Two landmark publications came out this last week (7th May), the fist being an article published by NASA on their predictions for global rainfall patterns in the future.The report highlights the correlations between increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the level of rainfall across all regions of the planet.If you are farming, I thoroughly recommend that you look at this as it is going to determine what and where we grow food, in particular Brazil, Southern Africa, Northern Australia and all countries around the Mediterranean.
The article can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/may/HQ_13-119_Rainfall_Response.html
The second article of note this week was the report that Carbon Dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere had reached the symbolic figure of 400ppm, the last recorded time this level had been reached previously was 3-5 million years ago. Now on its own, this probably doesn't register to highly on the radar, however a week earlier there was another related article pointing to the fact the increasing CO2 was leading to a more acid Artic Ocean and changing the way ice and currents flow, indeed there are suggestions that polar low pressure systems are becoming more frequent as a result which in turn is causing the erratic flow of the jetstream which in turn is influencing the weather in the northern hemisphere.
This article can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22486153 whilst the article on polar lows is here: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/linking_weird_weather_to_rapid_warming_of_the_arctic/2501/
It seems that as farmers, we are going to be trying to produce food in ever changing and more erratic weather patterns as time goes on, which is going to make an event like 2012 more likely in future. In which case, we need to become better adapted to producing food in these scenarios, as the current financial risk vs reward ratio is unsustainable in its current guise of large corporates profiteering excessively in relation to the primary producers.
Showing posts with label soil erosion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soil erosion. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Saturday, 8 September 2012
Playing Russian Roulette
For a fortunate few, Harvest 2012 is drawing to a protracted and very difficult close, certainly this is a year that we aren't going to forget in a hurry!
It has been a revelation this year, a 'shake out' year as one of our breeders described it, as some serious issues that potentially threaten wheat breeding program's are starting to emerge with some very serious consequences for UK farming.
In the past some breeding program's have focused on genetic resistance to regular disease pressures, septoria tritici being the main one, with other traits being bolted on. Some other breeders have been focusing on all out yield, regardless of how genetically strong these varieties were, their consensus being that disease risk could be managed by chemistry tailored to curb disease outbreaks. Barn filling varieties with poor to average disease traits proliferated as farmers bought into the idea that chemistry could solve all disease problems. As with anything in nature, disease pressures and mutations give rise to new challenges. Single gene resistance to disease instead of dual, or multiple gene resistance is easier to breed into new varieties and allows quick turn around from lab to field. As a consequence we are now seeing multiple incidences of varieties succumbing to Yellow Rust and Brown Rust strains that are evolving, varieties that have only just been registered on the HGCA recommended lists, with the resultant increase in usage of full blown ag-chem programs to try and control these issues.
Throw into this mix one of the wettest growing seasons, especially from pre flowering all the way to harvest with low solar energy levels, high humidity and very damp soil conditions and you have a perfect storm scenario for a whole host of new diseases to make their presence felt too, especially Fusarium which has quite literally sucked all yield out of wheats this year, apart from those like Istabraq that has not suffered as much and is still producing a reasonable sample.
A common theme I am hearing on farm is a new level of questioning with regard to ag-chem inputs, how expensive this last season has been to get a crop that basically isn't near covering costs. It's is interesting to note how some of these chemistry suppliers have gone from small scale operations to giants in the industry in a very short period of time, considering how long the 'green revolution' in agriculture has been going on for. In a very short time span, farmers have seen their supply base of agricultural chemicals diminish considerably down to just a handful of players in the market, with the agronomy angle reduced even further and geared almost exclusively to structured spray programs. In a wet year like this last one, total reliance on sprays to control disease has been severely tested and the basic fundamentals of genetic resistance and a variety's ability to cope under stress have been fully on display. Some have coped and a lot have not.
Soil science, I would say is one of the most important factors governing yield, has been largely forgotten, farmers have devolved responsibility in many areas to their ag-chem supplier and crop walkers who supposedly are more knowledgeable in maximising yields and thus returns on their behalf. The knowledge gap on farm has been further diminished as a result of squeezed margins in the 'naughties' that lead to farmers farming more acres with less personnel and thus being more time restricted to chase knowledge in this regard. Universities and Agricultural Colleges too reduced the soil science input and concentrated more on the chemistry and machinery aspects of tillage, horsepower and technology as soil science generally was considered boring by most students. How many modern day farmers really understand and know what is going on in their soils?
