (often referred to as a green manure crop) in between cash crops, which is either worked in or sprayed out. Well, this is old school and playing small compared with the amazing things being done now.

Continue reading “THE ‘NEW’ COVER CROPPING” »