Isn't kale great

locky76

I planted 3 acres of kale last year and I've found it to be a great way of wintering lightish weanlings- it'll do 40 weanlings @ 250kgs each along with 1 kgs of meal and 40 bales of silage.
To plant it i did the following:
1- End May: I grazed it tightish, sprayed it off, cut it and grazed it clean
2- Start June: Disc harrow & power harrow by contractor, lime (1 bag/acre gran lime), fertilise (3 bags of 10:10:20/acre) & seed (I mixed the seed in through the fertiliser, worked well), rolled
3- August- Put in 40 bales of silage through it for fibre etc
4- Start September: Buffer fed cows & young calves for a fortnight, i had ran tight on grass due to the drought so i slowed the rotation down
5- Mid November: Wintered 18 weanlings and 5 in calf heifers on it for the winter, gave 1 kg of meal per head daily & iodine tablets in the water
6- April- Cleared out all the old silage, picked the stones, cleared all the bits of plastic, disc & power harrowed, broadcast fertiliser (3 bags 10:10:20 per acre) and seed (1.33 bags per acre) and rolled.
7- May: Post emergence spray
8- June: Graze tight with young stock

Points to improve on:
1- Better fencing- nothing worse than having a weanling chewing on the white tape like gum! :-)
2- Nothing else really, I love it, cattle are really thriving now...

I'm planting six acres this year as i am caught shed wise it will allow me to finish all cattle inside at my ease while wintering the cows and calves outside in one 3 acre amount and wintering 40 weanlings in the other three acre amount.
it also allows me to set up a proper reseeding programme.
Reseeded ground will amke up the shortfall of the six acres gone for a year...

Count Mondego

Impressive. How resilient is the crop to drought or a few nights of frost?

Sam Kade

Count Mondego wrote: »

Impressive. How resilient is the crop to drought or a few nights of frost?

Both are a diaster for the crop if you get extremes of both. The hard frost of 2010 wrecked crops of kale. The frost like last winter wouldn't do any harm.

smokey-fitz

How cost effective is it?

Cheaper than a shed obviously and your not poaching your grassland. But everything included what would it cost per acre?

Capercaillie

Could it be sown in Autumn?

locky76

smokey-fitz wrote: »

How cost effective is it?

Cheaper than a shed obviously and your not poaching your grassland. But everything included what would it cost per acre?

It cost me €1,000 to do the three acres, some value given that it will winter 40 x 250kgs weanlings... (along with 40 bales of silage and 4 tonne of meal)...
I couldn't justify building another slatted shed.
Granted last winter was fine as regards frost, the drought in August & September didn't affect it at all.
As a final sweetener we got about a dozen swedes out of it for dinner also, seeds must have been a bit mixed up :-)
The light cattle seem to suit it as they don't go to the axle in it, the land was only slightly churned up around the ring feeders, the rest was fine.

Sam Kade

Capercaillie wrote: »

Could it be sown in Autumn?

Early June the latest for kale you could sow rape up to august 20th.

frazzledhome

Wintered heifers and drys on it for a few yrs. Would rent a shed and buy silage before ever considering it. One great thing is the fantastic reseed after it. Lost 14 acres in 2010 frost.

It grows very tall and I drove a small tractor through it in order to put up fences. It did its job but not my cup of tea. 5 years was enough for me

Sam Kade

locky76 wrote: »

It cost me €1,000 to do the three acres, some value given that it will winter 40 x 250kgs weanlings... (along with 40 bales of silage and 4 tonne of meal)...
I couldn't justify building another slatted shed.
Granted last winter was fine as regards frost, the drought in August & September didn't affect it at all.
As a final sweetener we got about a dozen swedes out of it for dinner also, seeds must have been a bit mixed up :-)
The light cattle seem to suit it as they don't go to the axle in it, the land was only slightly churned up around the ring feeders, the rest was fine.

Yes drought will only affect it if it hasn't germinated.
.

blue5000

I use it here too. I think it's at it's best when you are lightly stocked, developing and reseeding a farm, and don't have buildings to house everything.

Be careful though that you don't become over reliant on it, especially as numbers/stocking rate increases. If you get a lot of frost in oct nov you're screwed basically. I worked out the variable costs of wintering a weanling on it at 27 cents/day. That doesn't include a land cost though. Minerals for dry cows could be tricky too, especially iodine.

Autumn is too late to sow it, rape or the rape-kale hybrid is better, but you won't get the real high yield off it.

Last year's little experiment was to put stripes of barley in with it. I was trying to see if I could get away without bigbale silage as a source of fibre, but the barley lodged and cattle didn't really eat it that well. Birds liked it though. Big bale arable silage worked well though, but the bales were a ton weight.

Sam Kade

blue5000 wrote: »

I use it here too. I think it's at it's best when you are lightly stocked, developing and reseeding a farm, and don't have buildings to house everything.

