One presentation to watch to transform your soil

taxusbaccata

I watched this documentary by chance on Youtube and it is the future of healthy productive soils globally.

This guy is a master of multiple farm incomes and no longer uses any fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.

He uses multiple cover crops, power grazing, no till and other techniques to increase the organic matter and biological activity of his soil.

I noticed the transformation of my own compacted historically overgrazed soil by leaving it fallow and allowing a range of "weeds" grow on it - compacted light brown clay soil changed to spongy black aggregated soil over 18 months. I had initially dug drains to remove winter flooding but there is no longer any excess water due to the water retention and drainage change in the soil!

See what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk

Farmer

Well worth a watch. Appears to solve a whole pile of problems, including carbon sinks all in one go. I just wonder, where do you start with a waterlogged heavy soil field of rushes though

taxusbaccata

Farmer wrote: »

Well worth a watch. Appears to solve a whole pile of problems, including carbon sinks all in one go. I just wonder, where do you start with a waterlogged heavy soil field of rushes though

I had that situation in my field Farmer. New rushes no longer grow now except where I operated the digger last summer (new compaction). Once the established rushes are dug out they are not coming back.

It would seem the lack of organic material is the issue. Continual overgrazing is the problem - minimal plant organic material gets to rot into the soil. Also the complete lack of border trees is denying our fields the gift of leaf litter. Look at English fields - all surrounded by trees. They create amazing shelter for stock and crops, reduce wind chill and drop organic matter. Once organic material is at the surface the fungi establish and do the work. They break up and clump soil together to allow for drainage. The proteins they secrete also change the soil into a biological sponge. I have seen it in my soil after one year only.

I would suggest, if you are in a position to do so, cutting the sward and letting it rot into the soil surface. Try and use as light machinery as possible to reduce physical compaction. Suggesting reducing grazing for periods of time would be a difficulty for many small farmers I would imagine.

patsy_mccabe

I'd agree with you on the leaf litter being good for the soil but continous grazing and heavy use of chemical fertiliser will add to the organic matter in the soil. The more grass you grow, the more dung will be created.

Farmer

Fair enough but does the heavy use of chemical fertiliser lead to a soil environment that is not microbe friendly? Should we be spending more of that money on something like mushroom compost, straw, or, as the man in the video says, just planting whatever is bulky and grows. I think we all can see that the move away from FYM to slurry was a bad job, especially for the worms but, from the comfort of my cosy shed, I don't see how we can go back

Ir is the only diversity that is ahead of many of us, a rich mixture of spruce, mountain ash alder, willow etc.?

patsy_mccabe

Farmer wrote: »

Fair enough but does the heavy use of chemical fertiliser lead to a soil environment that is not microbe friendly? .....

Don't know. Even the soil experts might struggle to answer that one. It does lead to the acidifying of the soil which has to be counteracted by lime. I bought some land a while back. This land was never grazed in the 10 years previously. Just constant cuts of silage. PH was very low (circa 4.9). I spread lime on it and grazed it since. Didnt reseed. While the butt of yellow grass on it disappeared, the land did seem to get that bit wetter. Hard to have more organic matter in the soil without the land becoming wetter.

taxusbaccata

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Hard to have more organic matter in the soil without the land becoming wetter.

The opposite is actually true Patsy. The more organic material you have the greater the bacteria and fungal entities that will aggregate the soil particles and given greater drainage and water retention ability within the soil and not at the surface. Concentrated element fertiliser eg. NPK kill off the bacteria and fungi of the soil and when that occurs the compaction and lack of nutrient movement kicks in. There may be a surge in crop growth for a while but over time the soil health deteriorates and you become dependent on adding fertilisers as your natural system of extraction is dead. Plus you are not supplying all the other elements eg. Fe, Cu, Mg, I, Ca etc.

An interesting fact is that fungi eat rocks (stones, sand, silt) - they extract mineral elements in exchange for sugars and carbohydrates from the plant roots or decomposing organic material. Watch any sand left out and moist for some time it changes to soil over time.

carrollsno1

In relation to trees, i have a preference for evergreens (spruces, firs etc) would the pines be as good for organic matter as leaves? Or would it make the soil more acidic in the process?

Green&Red

taxusbaccata wrote: »

I had that situation in my field Farmer. New rushes no longer grow now except where I operated the digger last summer (new compaction). Once the established rushes are dug out they are not coming back.

It would seem the lack of organic material is the issue. Continual overgrazing is the problem - minimal plant organic material gets to rot into the soil. Also the complete lack of border trees is denying our fields the gift of leaf litter. Look at English fields - all surrounded by trees. They create amazing shelter for stock and crops, reduce wind chill and drop organic matter. Once organic material is at the surface the fungi establish and do the work. They break up and clump soil together to allow for drainage. The proteins they secrete also change the soil into a biological sponge. I have seen it in my soil after one year only.

