Can Cows save the planet?

Farmer Ed

Not something that might be talked much about in mainstream agriculture. But definitely something that deserves a closer look at. What do you think?

http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/cows-save-the-planet/

patsy_mccabe

Along the same lines. Controlled grazing in Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

Farmer Ed

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Along the same lines. Controlled grazing in Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

Fascinating stuff. From an Irish point of view, surely this could be a very good news story for us? Why are Irish researchers not tripping over each other to get up to date with this? I've seen cows wearing things that look like space suits measuring their emissions but how much work is going into trying to figure out how much carbon is being sucked back into the ground by our grassland? The possible positive implications for irish agriculture could be hudge. Could it be possible we might even see the day that we may even be paid carbon credits for managing grassland in a particular way?

blue5000

Lads methane is supposed to be approx. 20 times worse for global warming than CO2. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a carbon credit for cows at grass, ffs they won't even give us credits for forestry.

However I see in UK they are trying to call milk that was produced from cows at grass 'free range' milk:rolleyes:

kowtow

blue5000 wrote: »

However I see in UK they are trying to call milk that was produced from cows at grass 'free range' milk:rolleyes:

Quite a successful campaign that, by the looks of it, although a little opportunist I think... very strict criteria about grazing though, I don't think intensive rotational grazing qualifies which implies that a lot of Irish milk wouldn't either!!

Farmer Ed

blue5000 wrote: »

Lads methane is supposed to be approx. 20 times worse for global warming than CO2. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a carbon credit for cows at grass, ffs they won't even give us credits for forestry.

However I see in UK they are trying to call milk that was produced from cows at grass 'free range' milk:rolleyes:

I saw a Ted talk that claims that if we can increase the carbon content of the soil by just 1% that is the equivalent of 50 tons of carbon per hectare. Apparently we are releasing somewhere in the region of 25 billion tons of carbon in to the atmosphere every year globally. So if there is 5 billion hectares of agricultural land in the world and average increase of 1% in soil carbon that is the equivalent of removing 250 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. Already we are being paid for greening in the BFP. I think there may be a growing school of thought in this direction.

Here is another one along the same lines https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/1538446e2f655ba5?projector=1

blue5000

I'm not dismissing it, I agree soil is a great sink for carbon, but cows may not be the best way to put it in there.

yosemitesam1

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Fascinating stuff. From an Irish point of view, surely this could be a very good news story for us? Why are Irish researchers not tripping over each other to get up to date with this? I've seen cows wearing things that look like space suits measuring their emissions but how much work is going into trying to figure out how much carbon is being sucked back into the ground by our grassland? The possible positive implications for irish agriculture could be hudge. Could it be possible we might even see the day that we may even be paid carbon credits for managing grassland in a particular way?

The margin for error over eu grasslands as a whole is bigger than the potential amount of carbon sequestered, english soils have shown a loss of carbon irrespective of land use over the last 40 years and we're probably similar enough under the current high input system. There has been a few trials measuring amount of co2 in and out of the surface but they ignored co2 washed out through soil, the only irish one I've seen numbers for showed a net loss of carbon. But I do believe in the allan savory system as key to the future, there was huge soil erosion in most of the worlds great grasslands in the last 200 years that would probably add up to more carbon lost than oil and coal burning

TheQuietFella

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Not something that might be talked much about in mainstream agriculture. But definitely something that deserves a closer look at. What do you think?

http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/cows-save-the-planet/

The planet doesn't need saving! Its been here for billions of years in all shape and form, its taken all that Mother Nature has thrown at it, literally and she still
revolves around our Sun. She looks after herself!

