Good honest post KG.
There’ no magic bullet. I’ve never claimed that clovers are the answer, but they can seriously reduce N use, and produce a high quality forage…and in pasture can work well with grasses etc. in reducing N use. Win win but you’ll still need to buy N.
To change the subject a little, is there a stipulation for the MSS grant that you need x amount of different species? I’ve seen photos of MSS seed labels and swards and there’s species in there that have no reason to be there whatsoever. Crazy stuff.
The best bit of advice I’ve ever got is NOT to apply artificial fert when planting swards. Makes sense when you think about it.
What you do is get the invoice changed after buying normal straight ryegrass to say mss and claim your money....
Not this time. My understanding is that agri advisors will grades the MSS swards and you will be paid on that. These schemes will be more and more results based
Well so far have heard it from a rep that an altered invoice is what some are going with. I do hope there is a results based check/follow up but I'm guessing it's not this time
Not for this scheme. But new ACRES will be
Well one thing for shure chicory and plantain dont like wet feet, only suitable for very dry free draining land. Wont survive beyond 2 or 3 years if wet.
But you end up with a good grass clover sward as a result
I think you forget we’re in Ireland and farms are small
a field of purely red clover cannot be grazed by stock, that’s reducing options for farmers to keep stock out into the fall
if a farmer can grow a crop of ryegrass red clover mix with no chemical fert it’s a massive saving, why dismiss that?
instead you recommend a straight crop of red clover silage, buy a diet feeder, and tie up a field on small farms that can’t be grazed
But why bother with the plantain, chicory then. If you sow only grass and clover at least you can spray for the weeds. The other way you end up with a field of grass, clover and docks.
I'm overrated tbh.
I think the mss terms and conditions does stipulate exactly what species and proportions.
It's likely Pippa Hackett of the greens saw a mix work on her farm and automatically assumed the whole country is the same.
You're a big fish in the Boards pond though
😂.
Bang on…you can add Yarrow, Trifolium Michelianum, and Sainfoin to that. Not to mention that pasture Plantain encourages wild Plantain to establish in the sward.
No mention of grazing on that in fairness. Says 14tDM/ha of high protein silage is achievable…and you’re paid to plant it!
Yes I did recommend a crop of straight RC, as per the scheme, because that’s by far the best way to utilize the crop…then I suggested that feeding through a TMR is the best way to utilize the resulting silage from the crop. That’s just my experience of growing clovers for forage.
Jeez there’s some amount of ‘schemes’…!
All those seem to get attention instead of cocksfoot, Timothy and fescues.
A mix of grass species and clover, job done for most farms
Good a place as any to explain the importance of Carbon when growing clovers, and how growing clovers will upset the C:N ratio in the soil. It’s important for farmers to know because Teagasc won’t explain, even though they’re encouraging clovers to be grown now.
There you go.
Tough reliable, drought resistant grasses that’ll thrive absolutely anywhere and are high yielding throughout the year.
The focus on herbs comes from Clifton park but cockle park farm is more what most farms should be looking towards.
Clifton park system was ground that never saw inputs of any kind so had to rely on herbs much more to make anything worthwhile grow.
Cockle park farm system was developed when there was an abundance of slag and lime was also applied. So much more representative of farms today where pH, p,k are not limiting.
Mix of the main grass species and white clover plus slag and lime was all that was needed for their system.
When nitrogen started to creep in post ww2, they reduced the proportion of other grasses in favour of more ryegrass compared to the original mix.
Having briefly read the thread on red clover is there much of an advantage including a crop of red clover into a tillage rotation to bring up the quality of the yearly pit of silage. And is there much of an advantage to the soil after 3-4 years of red clover?
Are you THE Farmer Phil from Longford?
That’s exactly what I was doing, using clovers etc between tillage crops, and ensiling some that were near the pits for dairy cows, until I overdid the system and got disease. Most were planted and used as green manures before crops. Dry season clovers before the likes of wwheat and wbarley etc, and wet season clovers before summer crops like maize, sunflowers etc. Worked a treat until I pushed it too far. A lot of the cause of getting disease, imho, was from not ploughing and mostly DD and mintill.
The only silage I use are high protein legumes etc. That works well with maize and no bought-in meal.