A common theme I hear on farm is this; "why is it that with all your new fancy varieties you are breeding I am still only getting the yields we were getting 10 years ago"? Well, this time I heard an answer that came from a soil specialist company that has been growing a database on soils across the UK for the last 10 plus years and what he said was scary. The basis of it is this, pure arable farmers have been depleting the soil organic matter for so long with simple cereal and rape rotations that in some areas these levels are so low as to be irreplaceable, the soils have had all the life sucked out of them and as a result they physically are unable to provide the growing crops with the nutrients to attain their genetic potential.
It really has been noticeable in fields this year, those with good organic matter, good structure, good nutrient status have still delivered a reasonable yield and machinery has still been able to travel at critical times without leaving 3ft deep ruts. A farmer I know in Wiltshire has been chopping his straw for 10 years now, been applying copious amounts of compost and maintaining his lime and nutrient status with almost religious zeal. On very heavy clay over chalk, he has managed to keep going during harvest when his neighbours were getting stuck, his fields have a natural 'sponginess' to them as you walk them with very few areas of standing water in any of them, whilst neighbours have had 6" across whole fields of standing water for long periods of time. When you look where the combine has been traveling, there are no deep ruts, look over the hedge and it looks like a battlefield.
The genetic potential of some of the older wheat varieties like Einstein is well in excess of 25t/ha, we know from data attained in New Zealand these varieties are currently doing 18t/ha on farm in places consistently where the fertility of the soils has been maintained and the soils well managed in terms of rotation, organic manure levels, trace element replacement and most importantly, soil structure. These farmers have good rotations with break crops designed to replace organic matter and recharge the soil nutrient levels, instead of relying on stuff out of a bag. UK farmers in the main have not been doing this and yield increases have largely flatlined.
We need a radicle rethink in how we manage crop rotations, increase soil organic matter levels, improve soil structure and rejuvinate trace element levels. We need to sometimes stop and think; the soils we are farming are the product of millions of years in the making, yet with our modern cropping methods we are depleting their ability to produce the very food that our growing populations will need in the future.
How are the future generations of young farmers going to produce a decent crop that provides an economic return if the very medium needed to grow it is barren? Those who think GM will gallantly ride to the rescue are sadly going to be disappointed because the focus in GM at present is geared towards mainly chemistry, rather than soils.
The last 5 years have in the main been benign to cereal varieties, yes there has been pressure from disease, but the weaker ones were still able to deliver a credible yield with a lot of ag-chem help. This year we hit chamber six and it has blown a huge hole in many a bottom line Lets hope this year the HGCA clamps down on low disease threshold varieties whose presence on the list now is very questionable and we move away from 'spray and weigh' varieties.
It has been a revelation this year, a 'shake out' year as one of our breeders described it, as some serious issues that potentially threaten wheat breeding program's are starting to emerge with some very serious consequences for UK farming.
In the past some breeding program's have focused on genetic resistance to regular disease pressures, septoria tritici being the main one, with other traits being bolted on. Some other breeders have been focusing on all out yield, regardless of how genetically strong these varieties were, their consensus being that disease risk could be managed by chemistry tailored to curb disease outbreaks. Barn filling varieties with poor to average disease traits proliferated as farmers bought into the idea that chemistry could solve all disease problems. As with anything in nature, disease pressures and mutations give rise to new challenges. Single gene resistance to disease instead of dual, or multiple gene resistance is easier to breed into new varieties and allows quick turn around from lab to field. As a consequence we are now seeing multiple incidences of varieties succumbing to Yellow Rust and Brown Rust strains that are evolving, varieties that have only just been registered on the HGCA recommended lists, with the resultant increase in usage of full blown ag-chem programs to try and control these issues.
Throw into this mix one of the wettest growing seasons, especially from pre flowering all the way to harvest with low solar energy levels, high humidity and very damp soil conditions and you have a perfect storm scenario for a whole host of new diseases to make their presence felt too, especially Fusarium which has quite literally sucked all yield out of wheats this year, apart from those like Istabraq that has not suffered as much and is still producing a reasonable sample.