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

The margin for error over eu grasslands as a whole is bigger than the potential amount of carbon sequestered, english soils have shown a loss of carbon irrespective of land use over the last 40 years and we're probably similar enough under the current high input system. There has been a few trials measuring amount of co2 in and out of the surface but they ignored co2 washed out through soil, the only irish one I've seen numbers for showed a net loss of carbon. But I do believe in the allan savory system as key to the future, there was huge soil erosion in most of the worlds great grasslands in the last 200 years that would probably add up to more carbon lost than oil and coal burning

Spot on. But why not more research? Apparently the way we manage the grassland is having a much bigger effect than the cows. But Livestock are key to grassland and from that point of view we should surely be looking at this as an opportunity? The only negative is we would need to reduce the amount of nitrogen we spread. Its looking like that could be a bigger limiting factor rather than just simply saying cows are the main culprits. Ok I get they are all interrelated, but certainly something deserving of some real proper research,

blue5000

I think I read somewhere that higher N rates actually increase CS because there is more small animal activity which actually draw the carbon deeper into the soil. Haven't explained it too well, but N is converted to protein. Put it this way, there aren't too many earthworms in a bog.

Farmer Ed

blue5000 wrote: »

I think I read somewhere that higher N rates actually increase CS because there is more small animal activity which actually draw the carbon deeper into the soil. Haven't explained it too well, but N is converted to protein. Put it this way, there aren't too many earthworms in a bog.

I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but at the very least we need more research. I was at a Sobac farm walk last year where they dug big holes in the ground on two neighbouring farms. The farmer using sobac , no artificial p,k or lime and half the regular amounts N had grass roots going down 3 feet, loads of worms and had the same soil PH as the farmer using the conventional system whose grass roots were only going down a few inches and just a few worms in the top couple of inches. There was definitely something going on there. I cant say I can properly explain it, but definitely worth doing more research in to that area.

Waffletraktor

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Spot on. But why not more research? Apparently the way we manage the grassland is having a much bigger effect than the cows. But Livestock are key to grassland and from that point of view we should surely be looking at this as an opportunity? The only negative is we would need to reduce the amount of nitrogen we spread. Its looking like that could be a bigger limiting factor rather than just simply saying cows are the main culprits. Ok I get they are all interrelated, but certainly something deserving of some real proper research,

The Ted talk is more aimed at using cows to develope soil armour which reduce the reflection of light from barren ground and reduce erosion. A better expenditure would be to pay Farmers in areas of risk to further desertification than pay already wealthy western farmers more money to carry on almost as usual. The Americans have been working on soil om building and to have any effect worthwhile over soil health and increasing solvita test results in a scale less than half decades needs specialist cropping and input useage.

yosemitesam1

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Spot on. But why not more research? Apparently the way we manage the grassland is having a much bigger effect than the cows. But Livestock are key to grassland and from that point of view we should surely be looking at this as an opportunity? The only negative is we would need to reduce the amount of nitrogen we spread. Its looking like that could be a bigger limiting factor rather than just simply saying cows are the main culprits. Ok I get they are all interrelated, but certainly something deserving of some real proper research,

The biggest problem is the simplistic view of soil as a bunch of minerals with a bit of om instead of a superorganism that is alive and needs lots of inputs from root exudates and activity by microorganisms to sustain its health.
There is an eu project aimed at increasing diversity in grasslands which should lead to healthier soils, the jena experiment is the biggest and smartgrass is ours but very little out of it yet.

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

The biggest problem is the simplistic view of soil as a bunch of minerals with a bit of om instead of a superorganism that is alive and needs lots of inputs from root exudates and activity by microorganisms to sustain its health.
There is an eu project aimed at increasing diversity in grasslands which should lead to healthier soils, the jena experiment is the biggest and smartgrass is ours but very little out of it yet.

I totally agree and because we are mainly grass based anyway surely with a small bit of tweaking we are two steps ahead of most of our competitors who are ploughing every year to grow crops to feed cows. Just look at this figure for example. http://globalplantcouncil.org/news-events/latest-news/20-per-cent-of-worlds-co2-from-ploughing--soil-scientist

Never wrestle with pigs

sobac looks similar to the soil renew concept. I like the idea but am sketchy also. Iv been reading allot about how to bring life back into soil and how to get worm activity back into soil.

I think there are allot less worms in our soil compared to years ago. I think this nearly deserves a thread of it's own.

