Putting down fall N

[grassfarmer]

While my neighbours are working long hours putting down Anhydrous i'm getting the last of my bales moved so the cows can come in and convert this hairy vetch to feed the soil. $20 for seed, sown under oats that we made greenfeed from. Isn't it great what nature can do?
#FixingNnaturally

This morning


Couple of weeks ago

[Daylate]

Planted an alfalfa/hay/vetch mix 9 years ago on some marginal ground. That milk vetch is amazing stuff. Really grows well and cattle love it. Also good for controlling bloat.
Also putting in big hours putting on nh3. Hope that's ok.😉

[fjlip]

Good for you, MB sounds way drier/better drained. Total saturated soil with water standing...bad news for applied N.

[Braveheart]

Looks like the beginning of an excellent mineral cycle. Great looking sward for first year pasture. Really good opportunity to get some good litter down. The dry years will come. You'll be ready.

[grassfarmer]

Daylate, I love the cicer milk vetch - too bad you can't get inoculant for it or we'd have seeded lots of it here.

Braveheart, It's great for feeding the soil but too high N, low C to make good litter. I find that kind of stuff just disappears when it breaks down. The C4 plants make the most stable litter in my opinion. This year has been an absolute biological gift for us in terms of laying down litter, got more production than we could have hoped for plus were able to leave substantial litter behind wherever we grazed.
You are right - getting prepared for drier years.

Some orchard grass/alfalfa we grazed last month (2nd graze of the year)


And the litter left behind.



A millet/oat combo we are on just now.



And its residue.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Grassfarmer, may I be so bold as to make a few assumptions about your position?

1) You own the land you are working on improving?
2) You are young, and intend to stick with this for a long time?
3) You have kids who want to farm?
4)You didn't spend all of the windfall profits of the past few years of good cattle prices on new tractors and machinery?


Am I close?

Those pics are nothing short of beautiful. And we all should be aiming for that. What you are doing will pay huge dividends. But how does the average producer get himself into a financial position where he can afford to have enough land, producing enough to leave that much behind? My fellow cattle producers have been struggling for so many years that concepts such as sustainability, or even what happens a couple years from now, just can't get the attention or capital they deserve. Short term rental pasture is not going to be a viable place to do it. Purchased land at 400,000 to a million a quarter around here doesn't pencil well to not harvest every last scrap every year in the short term. How do you get to that position?

It is a reinforcing feedback loop either way, one for increased productivity, one for decreased, but once your on the decreasing path, it would be harder and harder to move to the other.

In your climate, could you be growing a full season grain crop and still have that kind of growth for fall pasture?

[malleefarmer]

Thats a nice comment AlbertaFarmer5 a genuine compliment reckon grassy will take it the right way.

PS we grow a lot of vetch here for stock feed grazing,hay and a straight nitrogen boost and spray it off at peak n just after flowering.

Rasina Morava Volga Blanchefleur Cummins Timok are the common types grown.

http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/237910/vetch.pdf

[Braveheart]

ABFarmer5, not answering for Grasfarmer, but for us it is about the goals you have. Improving the land wa foremost as without healthy land there is not much farming. You said "cattle producer" but we produce forage, are grassfarmers, the cattle are there to harvest the grass and are fantastic as really they take sunlight and turn it into protein (rain or shine).

We would never graze every scrap. There are farmers here that do that; grasshoppers have to pack a lunch to cross their pastures. Their carrying capacity is low (on cattle/high on gophers) they have brittle pastures that can't withstand any dry weather.

The next frontier for us is harvesting grain crops and using cover crops after for extended grazing. We hope to keep the land covered, increase organic matter, and further our native and tame pastures by allowing more rest while the cover crops are being used.

As to how to start, because everyone's situation is different, there is no pat answer or template to follow. Individual goals, land costs, family dynamics, etc are so different it's really up to the operator to make the plan that works for them.

[blackpowder]

I can see the future of the beef industry in western canada looking like those pics.
Easy to get a regionally local consumer on board at cost plus.

[grassfarmer]

AF5, thanks for the interest. Not as young as I wish I was unfortunately - wish I was your age with the knowledge I have now. I was brought up with the saying "farm as if you will live forever and live as if you will die tomorrow" - I'm better at the first part than the second.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - whether you can afford to leave that much litter behind - I reckon you can't afford NOT to. Using these methods we can easily double the productivity of our land at little cost. If you DON'T you are on the road to perpetually diminishing returns as you say - feeding cows for longer winters, getting less performance off your cattle on grass. I don't know how anyone can afford that scenario.

It's a mistake to think you would need 500 more acres or an extra winter's feed to "buy into" this system. If you start with a bare pasture quarter that usually pastures x# cows for 4 months under permanent grazing and you simply cross fence it into 4, give them a month on each you would be making progress. 8 blocks would be better and all you need to do this is a temporary back and front fence as long as your water source would work.

We did this type of grazing management in AB on rented land all the time. Pay them on a per head/per day basis and after some initial scepticism most were happy to see their rental return growing every year. Some never got it - the "wasted" grass left behind despite the fact their cheques were getting bigger.

You are not going to pay for $400,000 to $1,000,000 quarters from agricultural profitability in the short term under most systems. But you do have an appreciating asset so must it be "paid off" in x years to be viable?

Not sure on the "double cropping" we harvested the greenfeed last week of July to get this much vetch regrowth. We harvested 8tons of sweet clover silage mid-June then seeded the millet/oats after it. Worked this year because we had the moisture. I don't expect it would work in a drier year. Quite a bit of risk and cost if you have to seed a second crop to get a partial growing season - not so bad if you get two crops from one seeding operation. Certainly a longer growing season down here than where you are (or we were - see the old place recorded a typical 83 day frost free season this year!)

Braveheart posted some good comments, we do have a lot in common it seems.

AF5 I'd encourage you to take a Holistic Management course - you are asking the right questions and I think the solutions you'd get from the HM way of thinking would help you.