A common theme I am hearing on farm is a new level of questioning with regard to ag-chem inputs, how expensive this last season has been to get a crop that basically isn't near covering costs. It's is interesting to note how some of these chemistry suppliers have gone from small scale operations to giants in the industry in a very short period of time, considering how long the 'green revolution' in agriculture has been going on for. In a very short time span, farmers have seen their supply base of agricultural chemicals diminish considerably down to just a handful of players in the market, with the agronomy angle reduced even further and geared almost exclusively to structured spray programs. In a wet year like this last one, total reliance on sprays to control disease has been severely tested and the basic fundamentals of genetic resistance and a variety's ability to cope under stress have been fully on display. Some have coped and a lot have not.
Soil science, I would say is one of the most important factors governing yield, has been largely forgotten, farmers have devolved responsibility in many areas to their ag-chem supplier and crop walkers who supposedly are more knowledgeable in maximising yields and thus returns on their behalf. The knowledge gap on farm has been further diminished as a result of squeezed margins in the 'naughties' that lead to farmers farming more acres with less personnel and thus being more time restricted to chase knowledge in this regard. Universities and Agricultural Colleges too reduced the soil science input and concentrated more on the chemistry and machinery aspects of tillage, horsepower and technology as soil science generally was considered boring by most students. How many modern day farmers really understand and know what is going on in their soils?
A common theme I hear on farm is this; "why is it that with all your new fancy varieties you are breeding I am still only getting the yields we were getting 10 years ago"? Well, this time I heard an answer that came from a soil specialist company that has been growing a database on soils across the UK for the last 10 plus years and what he said was scary. The basis of it is this, pure arable farmers have been depleting the soil organic matter for so long with simple cereal and rape rotations that in some areas these levels are so low as to be irreplaceable, the soils have had all the life sucked out of them and as a result they physically are unable to provide the growing crops with the nutrients to attain their genetic potential.
It really has been noticeable in fields this year, those with good organic matter, good structure, good nutrient status have still delivered a reasonable yield and machinery has still been able to travel at critical times without leaving 3ft deep ruts. A farmer I know in Wiltshire has been chopping his straw for 10 years now, been applying copious amounts of compost and maintaining his lime and nutrient status with almost religious zeal. On very heavy clay over chalk, he has managed to keep going during harvest when his neighbours were getting stuck, his fields have a natural 'sponginess' to them as you walk them with very few areas of standing water in any of them, whilst neighbours have had 6" across whole fields of standing water for long periods of time. When you look where the combine has been traveling, there are no deep ruts, look over the hedge and it looks like a battlefield.
The genetic potential of some of the older wheat varieties like Einstein is well in excess of 25t/ha, we know from data attained in New Zealand these varieties are currently doing 18t/ha on farm in places consistently where the fertility of the soils has been maintained and the soils well managed in terms of rotation, organic manure levels, trace element replacement and most importantly, soil structure. These farmers have good rotations with break crops designed to replace organic matter and recharge the soil nutrient levels, instead of relying on stuff out of a bag. UK farmers in the main have not been doing this and yield increases have largely flatlined.
We need a radicle rethink in how we manage crop rotations, increase soil organic matter levels, improve soil structure and rejuvinate trace element levels. We need to sometimes stop and think; the soils we are farming are the product of millions of years in the making, yet with our modern cropping methods we are depleting their ability to produce the very food that our growing populations will need in the future.
How are the future generations of young farmers going to produce a decent crop that provides an economic return if the very medium needed to grow it is barren? Those who think GM will gallantly ride to the rescue are sadly going to be disappointed because the focus in GM at present is geared towards mainly chemistry, rather than soils.
The last 5 years have in the main been benign to cereal varieties, yes there has been pressure from disease, but the weaker ones were still able to deliver a credible yield with a lot of ag-chem help. This year we hit chamber six and it has blown a huge hole in many a bottom line Lets hope this year the HGCA clamps down on low disease threshold varieties whose presence on the list now is very questionable and we move away from 'spray and weigh' varieties.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Your soil, millions of years in the making.
The new seasons crops are in the ground, or in the process of going in, some of it has been drilled in haste after a long protracted period of wet drizzly conditions resulting from a drawn out harvest. Although the conditions weren't as bad as in 2007, never the less, soil conditions weren't great with quiete a lot of compaction issues resulting from heavy machinery trying to get the crops off before they went flat. Now this is probably not the case in most counties east of the M5 where a lack of moisture is more of a problem and having enough moisture to get the new crop to germinate is the pressing issue.