White Clover

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

sobac looks similar to the soil renew concept. I like the idea but am sketchy also. Iv been reading allot about how to bring life back into soil and how to get worm activity back into soil.

I think there are allot less worms in our soil compared to years ago. I think this nearly deserves a thread of it's own.

I'd be interested in this too. Can u say what you are reading at present NWWP?

kowtow

Never wrestle with pigs wrote:

I think there are allot less worms in our soil compared to years ago. I think this nearly deserves a thread of it's own.

Me too.

"Organics Anonymous"

Never wrestle with pigs

White Clover wrote: »

I'd be interested in this too. Can u say what you are reading at present NWWP?

Allot of YouTube and google ha. But I think the one of the most interesting things is how deep grass roots will go in a good soil compared to a soil that is good for P&K and ph but no worms ect.

Never wrestle with pigs

kowtow wrote: »

Me too.

"Organics Anonymous"

Don't be afraid to cum out of the closet about your Organics fetish.

Waffletraktor

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

White Clover wrote: »

I'd be interested in this too. Can u say what you are reading at present NWWP?

Allot of YouTube and google ha. But I think the one of the most interesting things is how deep grass roots will go in a good soil compared to a soil that is good for P&K and ph but no worms ect.

Might be a little reading in somewhere.
http://base-uk.co.uk/ There is also an organisation Leaf but not as detailed.

kowtow

From memory there is a fairly comprehensive book - "Cows save the planet" on this very subject.

Also some of Joel Salatin's books are entertaining - "Folks this aint normal" springs to mind.

Farmer Ed

kowtow wrote: »

From memory there is a fairly comprehensive book - "Cows save the planet" on this very subject.

Also some of Joel Salatin's books are entertaining - "Folks this aint normal" springs to mind.

Yep "Cows Save the Planet" Is the very book being reviewed in the link I opened this thread with. I have personally seen grass roots going down 3 feet where Sobac had been used. Cant say I understand it properly, but having seen it I am convinced there is a lot more to soil than just N,P,K and lime. Amazing the only real areas of research that get the greatests amount of attention is into things we actually have to purchase from companies who make money from us.

_Brian

Vegans will be puking up their lentils if they see a thread suggesting farming animals will save the planet

Farmer Ed

_Brian wrote: »

Vegans will be puking up their lentils if they see a thread suggesting farming animals will save the planet

I hope they do it in a way that does not disturb the soil too much as that would only release more carbon

patsy_mccabe

I am clearing away briars (brambles) at the edges of a field at the moment. The quality of the soil is amazing underneath, All from the decomposition of plants over the years.

Farmer Ed

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I am clearing away briars (brambles) at the edges of a field at the moment. The quality of the soil is amazing underneath, All from the decomposition of plants over the years.

Actually when you think about the EU policy of penalising farmers for having scrub on marginal land could be actually bad for the environment?

amacca

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Actually when you think about the EU policy of penalising farmers for having scrub on marginal land could be actually bad for the environment?

I always thought it was mental if species diversity etc was the goal

its encouraged me to get rid of rushes etc - I'm sure thats some species habitat

yosemitesam1

White Clover wrote: »

I'd be interested in this too. Can u say what you are reading at present NWWP?

Teaming with microbes is worth a read

Farmer Ed

amacca wrote: »

I always thought it was mental if species diversity etc was the goal

its encouraged me to get rid of rushes etc - I'm sure thats some species habitat

Kind of mad when you think about it. They make you get rid of cover on bad land and they pay you to grow wild bird cover on good land. Id say who ever thought of that one must be releasing a fair bit of some kind of hot air themselves.

Waffletraktor

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

White Clover wrote: »

I'd be interested in this too. Can u say what you are reading at present NWWP?

Teaming with microbes is worth a read

Dirt: the erosion of civilisations
Joel Salatin who kowtow mentioned, if the guy I think he is puts most folk to shame with what's he can do with a few acres.

kowtow

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Dirt: the erosion of civilisations
Joel Salatin who kowtow mentioned, if the guy I think he is puts most folk to shame with what's he can do with a few acres.

