organic farming

Watching Killmallock sale yesterday, it took a good animal to make €3/kg.

We got a phone call yesterday afternoon from a friend asking if we could transport a number of organic stock from the sale in Kilmallock mart to his place in a neighbouring county. OH and him set off at 5.30am this morning with flasks of tae, sandwiches and sweet cake.

He is more than happy with his purchases. As an aside, I haven't seen what he bought but OH reckons that their price is similar to non organic cattle with about +/- €50/head.

I looked up the sale results online on LSL and tbh I don't know the difference if they are full organic status or transitioning.

Edit to add link to Kilmallock mart organic sale.

Saw cattle (8) bought by lad I know in last April sale in Drumshanbo and his average price was €2.65. Decent cattle alot of talk and Mart reports that Organic at €4 a kilo seems to be cherry picking. Guy I know bought one heifer at that price but lovely heifer make great cow.

See Clive Bright giving a half day course on mob grazing. Hope I can make it, even though I'm doing it a few years myself. always learn something and meet others interested in it.

More money in the courses than the farming.

You may advertise your own mob grazing course WJ. 😁

Works fine, when you're not using fertiliser, high solids in the sward. Why flies?

Wat exactly is mob graing .Am I right grass is left get a little strong like 2000kg/dm hect ,cattle left walk half it in to ground but when do you move the cattle ,Do you wait until they are bawling just before they break out!!

What sort of clean out do you get the following round of grazing if a butt is left after them or do you just top it to clean off .What is your stocking on the 44 day round with out any fert like on 22 day rotation with 30 units of N like it would carry at least 3.5 L.u. per hectare

So roughly 22 acres is carrying 22 average 300 kg cattle with no nitrogen .That is impressive

There is a fella on the Farming Forum who goes into detail on this type of grazing from NZ. Although his rotations are much longer. Not going back to a paddock for the guts of a year.

Kiwi Pete is his name. Different context I know but worth having a read on his thoughts on this subject.

I've seen it myself with the FIL's place. He has a wee paddock right beside the yard that he used have a sick animal in or a freshly calved cow. Got rid of the sucklers and he left it go from August 2022 to June 2023. I was in clearing the fence line and the grass heads were honestly over 6ft. Looked like pure rubbish from the lane. But then you get into it and the fresh regrowth was over the top of the Wewelington. Only part of the farm actually growing grass during the drought at that time last year. Imagine the whole place like that.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/improving-our-lot-planned-holistic-grazing-for-starters.224870/page-1547#post-9301889

What's a good organic herbicide?

any sign of 2023 balancing payment (Google suggests it was supposed to be spring payment…..and based on the temperature outside infairness that hasn’t arrived either technically).

see payment up on agfood today

Yep - mine came thru 2day

Should open up again this year, if you wanted you could do the required course while you wait and it will answer a lot of questions.

Schemes wise it's a lot easier than the current Acres scheme and pays more. You need to be realistic about the numbers of animals you can keep, or crop outputs. Mine for instance I'm about 2 weeks later than conventional farmers for my silage crop this year. Cattle sales for me I achieved between a 30 and 100% higher price than conventional for my Weanlens this spring, I don't expect that to always be the case as there was a shortage of good organic Weanlens and stores this spring with a noticable amount of new buyers.