When I was farming in Zimbabwe, moisture retention, deficit irrigation, minimum tillage, trash incorporation, controlled traffic, were all tools we used to boost the water holding capacity of our soils, along with a very active soil testing regime to monitor lime, organic matter, and P&K's. The Agricultural Research Trust Farm (ART Farm as it was known) sponsored by the Commercial Farmers Union and other producer groups, was way ahead of it's time in carrying out research and testing techniques to boost grain production in a way that boosted the bottom line on the balance sheet, rather than pure out and out yield. The attention to detail was scary, something we struggled to get our heads around at the time as we saw it as a huge burdensome amount of paperwork and record keeping. However, they could tell you to the nearest cent how much a field of maize, soya, grass, etc, had cost to grow, how much it had produced and what the margins were over a wide range of parameters. This wasn't a small little research unit either of 50 acres either, but a commercial unit. There was focus, right from the very top, all the way down to tractor driver level on getting the basics right.
The soils we farm with here in UK aren't wildly different to some of those I farmed in Zim, some of the red clay loams around Crediton, or parts of Shropshire are similar to the best soils we had, however most of our soils would be classified as green sands, or vlei sands as we called them, grade 4 and 5 stuff. Easily compacted, very little organic matter, easily capped and really easily eroded in heavy rain. We had contour drains on all arable ground with a gradient steeper than 1 in 50 just to control erosion, as well as manage moisture retention. In the USA and Canada, they call this strip farming and can be seen clearly in the photo below.
Photo by Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
So why do we not see the same level of care of soils here in the UK as in other parts of the world?
Photo by Rodney Burton, Wigborough, Somerset.
Land near Launceston
The maize harvest is going great guns now, some of it is fit and some not quite ready. Soils vary in the amount of moisture in them, but with the cooler weather, there is less evaporation and drying out taking place, so even small showers are keeping some areas saturated and making traveling conditions difficult with harvesting machinery resulting in deep ruts and compaction areas being created. So all the sponginess will have disappeared in these areas, less air in the soil, less absorbtion capacity, poorer rooting potential for the following wheat crops where going in, as running a ripper tine through wet soil has little benefit and will lead to greater soil slumping in the spring. A deep hard frost would do more to restore some structure than a tine. Most farmers will be ploughing these spots in the hope that this will help, however in my experience this just results in the compacted blocks being inverted with little restoration of structure and doesn't solve the issue of the deeper compaction problems. Really, these can only be tackled after harvest next year, you just have to live with the consequences of this late maize harvest and possibly look at better, lighter, south facing, sheltered fields for next year.
Maize under plastic has done well for a few people in the past, it does enable you to harvest 2-3 weeks earlier than normally, although it is questionable having seen data that you get a heavier crop with more starch than conventional maize. If you are reliant on using this type a system to grow maize, you really do need to look closely at this picture taken last year in March in Devon showing the amount of plastic still littering the field. This plastic is NOT biodegradable, it is PHOTO degradable, meaning it needs sunlight (ultraviolet light) to help it degrade, rather like clear PVC pannels in rooves that break down over time and become brittle. It does not however completely disappear, all that happens is that these 'squares' of little bits of plastic disintergrate into ever smaller pieces down to microscopic level, but they never fully decompose. We have this very same situation on coast line beaches which are becoming ever more contaminated with plastic. The issue is this, your soil is your lifeblood if you are a farmer, allowing it to become contaminated in a relatively short time period of one generation, compared to the millions of years it has taken to form, is folly. What will happen in 10 years time when these microscopic particles start to filter through into water courses and the water table. Already the Environment Agency are stepping up their surveilence teams and monitoring closely waters in catchment sensitive areas, for runnoff and siltation, we know water companies are looking at phosphate levels, not just nitrogen polution and metaldehydes. There are better forms of plastic out there that are properly BIOdegradable, that break down completely, the best being that made from maize starch which has a fertilising effect as it does so, but which was discontinued some years ago as the cheaper photodegradable stuff was promoted. The better stuff costs more, as you would expect, the question you need to ask is what is the long term viability of your farm soils if you are totally reliant on short term solutions?
And since we are talking about lifeblood, how many farmers are soil testing regularly, accurately and correcting the issues as they arise in a timely manner? Below is an example of the type of pH soil testing I do, the importance of this method was drummed into me by R&T Agricultural Liming, long before the likes of other companies that went on to develope an electronic method using computer software to predict and interpret soil tests and plot them in multicoloured maps.