Be careful though that you don't become over reliant on it, especially as numbers/stocking rate increases. If you get a lot of frost in oct nov you're screwed basically. I worked out the variable costs of wintering a weanling on it at 27 cents/day. That doesn't include a land cost though. Minerals for dry cows could be tricky too, especially iodine.

Autumn is too late to sow it, rape or the rape-kale hybrid is better, but you won't get the real high yield off it.

Last year's little experiment was to put stripes of barley in with it. I was trying to see if I could get away without bigbale silage as a source of fibre, but the barley lodged and cattle didn't really eat it that well. Birds liked it though. Big bale arable silage worked well though, but the bales were a ton weight.

Rape will start growing again in February gives it an extra boost but it would want to be grazed by mid-late March before it goes to seed even though I grazed rape gone to seed without any illness in the cattle. My vet said that if they were grazing it all winter it would be safe enough for them.

keep going

Big fan as well but after 3 years in the same ground moving on to beet, dont know whether to go for jamon or stick with bolero

Birdnuts

How does it do on peaty ground??

smokey-fitz

locky76 wrote: »

It cost me €1,000 to do the three acres, some value given that it will winter 40 x 250kgs weanlings... (along with 40 bales of silage and 4 tonne of meal)...
I couldn't justify building another slatted shed.
Granted last winter was fine as regards frost, the drought in August & September didn't affect it at all.
As a final sweetener we got about a dozen swedes out of it for dinner also, seeds must have been a bit mixed up :-)
The light cattle seem to suit it as they don't go to the axle in it, the land was only slightly churned up around the ring feeders, the rest was fine.

Thanks. Sounds good, suppose it would be less winter work regarding bedding and animals would be healthier being out.

blue5000

Birdnuts wrote: »

How does it do on peaty ground??

Haven't tried it, but saw where rape(?) was about 3 inches high last christmas and it wasn't easy to walk it, on peat.

I reckon pH needs to be fairly high, 7 ish and all these crops love potash.

Mad4simmental

smokey-fitz wrote: »

Thanks. Sounds good, suppose it would be less winter work regarding bedding and animals would be healthier being out.

A good bit of work in it to. Dragging bales out to them, moveing strip wires every day hail/rain/snow getting meal out to sloppy troughs. I worked with it this year for a lad that had 80 heifers out on it.

If you have to get one sick one out your trying to get them out in scutter. This was a good winter. I can see the good points to it but I'd never have it. Fecken hardship

blue5000

You need to be well organised for it, put the bales out in lines in the kale the day they are made. You need a decent fencer. I don't feed meal to them, sure it's 20% protein.

Mad4simmental

Be very carefull feeding them it in frost. If you get a bad frost don't let them near it untill it's thawed out.

Birdnuts

blue5000 wrote: »

Haven't tried it, but saw where rape(?) was about 3 inches high last christmas and it wasn't easy to walk it, on peat.

I reckon pH needs to be fairly high, 7 ish and all these crops love potash.

Cheers - the site I'm thinking about is on a slope within 100m of the shoreline. Trafficablity is reasonable even in wet weather apart from areas bordering a narrow drainage ditch. I intend to fertilize and lime it with seaweed.

Capercaillie

Birdnuts wrote: »

Cheers - the site I'm thinking about is on a slope within 100m of the shoreline. Trafficablity is reasonable even in wet weather apart from areas bordering a narrow drainage ditch. I intend to fertilize and lime it with seaweed.

Fair play using the seaweed. It's pure hardship trying to draw it in.

Birdnuts

Capercaillie wrote: »

Fair play using the seaweed. It's pure hardship trying to draw it in.

Only running a small operation so the acerage is small enough. I've grown cabbages on this land before and they've performed reasonably well.

Capercaillie

Birdnuts wrote: »

Only running a small operation so the acerage is small enough. I've grown cabbages on this land before and they've performed reasonably well.

I have a foreshore licence to harvest seaweed. Pure hardship though.

micraX

Seems to be, or maybe its just a fad. Sales are up 100% though not really accurate when its on special in supermarkets it destorts findings as people buy it for the sake of it. I know one lad who cleared a ten acre field ina few days as there was a special on in lidl and aldi in one week.

leg wax

will be planting 7 acres with sweads or stubble turnips, for the dry milk cows.

jaymla627

leg wax wrote: »

will be planting 7 acres with sweads or stubble turnips, for the dry milk cows.

If you can walk milking cows to it, it's a great job for keeping Lacoste right in November/December when milking with minimal meal needed....

MFdaveIreland

interesting thread lad, quick question.

I am clearly wrong in thinking that you could plant it in july august after winter barley etc and have it for december/jan for a bit of grazing, didnt know you had to plant it in the middle of summer.

Ive never grown it but know of boys that grow it and out winter dairy heifers on it.
some growth of heifers, ive noticed they grow very tall on it, like race horses.