Farm science.

Brown Podzol

Two gallons of milk per acre increases grass production by 26%.



http://www.minnesotafarmguide.com/news/regional/milk-works-as-fertilizer-says-preliminary-study/article_028652ea-849c-11e0-9dcc-001cc4c03286.html

pedigree 6

Brown Podzol wrote: »

Two gallons of milk per acre increases grass production by 26%.



http://www.minnesotafarmguide.com/news/regional/milk-works-as-fertilizer-says-preliminary-study/article_028652ea-849c-11e0-9dcc-001cc4c03286.html

I think most dairy farmers here would have seen the same thing or at least have applied fresh milk on land.

When I was starting to milk in the parlour here in 2010 I had to throw some buckets of milk out on a paddock beside the parlour. I did this because I hadn't enough to let it into the bulk tank and some stuff before that went in the clean slatted tank was starting to smell a bit. So I was throwing out the few buckets on the grass. I learnt you had to spread the milk out a bit or else it would knock back the grass. But spreading out the bucket definitely fertilised and grew the grass. However this was during or after the cold winter in early 2010 and it drew a fox beside the parlour at night and he was licking the ground where the milk was thrown.

I'd go along with it feeding bacteria as we all know of the high biological oxygen demand that milk has when entering water. So it feeds and increases the amount of bacteria in water and then they use up the oxygen in the water and that's what causes fish kills.

Buford T. Justice XIX

An interesting little piece on gene editing on piglets.

https://twitter.com/ScienceNews/status/896087653153505281

ganmo

hehe pervs

pedigree 6

ganmo wrote: »

hehe pervs

Don't be insulting the poor little piggies.:)

The same thing can be done on human embryos or foetuses for heritable deficiencies.
I'd say that's what the real goal of researching and developing the system on piggies was for.
Although could be wrong.

Floki

The brilliant Pedigree 6 was posting on this subject before so I suppose it's no harm if I include this here.
Cork institute is leading the way on this.

Take home message from this is eat your Granny.:D

George Sunsnow

ahh the brilliant google
pedigree 6 used google everything for us and then post it up on the forum like a Sage

These past few days I've had to ask Siri

To be honest,Siri is a way lot better replacement for pedigree 6 as I've her voice set to a sexy Australian lady (go into your iPhone settings)
You should hear how she pronounces manure

Floki

Not sure if I should reply?

But anyway. It was Twitter.

Floki

It looks like the Finns are trying to dirty their children and pregnant women in clay.:)

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/take-a-mud-bath-it-cures-you-from-diseases?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_owned&utm_campaign=news

Floki

For the life of me I can't find the article I was reading a few nights ago but it went something like this.

Soil bacteria are responsible for all life on this planet.
Soil bacteria are part of an eco system which includes viruses and nematodes and they all live and die together. Bacteria are broken down into different groups, mineral eaters, plant eaters, other bacteria eaters and plant root symbiotic bacteria. Then you viruses that infect eat bacteria and bacteria that eat viruses and the same for nematodes. Nematodes eating bacteria and nematodes eating those nematodes and then bacteria that can eat those nematodes. Basically it's a whole eco system and each keeps each other in check and no group should take over in a healthy diverse soil.

All plants have unique bacteria that help that plant grow and access food for that plant species. The same goes for minerals in the soil the bacteria that eat that mineral are unique to that mineral and so on and so on.

The beneficial bacteria to agriculture are the aerobic ones in the soil and they are usually just in the top three inches of the soil and they feed on minerals, plant residue and each other.
Soil organic matter was first thought to be from plant residue in soil but it has now been proven to be made by soil bacteria that sink below the top three inches of soil and are just stored there in this anaerobic environment held there like in a bank account.
When land is tilled or ploughed this stored organic matter is once again exposed to oxygen and the lions or bacteria eating bacteria move in fast and eat the organic matter and the cycle moves on. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are produced from this bacteria eating the organic matter and bacteria eating bacteria and nematodes eating bacteria and nematodes eating nematodes and made available in a form that plants or should I say the plant's roots bacteria can use and then the plant. But the more tilling or ploughing the more organic matter used up and pretty soon the bang is gone from the buck and the soil is not freshened up like the ploughman used to say in the past.

I also read a tweet from a conference in the last few days that ruminant parasites look to be less prevalent or should I say are getting eaten in the soil in very diverse soil eco systems.

Sìn è.

Upstream

Floki wrote: »

Soil organic matter was first thought to be from plant residue in soil but it has now been proven to be made by soil bacteria that sink below the top three inches of soil and are just stored there in this anaerobic environment held there like in a bank account.

There's a lot going on in living soils. Scientists like Elaine Ingham and Sara Wright have shown that grass roots send out food into the soil in the form of simple carbohydrates, root exudates. The soil fungi process this into a form of organic matter called glomalin.
Glomalin was only discovered recently, in the late 90's, but is thought to hold a third of the total carbon found in pasture based soils. The bacteria and fungi involved in this web provide nutrients back to the grass in return for the food provided by the roots.