Finding and correcting areas of low pH is vital in getting the best out of inputs and maximising yields through efficient use of inputs, especially fertilser and sprays. It is amazing how much soils vary within fields, especially in areas where soils are traditionally expected to be alkaline, like over Cotswold brash type soils, or clay caps over chalk downland, or where light shillit types run into heavy Dunsland/ Lyas blue type clay. Correcting the areas where there are deficiencies, not just blanket coverage is obviously cost effective and lessons the risks of over liming and locking up major and minor trace elements.
The result of not having a regular lime testing and spreading program results in test results like this above. When you start getting results like this in the very low 5's, it takes a very large amount of liming material to correct the deficit and cannot all be aplied at once either, but needs to be spread out over a couple of crops. It's is also important to remember the pH scale is a logorithic scale, meaning it is exponential in the amount of corrective material needed to address the problem.
Too much lime can also be an issue, something I see particularly on dairy units that are using seasand as bedding in cubicles, which then gets pumped out in the slurry onto the fields usually closest to the unit. I am seeing pH's in the very high 7's and low 8's in parts of Cornwall with trace element lock up really becoming an issue. I have had a number of farmers saying that their pH's are good, yet their grass is analysing low in calcium when they do tissue analysis. Having tested and found these pH's up near 8, gypsum then becomes about the only way of boosting Calcium availability without raising the pH. A lot of work has been done on this not only here in the UK, but all around the world, however I have yet to come across an agronomist with any major company that knows anything about it, the only one I have come across is Jo Scammel who does a lot with Dairy farmers in Gloucestershire and who runs the soil clinics at the dairy event.
With the push for bigger dairy units, one has to ask what the long term consequences of very high concentrated levels of slurry will be on the micro organisms in the soil profile on these units. For sure, every arable farmer in the east would probably gladly want a dairy farmer next door where he can rotate, or share field rotations with so he gets organic manure back into his soils. In the last three years I have managed to demonstrate to a number of cereal growers just how important chicken muck is and how putting back organic matter into the soils where continuous wheat is being grown is vital in maintaining yield and grain quality. On one unit in particular we have taken average yield from 2.6t/ac in years 2006-2009 to over 3.7t/ac this year. It has been interesting to physically see how the soil structure has changed, it is far more friable, works easier, doesn't cap so easily straight after heavy rain, nor does it slump as much during the winter. With the addition of using Nickerson original seed too, there are no big bare patches where there is nothing growing like there used to be in the past as the wet areas don't compact and slump like they used too and the film coated seeds allows faster, bigger root systems to develope quickly to take advantage of the nutrients on tap making winter kill less of an issue, even though last year was one of the coldest in a very long time.
However we have a few cases now developing of the opposite starting to occurr, very large dairy units with very high stocking rates/ac (3+ cows/ac) as the animals are housed most of the year round. That means there is a lot of slurry to spread on quite a tight area of ground, with the result that the ground is being drowned in slurry, literally. Lots of dead worms littering the top soil, large bare patches developing in between grass plants where they have been suffocated by slurry, sward quality and grass yields falling as a result. Sward lifters, slitters and slotters can only do so much in the short term to alleviate these issues, the longer term damage is the more worrying problem that is being stored up for the following generations.
We need to start looking at farming in a much more holistic manner, indeed Allan Savoury who conducted trials in grazing and land management first in the Karoo many years ago in South Africa and subsequently has started a foundation in the USA following extensive work in Texas and other ranching states has laid out some key principles in this area. I would recommend farmers read some of his work, or look at this website http://www.holisticmanagement.org/ especially those in drier parts.
We are all players in the food chain, whether consumers, or producers. We need to ensure that we look after our primary resource, the soils we grow our food off.
If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.
When I was farming in Zimbabwe, moisture retention, deficit irrigation, minimum tillage, trash incorporation, controlled traffic, were all tools we used to boost the water holding capacity of our soils, along with a very active soil testing regime to monitor lime, organic matter, and P&K's. The Agricultural Research Trust Farm (ART Farm as it was known) sponsored by the Commercial Farmers Union and other producer groups, was way ahead of it's time in carrying out research and testing techniques to boost grain production in a way that boosted the bottom line on the balance sheet, rather than pure out and out yield. The attention to detail was scary, something we struggled to get our heads around at the time as we saw it as a huge burdensome amount of paperwork and record keeping. However, they could tell you to the nearest cent how much a field of maize, soya, grass, etc, had cost to grow, how much it had produced and what the margins were over a wide range of parameters. This wasn't a small little research unit either of 50 acres either, but a commercial unit. There was focus, right from the very top, all the way down to tractor driver level on getting the basics right.