I think Salatin is quite big by Irish standards - 500 odd acres - although he has every kind of enterprise on it and from it.

If you want intensive (vegetable) production, organic, the man to look at is Elliot Coleman.

yosemitesam1

http://soilandhealth.org/agricultural-library-sort-by-author/

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

http://soilandhealth.org/agricultural-library-sort-by-author/

Some amount of reading there fait play.

Dawggone

Innov-Agri on the 6th to the 8th in Outarville (South of Paris) well worth a visit.

Frédéric Thomas is worth listening to.

Farmer Ed

http://www.quantumagriculture.com/articles/establishing-self-sufficient-system

yosemitesam1

http://nuffieldinternational.org/live/Reports

http://www.agroecologie-scv.org

http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books

http://www.notill.org/resources/leading-edge-magazine

Farmer Ed

Is there any Irish research in this area published anywhere? Kind of strange that as we are predominantly grass based we are not looking in to this more?

kowtow

Farmer Ed wrote:

Is there any Irish research in this area published anywhere? Kind of strange that as we are predominantly grass based we are not looking in to this more?

Isn't that already the root of our argument re: greenhouse gas (research or no research)... ?

Farmer Ed

kowtow wrote: »

Isn't that already the root of our argument re: greenhouse gas (research or no research)... ?

Would have to agree. But the question is why? Kind of seems obvious that we should be given the way things appear to be developing and especially since we should have a natural advantage over most other countries.

yosemitesam1

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Is there any Irish research in this area published anywhere? Kind of strange that as we are predominantly grass based we are not looking in to this more?

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ria.ie/expert-scientific-statement-potential-irish-grassland-soils-sequester-atmospheric-carbon&ved=0ahUKEwjWu57q1uvOAhXLIcAKHWP7DhIQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNEOS0GbVNYxuwGaGcFhyKIfIDlbYQ

This is what all of teagasc, ifa etc seem to be going off but there are big assumptions in it that have no basis

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227793091_Dissolved_carbon_leaching_is_a_crucial_component_of_the_net_ecosystem_carbon_balance
In the tables at the bottom of this the carlow grassland has lost 79g/m2 of carbon, wouldn't be long having a fairly big impact on our carbon/kg of beef and milk rankings...

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ria.ie/expert-scientific-statement-potential-irish-grassland-soils-sequester-atmospheric-carbon&ved=0ahUKEwjWu57q1uvOAhXLIcAKHWP7DhIQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNEOS0GbVNYxuwGaGcFhyKIfIDlbYQ

This is what all of teagasc, ifa etc seem to be going off but there are big assumptions in it that have no basis

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227793091_Dissolved_carbon_leaching_is_a_crucial_component_of_the_net_ecosystem_carbon_balance
In the tables at the bottom of this the carlow grassland has lost 79g/m2 of carbon, wouldn't be long having a fairly big impact on our carbon/kg of beef and milk rankings...

Am I right in saying a loss of 79g m2 is 79 kg per hectare ? If you compare that to the 50 ton per hectare that could be sequestered if carbon could be increased by just 1%. Kind of puts it into perspective the potential that could be here if we were to work on it.

yosemitesam1

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Am I right in saying a loss of 79g m2 is 79 kg per hectare ? If you compare that to the 50 ton per hectare that could be sequestered if carbon could be increased by just 1%. Kind of puts it into perspective the potential that could be here if we were to work on it.

790kg/ha

Edit. That would be equivalent of 2900kg co2 if I've done my sums right

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

790kg/ha

Sorry my apologies for getting that one wrong. Then yes that is pretty alarming. All the more reason to find out what exactly is causing the problem.

yosemitesam1

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Sorry my apologies for getting that one wrong. Then yes that is pretty alarming. All the more reason to find out what exactly is causing the problem.