I would suggest, if you are in a position to do so, cutting the sward and letting it rot into the soil surface. Try and use as light machinery as possible to reduce physical compaction. Suggesting reducing grazing for periods of time would be a difficulty for many small farmers I would imagine.

Other than letting the grass rot what else did you do?
What time of year did you do that?

Shauny2010

Green&Red wrote: »

Other than letting the grass rot what else did you do?
What time of year did you do that?

I'm in a similar situation. Land has gone very wet. I had only light Weanlens out yet they completely poached the place. I have a meadow that was split for glas, one side LIPP the other side I took silage out of. The half I took the silage from went to pure muck in no lenght. The other side held up well. It seems that the more cultivation and crops you pull of the ground the weaker the Grass becomes. The roots become shallow, and the drainage goes out of the soil.
I dont think Glas is the solution either, it is based too much on calander farming which just does not work

Farmer

Land drainage - the one thing that might encourage better soil conditions,improve efficiency, help counter the effects of global warming, and cut down on sprays - is virtually banned under Glas.

Land drainage or reclamation work is not allowed on parcels selected for area based actions. However if existing drains become blocked they may be repaired with as minimum disturbance as possible to the LPIS parcel.

Fair enough if it was bogland where drainage might lead to carbon release but it's not that because we are not allowed any heather in glas parcels.

taxusbaccata

Green&Red wrote: »

Other than letting the grass rot what else did you do?
What time of year did you do that?

All I did was leave the plot fallow for 18 months which included the grass going to seed naturally twice and that was it. New grass grew no problem the 2nd season - I'm not sure if it was the original rye grass or if it was from the new seed. The soil has completely changed. From having to use a pick axe to dig a hole now the spade will sink in with just hand pressure down 6 inches for now and Im hoping deeper with time.

On inspection the fallow grass fell over and partially rotted underneath. You could feel the moisture underneath in mid summer which is lacking normally with grazed or cut sites. It is obvious there is increased biological activity at work underneath the fallen grass - perfect condition to bring the microbiology back to the soil. It is essentially an uncut mulching.

The obvious challenge is can a farmer afford to leave a plot fallow for so long? I would recommend at least leaving a small trial plot vacant and observe.

taxusbaccata

carrollsno1 wrote: »

In relation to trees, i have a preference for evergreens (spruces, firs etc) would the pines be as good for organic matter as leaves? Or would it make the soil more acidic in the process?

Decidious conifers (which shed their needles) are not evergreen! Decidious conifers (mostly Larch species grown in Ireland) will definately add organic material. I think the acidification effect is very much exaggerated especially if it is only a linear border planting. Like the man in the video and experts say the higher the species variation the better. Trees and other plants will help each other grow by transferring nutrients through the soil fungal network - if there is one in the first place. This has been proven through nucleur isotope studies.

Upstream

This video is amazing. Thanks for sharing. It turns so much conventional thinking on it's head.

I watched it when you posted it a couple of months ago and I'm still trying to get my head around it.

There's also a three or four hour version of this talk on YouTube that he gave at a seminar on soil health. In it he goes into more detail about how he was losing money and his harvest had failed 3 years out of 4 when he was farming "conventionally". Now that's he's changed his output is equal to or maybe better than "conventional" neighbouring farms, but his profit margin is way, way ahead.

So many costs became unnecessary when he put soil heath first and started farming in nature's image. He says these principle should work anywhere conventional agriculture is carried out. So now to apply it here in Ireland!

taxusbaccata wrote: »

I watched this documentary by chance on Youtube and it is the future of healthy productive soils globally.

This guy is a master of multiple farm incomes and no longer uses any fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.

He uses multiple cover crops, power grazing, no till and other techniques to increase the organic matter and biological activity of his soil.

I noticed the transformation of my own compacted historically overgrazed soil by leaving it fallow and allowing a range of "weeds" grow on it - compacted light brown clay soil changed to spongy black aggregated soil over 18 months. I had initially dug drains to remove winter flooding but there is no longer any excess water due to the water retention and drainage change in the soil!

See what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk

Harry Palmr

As someone who is working in and being taught organic horticulture none of that comes as a shock, obviously their are some big differences between modest scale fruit and veg and grassland based farming but the basic biological facts hold true regardless.

yosemitesam1

The fundamental thins he talks about are fairly right but after that don't be afraid to take what he says with a pinch of salt. He does make an awful lot of money doing talks and showing people around his farm, it is important to have a good story...

He does use herbicides and I think he does buy in some feed while also using a lot of the grain produced on the farm.