The soils we farm with here in UK aren't wildly different to some of those I farmed in Zim, some of the red clay loams around Crediton, or parts of Shropshire are similar to the best soils we had, however most of our soils would be classified as green sands, or vlei sands as we called them, grade 4 and 5 stuff. Easily compacted, very little organic matter, easily capped and really easily eroded in heavy rain. We had contour drains on all arable ground with a gradient steeper than 1 in 50 just to control erosion, as well as manage moisture retention. In the USA and Canada, they call this strip farming and can be seen clearly in the photo below.
Photo by Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
So why do we not see the same level of care of soils here in the UK as in other parts of the world?
Photo by Rodney Burton, Wigborough, Somerset.
Land near Launceston
The maize harvest is going great guns now, some of it is fit and some not quite ready. Soils vary in the amount of moisture in them, but with the cooler weather, there is less evaporation and drying out taking place, so even small showers are keeping some areas saturated and making traveling conditions difficult with harvesting machinery resulting in deep ruts and compaction areas being created. So all the sponginess will have disappeared in these areas, less air in the soil, less absorbtion capacity, poorer rooting potential for the following wheat crops where going in, as running a ripper tine through wet soil has little benefit and will lead to greater soil slumping in the spring. A deep hard frost would do more to restore some structure than a tine. Most farmers will be ploughing these spots in the hope that this will help, however in my experience this just results in the compacted blocks being inverted with little restoration of structure and doesn't solve the issue of the deeper compaction problems. Really, these can only be tackled after harvest next year, you just have to live with the consequences of this late maize harvest and possibly look at better, lighter, south facing, sheltered fields for next year.
And since we are talking about lifeblood, how many farmers are soil testing regularly, accurately and correcting the issues as they arise in a timely manner? Below is an example of the type of pH soil testing I do, the importance of this method was drummed into me by R&T Agricultural Liming, long before the likes of other companies that went on to develope an electronic method using computer software to predict and interpret soil tests and plot them in multicoloured maps.
 |
| Spring Barley near Bodmin struggling on a pH of 5.6 in 2009 |
With the push for bigger dairy units, one has to ask what the long term consequences of very high concentrated levels of slurry will be on the micro organisms in the soil profile on these units. For sure, every arable farmer in the east would probably gladly want a dairy farmer next door where he can rotate, or share field rotations with so he gets organic manure back into his soils. In the last three years I have managed to demonstrate to a number of cereal growers just how important chicken muck is and how putting back organic matter into the soils where continuous wheat is being grown is vital in maintaining yield and grain quality. On one unit in particular we have taken average yield from 2.6t/ac in years 2006-2009 to over 3.7t/ac this year. It has been interesting to physically see how the soil structure has changed, it is far more friable, works easier, doesn't cap so easily straight after heavy rain, nor does it slump as much during the winter. With the addition of using Nickerson original seed too, there are no big bare patches where there is nothing growing like there used to be in the past as the wet areas don't compact and slump like they used too and the film coated seeds allows faster, bigger root systems to develope quickly to take advantage of the nutrients on tap making winter kill less of an issue, even though last year was one of the coldest in a very long time.
However we have a few cases now developing of the opposite starting to occurr, very large dairy units with very high stocking rates/ac (3+ cows/ac) as the animals are housed most of the year round. That means there is a lot of slurry to spread on quite a tight area of ground, with the result that the ground is being drowned in slurry, literally. Lots of dead worms littering the top soil, large bare patches developing in between grass plants where they have been suffocated by slurry, sward quality and grass yields falling as a result. Sward lifters, slitters and slotters can only do so much in the short term to alleviate these issues, the longer term damage is the more worrying problem that is being stored up for the following generations.
We need to start looking at farming in a much more holistic manner, indeed Allan Savoury who conducted trials in grazing and land management first in the Karoo many years ago in South Africa and subsequently has started a foundation in the USA following extensive work in Texas and other ranching states has laid out some key principles in this area. I would recommend farmers read some of his work, or look at this website http://www.holisticmanagement.org/ especially those in drier parts.
We are all players in the food chain, whether consumers, or producers. We need to ensure that we look after our primary resource, the soils we grow our food off.
If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.
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