As regards 3-4yrs of continuous clover, I’m actually not a huge fan because 1, it’s hard on Carbon in the soil and 2, there’s only a few crops you can grow afterwards because of lodging etc.
Any links?
Could be huge saving in N fertiliser if ploughing/discing in for a spring corn crop.
I'd be inclined to sow RC with hybrid ryegrass companion. Gives the option of a 3-4 rather than a 2 year crop.
Mainly cos I see Italian RG as a weed!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0000CKHBH/ref=olp-opf-redir?aod=1&condition=used&tag=bookfinder-test-b-21
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/elliot.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi86cbPq4_5AhXUlFwKHf9MA2kQFnoECCUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0eX30RZUfiJksDRzz5lMGz
You have to piece it together but it's all there.
I thoroughly agree. I hate Italian with a passion.
Big problem here in cereals because of it’s developing resistance to gramicides and glyphosate and it’s spreading really fast.
I am The farmer Phil 😂.
Just in case your not aware of what we do. We finish fr, frx, jex bulls as well as aax, hex bullocks and heifers. We grow all our own feedstuffs. Barley, wheat, oats, beans, maize and beet. We’re looking at improving our silage quality to increase the dwg of our yearlings during housing.
so you use RC as a green crop in between main crops?
Tall or meadow fescue cultivars today are probably very different to what was available then. Also could add festiloliums to the mix which didn't exist back then
What I know from contributers elsewhere is it's the plant form of artificial Nitrogen in soil. A former dairy advisor now back in New Zealand but who studied multi species cover crops and pasture in Wales was well up on it.
Carbon soaks Nitrogen. In manure treatment, compost, soil. It all has the same law of nature. The more carbon you have the less leaching and the less gasing of Nitrogen. The inverse is also true. The more Nitrogen you have. The more carbon is gassed off back to Co2.
Off my head, Carbon: Nitrogen, 40: 1 would be timber, woodchip. It's stable ish takes a long time to breakdown. It's dependent on N from organisms to break it down. Manure 12 :1. It has more Nitrogen available hence the lower carbon to nitrogen ratio. It breaks down faster or can gas off the carbon faster.
Same works for soil. If there's higher Nitrogen in the soil it breaks down the carbon faster. The same works for exposing soil. I think the nitrogen in the air can gas off the soil carbon?
You want carbon in the soil as it prevents or slows down leaching of nitrates and phosphates. But too much or if the ratio goes stronger on the carbon side it prevents/slows uptake by your growing plants. It's all balance.
It's like these protected ureas. The granule is sprayed with a chemical from the pesticide, herbicide industry to inhibit /slow the soil bacteria from tearing into that granule. It's madness of course when there's nature's way of doing the same with carbon. And with carbon you're guaranteed there'll be no future foul ups.
You can make just as good silage from perennial ryegrass swards, the thing is to cut early. We have made silage 84 DMD cut the start of May but it would have got 70 units of nitrogen in Spring. The only advantage with the red clover is you can cut out the nitrogen. But then you have the reseeding cost.
Enchanté Phil.
I was at that craic until January 2020. It was just a way to add value to cereals in my case.Same as with you we grew all feed in-house. Now we just keep a few dairy cows.
Out of interest, how do you finish jex bulls at 16mts? What carcass weight on average?
My clover growing now is very limited due to getting Sclerotinia Trifolium in the soil. I got that from growing clovers every chance I got for 10yrs…and being in a non inversion tillage system. I can only grow a clover every 6-7yrs now. However I’ve grown almost all the different species that are suitable for N Europe, and some that weren’t. Red clover is OK but wouldn’t be as good as lucerne in a long term program. IMO, there’s no real place for long term clovers in a tillage rotation…unless you’re trying to return some land that’s been abused and worn down to nothing.
Short term, wet season clovers are superb in a tillage/beef system. For example, if you’re in a maize or beet - wwheat - wbarley rotation, you could immediately plant a wet season clover after wbarley harvest and have a top quality high protein silage, for ensiling before planting beet or maize, iykwim? You also have rich beautifully conditioned soil before maize or beet. Win win, at a very small cost. We use no artificial fert before maize, sunflowers etc.