I would put it down to the very high fert rates and lack of diversity it the sward. I can have a look later and find a bit of research to back it up but in short increasing n rates and decreasing diversity leads to om that is less stable so broken down/leached easier

Farmer Ed

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

I would put it down to the very high fert rates and lack of diversity it the sward. I can have a look later and find a bit of research to back it up but in short increasing n rates and decreasing diversity leads to om that is less stable so broken down/leached easier

If the carlow results were to be replicated across the countrys 4.5 m hecacres that's over 3.5 m tons of carbon being released from the ground every year! Turn that on its head and what if we can sequest carbon just by tweeting a few things?. The potential is huge. All or or carbon commitments met possibly?

bogman_bass

blue5000 wrote: »

I think I read somewhere that higher N rates actually increase CS because there is more small animal activity which actually draw the carbon deeper into the soil. Haven't explained it too well, but N is converted to protein. Put it this way, there aren't too many earthworms in a bog.

I think oxygen levels and acidity might have more to do with that than N

Just on a general point with this thread; always beware of research that tells you what you want to hear!

freedominacup

bogman_bass wrote: »

Just on a general point with this thread; always beware of research that tells you what you want to hear!

Why? Everyone else across agribusiness uses it. In fact most of them aren't behind the door when it comes to paying for research like that. You know the type. "Here are some answers we like, you go off now and figure out the questions and the formulas to get these answers and we'll give you a nice big stipend to tide you over while you're working it out".

yosemitesam1

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

I would put it down to the very high fert rates and lack of diversity it the sward. I can have a look later and find a bit of research to back it up but in short increasing n rates and decreasing diversity leads to om that is less stable so broken down/leached easier

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150407/ncomms7707/full/ncomms7707.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20482580

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259972675_Ramirez_KS_Craine_JM_Fierer_N_Consistent_effects_of_nitrogen_amendments_on_soil_microbial_communities_and_processes_across_biomes_Global_Change_Biol_18_1918-1927

Farmer Ed

freedominacup wrote: »

Why? Everyone else across agribusiness uses it. In fact most of them aren't behind the door when it comes to paying for research like that. You know the type. "Here are some answers we like, you go off now and figure out the questions and the formulas to get these answers and we'll give you a nice big stipend to tide you over while you're working it out".

Would have to agree. Hard to know how independent any research is.

pedigree 6

I haven't read all the articles here, will do in the next few days/weeks.
But it's a great thread to have them all together here.

But i'll try and simplify some points for myself first here if I can (feel free to correct me).

What we are trying to achieve in the first place is a low cost way of maintaining/improving the soil to grow the best crops.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a hard baked terracotta pot devoid of life and 10 being a pile of dung full of microbes, we are looking to get our soil to around 7-8ish maybe more.

When you expose the soil to the sun you are turning the soil into that terracotta pot. So you then have to work on getting the microbes and fungi back working again to feed/help that crop. Slurry and dung will help as well.

Spreading more N doesn't necessarily mean that the crop is getting the benefit of all this extra N. Increased sulphar is one element that is also needed to give the crop access. Then you need more stone grit in the soil as well, can be supplied as ground limestone. We could also get into the different ph's of the soil whether from sodium or from calcium and moly soils etc.
Articles above and hopefully after this post will explain it better.

Then we have the role (unknown to me before) of fungi in the feeding of grass and crops of otherwise inaccessible nutrients to the plant (wonder are these the meadow mushrooms that are popping up now). Trees use fungi to access nitrogen from the atmosphere and phosphorus from the ground probably a lot more as well. Grass use fungi to access phosphorus from the ground and also increase om in the soil. Bacteria eats other waste in the ground and again makes it accessible for the plants.

Interesting subject really hard to get your head around.

On a related note tillage farmers around me ( one especially) are sowing cover crops with a range of plants (some deep rooted) for the winter period to conserve nutrients and provide cover for the ground and increase OM.

Edit: just one more point I wanted to put in as well. Cattle/cows - any animals when housed indoors when dung and urine mix in say a slatted tank, the mixture gives off ammonia (nitrogen wasted) into the atmosphere but when outside on the grass they don't mix so no wasted ammonia (nitrogen).
NASA did a reading of ammonia emissions from their satelites and it showed up the high readings above wisconsin from their indoor systems.