Floki

Someone else that worked with Elaine Ingham is Joel Williams.
I only just discovered him myself this evening.:o

yosemitesam1

Floki wrote: »

For the life of me I can't find the article I was reading a few nights ago but it went something like this.

Soil bacteria are responsible for all life on this planet.
Soil bacteria are part of an eco system which includes viruses and nematodes and they all live and die together. Bacteria are broken down into different groups, mineral eaters, plant eaters, other bacteria eaters and plant root symbiotic bacteria. Then you viruses that infect eat bacteria and bacteria that eat viruses and the same for nematodes. Nematodes eating bacteria and nematodes eating those nematodes and then bacteria that can eat those nematodes. Basically it's a whole eco system and each keeps each other in check and no group should take over in a healthy diverse soil.

All plants have unique bacteria that help that plant grow and access food for that plant species. The same goes for minerals in the soil the bacteria that eat that mineral are unique to that mineral and so on and so on.

The beneficial bacteria to agriculture are the aerobic ones in the soil and they are usually just in the top three inches of the soil and they feed on minerals, plant residue and each other.
Soil organic matter was first thought to be from plant residue in soil but it has now been proven to be made by soil bacteria that sink below the top three inches of soil and are just stored there in this anaerobic environment held there like in a bank account.
When land is tilled or ploughed this stored organic matter is once again exposed to oxygen and the lions or bacteria eating bacteria move in fast and eat the organic matter and the cycle moves on. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are produced from this bacteria eating the organic matter and bacteria eating bacteria and nematodes eating bacteria and nematodes eating nematodes and made available in a form that plants or should I say the plant's roots bacteria can use and then the plant. But the more tilling or ploughing the more organic matter used up and pretty soon the bang is gone from the buck and the soil is not freshened up like the ploughman used to say in the past.

I also read a tweet from a conference in the last few days that ruminant parasites look to be less prevalent or should I say are getting eaten in the soil in very diverse soil eco systems.

Sìn è.

The foundation of that ecosystem is plants pumping out sugars into the surrounding soil in exchange for nutrients. If nutrients are very freely available plants cut off this supply because there's no need for them to waste resources, also what then happens in a natural grassland would be a change in species to ones better at cutting off microbes and keeping as much as possible to themselves.
This is where the trade off has to happen between maximizing yields and maximizing soil health as the two of these cannot be achieved together in an Irish context anyway.
Also the healthiest place for a plant root to be growing is in the area surrounding roots from totally different species. This is because an awful lot of the beneficial microbes are not highly adapted to one species but parasites/diseases are very specialized.

Fungi are much more important than bacteria for contributing to soil on because they grow out hairs into the soil and work their way into aggregates where their remains can't be readily broken down. Bacteria are mainly stuck on the surface of aggregates and eaten when they die.

Water John

As Floki pointed out, UCC are at the front end of research on gut bacteria. there is a product called Alforex, designed by them.
It's an over the counter pill, non prescription, that one can take, about a euro/pill/day, sometimes on special offer also. It's supposed to be good for anyone who immune system is compromised in any way.

Been reading this thread from the start. Some very interesting stuff here, thanks.

Floki

Water John wrote: »

Been reading this thread from the start. Some very interesting stuff here, thanks.

Don't be afraid to post any interesting stuff you come across yourself Water John. No matter how outlandish.:)
Or indeed conventional.

Floki

How about this for a theory?

I got calcium (calcite) lime spread on all the fields last year bar one.
The cows have milked exceptionally well volume wise this year but whenever they went onto this field the volume dropped and rose again when moved onto another.
This field would has grown a lot of grass I even took paddocks off it for silage but the litres never came off it the same as the rest.

The theory is bacteria ( there's a name on these bacteria but I don't know what they are) eat the calcium lime (anyone that knows good quality lime is ground up like flour and this stuff was no exception) and then provide a base/food for other bacteria. But bacteria are hungry buggers in that they need nitrogen and will take it any form that they can be it ammonium or nitrous oxide. So much that the grass is not growing to its optimum because the bacteria are taking everything it can.

Now this is where cattle parasites come in. The cow dungs on the ground and the larvae have to spend some time below ground to complete their life cycle. My bacteria see the larvae as a nitrogen/protein source and will then attack and consume the larvae. Bye bye larvae.

So back to my own situation.
The worm burden on the land that got lime was low and the cows milked well but the worm burden on the land that got no lime was high and then they dropped and then back up again when going again on the low burden land.

I have got my milk test for worms back and since I've spread lime the reports have dropped. I posted the results before in the dairy thread.

But back to the bacteria consuming nitrogen. Not to worry because you will get that back again available to the grass when they die or get consumed by other bacteria or nematodes and usually this is around end of july, August. This is whats known as mineralization.

