Organic works

[WiltonRanch]

My thoughts for an organic or a lower input system to dollar out you need livestock to cycle the covers faster and add revenue. Not practical for most but doable for some.

[WiltonRanch]

Wilton Ranch, you can build OM a lot quicker than realised until recently. Take a look at these results from SE Saskatchewan under intensive cattle grazing. Source website: soilcarboncoalition.org

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Interest is waning in the crop cocktail deal in the circles I move in as it becomes apparent the pushers are just another group of input pimps trying to get rich selling overpriced seed. When seed gets to be $60 it's more than seeding down a perennial legume based stand.

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Building organic matter on our place on a pasture that had previously been grazed like a golf course, likely for multiple decades. Sweetclover seeded for less than $10/acre.

Agree. Grazing a cover works. Haying depletes.

[hobbyfrmr]

[QUOTE=Partners;353681]It gets worse the longer it goes..1st yr organic was the best this guy had.
Cultivation only makes the thistles angry.[/QUOTE

Its just not worth the risk.
Imagine what the neighbors will say.

[hobbyfrmr]

There is a drought happening. Canola will reach $14.00/bushel and wheat will reach $9.00/bu. In 100 days this thread will be long forgotten.
Stay the course. This whole thread sounds like pre harvest jitters.
Pay your bills, leverage another quarter so you can pre buy the best canola genetics,the proper amount of groceries ( plenty of phosphorous mines in the USA, buy direct) and herbicide family on your canola next year. At the very least, invest in a new sprayer with the strobe lights so you can see the pattern. If you do well, buy out that organic fool down the road.
Organic is for small farmers who like to do summerfallow and just get by with their old equipment. They think somehow the are still contributing to society.

[farmaholic]

Patures have been badly abused in these parts. Obviously rain would help immensely but even with it I still think they are poorly managed, over the long-term. Seems some people can't get their head around excess grass.

[grassfarmer]

Wilton Ranch, you can build OM a lot quicker than realised until recently. Take a look at these results from SE Saskatchewan under intensive cattle grazing. Source website: soilcarboncoalition.org



Interest is waning in the crop cocktail deal in the circles I move in as it becomes apparent the pushers are just another group of input pimps trying to get rich selling overpriced seed. When seed gets to be $60 it's more than seeding down a perennial legume based stand.



Building organic matter on our place on a pasture that had previously been grazed like a golf course, likely for multiple decades. Sweetclover seeded for less than $10/acre.

[WiltonRanch]

Good husbandry is paramount conventional or organic. You can't replace p k or s from thin air. Organic matter is a nitrogen bank account and if you depleat it you won't get it back in your lifetime. I am interested in organic green manures to build om and choke weeds. I see a lot of push from the seed cos to market all these wonder cocktails to fix your soils. Guys around here are playing with them and they look promising. What worries me is guys are being led to believe they can plant these with no fert and either graze or harvest the forage off and presto the soil needs no fert the following year to grow a crop. Grazing wouldn't be a problem but removing forage is depleting the nutrients and om instead of building it.

[farmaholic]

Also want to add Mallee was out in the field with me... He could give you a 3rd party assessment of what it looks like so far.

An assessment through beer googles doesn't count Klause. {;-)

[grassfarmer]

Awesome Klause, good luck with the direction you are going. Do you intend to introduce livestock at some point as that's a cog in the wheel of soil health too?

[Klause]

I'd like to put the wheat in the bin before commenting too much to get a feel for quality yield etc.


I'm all for genetic engineering. Imagine if we could make all crops aleoleic like rye and clover... It would completely end the need for herbicides in crop.

Or the ability to fix N for all crops. The end of synthetic nitrogen...


Probably will never happen or if it does a chem company will buy the tech and bury it... Like the organic weed killer developed at the U of S a few years ago.

Also want to add Mallee was out in the field with me... He could give you a 3rd party assessment of what it looks like so far.