Water John

When you say, calcite, what exactly is it's diff from, what we term ground limestone, granlime, or indeed hydrated lime? Just to show my ignorance here.

Brown Podzol

The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.


http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511?lo=ap_a1

Buford T. Justice XIX

Scandinavia’s earliest farmers exchanged terminology with Indo-Europeans

A little bit about the formation of European languages and the origins of some of our words like cow, horse, sheep, milk and wool.


http://humanities.ku.dk/news/2017/scandinavias-earliest-farmers-exchanged-terminology-with-indo-europeans/

Buford T. Justice XIX

I came across this article discussing neonic effects on bees and how the different studies can be manipulated and exaggerated to suit certain agendas.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/09/26/two-neonicotinoid-bumble-bee-studies-science-can-massaged/

Waffletraktor

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I came across this article discussing neonic effects on bees and how the different studies can be manipulated and exaggerated to suit certain agendas.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/09/26/two-neonicotinoid-bumble-bee-studies-science-can-massaged/

It's been known since late 2014 it was a fix by those leading the research, communication between them has been distributed in that community. No difference to the who's organisation who announced glyphosate as potentially dangerous, the lead on that litterally ignored the data sets.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Waffletraktor wrote: »

It's been known since late 2014 it was a fix by those leading the research, communication between them has been distributed in that community. No difference to the who's organisation who announced glyphosate as potentially dangerous, the lead on that litterally ignored the data sets.

It's getting too common these days, generate misleading headlines or data sets and get more funding while genuine research which doesn't generate massive publicity gets reduced funding despite being more useful but not self-serving.

yosemitesam1

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I came across this article discussing neonic effects on bees and how the different studies can be manipulated and exaggerated to suit certain agendas.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/09/26/two-neonicotinoid-bumble-bee-studies-science-can-massaged/

With honeybee's the two biggest stressors are diet and varroa. It's when these are not taken care of that pesticides can help tip them over the edge.
The chemicals allowed in Europe are very easy on bees compared to the older stuff which would kill whole hives in a few days.

Birdnuts

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

With honeybee's the two biggest stressors are diet and varroa. It's when these are not taken care of that pesticides can help tip them over the edge.
The chemicals allowed in Europe are very easy on bees compared to the older stuff which would kill whole hives in a few days.

The loss of wild flower meadows and other farmland habitats is a huge issue for honeybees and other pollinators. Sadly the likes of REPS and GLAS have totally failed to address such issues:(

yosemitesam1

Birdnuts wrote: »

The loss of wild flower meadows and other farmland habitats is a huge issue for honeybees and other pollinators. Sadly the likes of REPS and GLAS have totally failed to address such issues:(

100% agree, that's a much more important issue than trying to get glyphosate or neonics banned.

Waffletraktor

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

Birdnuts wrote: »

The loss of wild flower meadows and other farmland habitats is a huge issue for honeybees and other pollinators. Sadly the likes of REPS and GLAS have totally failed to address such issues:(

100% agree, that's a much more important issue than trying to get glyphosate or neonics banned.

It won't be long before efa's become compulsory, especially for likes of farms availing of fertiliser derogations.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Birdnuts wrote: »

The loss of wild flower meadows and other farmland habitats is a huge issue for honeybees and other pollinators. Sadly the likes of REPS and GLAS have totally failed to address such issues:(

There's lots of good research being done on issues like that.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/26/1620229114.full

yosemitesam1

Waffletraktor wrote: »

It won't be long before efa's become compulsory, especially for likes of farms availing of fertiliser derogations.

That holds the answer to all the problems with Irish farming.
Increase sward diversity to a reasonable level and pollinators will benefit, more beetles, worms, birds, more carbon stored in the soil, NOx emissions could be almost fully eliminated, better water quality, increased water infiltration/holding and probably a few more benefits too...

MF290

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I came across this article discussing neonic effects on bees and how the different studies can be manipulated and exaggerated to suit certain agendas.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/09/26/two-neonicotinoid-bumble-bee-studies-science-can-massaged/

just looking at those articles it's impossible to know what to believe... there's a few articles linking Jon Entine, who wrote the article, to monsanto. Then said article could be written by some activism crowd who are anti-monsanto. There are so many vested interests

Birdnuts

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

That holds the answer to all the problems with Irish farming.
Increase sward diversity to a reasonable level and pollinators will benefit, more beetles, worms, birds, more carbon stored in the soil, NOx emissions could be almost fully eliminated, better water quality, increased water infiltration/holding and probably a few more benefits too...

I believe someone is doing that research at Lyons with very positive results in terms of reduced chemical fert etc. inputs and better animal performance with herbal swards compared to pure ryegrass leys. Worryingly though I also heard that her funding is under threat which frankly if true is a disgrace and would confirm a lot about the attitude to such matters by officialdom in this country:mad: