Key words but what do they mean, how do you do it?

[Okanagan]

I know I'm brand new here and nobody knows me yet (long time lurker), but I wanted to comment on this as I feel it's an important topic.

While there is a lot of environmental buzzwords going around, it's important to consider that things like 'regenerative agriculture' are largely about people in the agriculture and scientific communities learning more info on animal and pasture management in order to optimize how much money you can make. Just hear me out for one second on this one -- if you're turning away from anything that might seem new or buzzword-ish, just consider, as one example... (It's a lot about learning what info is out there, and not being open to new ideas because there can be ways of doing things that are more profitable than the way a lot of us have been doing certain things for a long time now...)

So, just one example of SO many things that are part of 'regenerative agriculture' ... with the way grass grows -- if you let your animals graze the grass right down low, the grass doesn't have the energy to grow back as quickly once you give it a rest with no grazing pressure. But if you are careful, and managing your grazing carefully (which some people are doing anyways without even knowing it's a method considered 'regenerative'; they're just paying attention, whether or not they know the science behind why it works) -- you can take it down to a level where it's still high enough to be in an active stage of growing. So, with a rest, the grass grows back quicker. Obviously a lot of us know this, but it's surprising sometimes how little people do know, despite the knowledge out there, and despite some people having done this for a long time, driving around looking at people's management practices. (I think it's because we're all so damn busy all the time to learn anything new!)

But, of course, if you let it get tall enough to go to seed, it slows down growing, and then the ability of the grass to regrow AND the nutritional value to the animals can be lessened. So, for example, moving your cows once a year, and supplementing a bunch of hay, isn't going to be 'regenerative' because you're basically screwing over your field's ability to produce as much free grass during the growing season as possible.

Basically, the more you can learn and be open to knowing WHY things work the way they do, the more you can do small things that help you spend less money on inputs that cost $$$, and at the same time you're working to build healthier soils and healthier cows and all that.

That's the thing.. it's not just 'people are raising cows and calling it 'regenerative', it's learning a ton about all the MANY, MANY different ways that these things work, and how you can make them work for you to help you make a profit and put health INTO the land instead of just needing to add inputs (fertilizers, herbicides, etc) all the time. It's not some greenwashing bullshit, although there are probably some fresh-out-of-the-city goofballs capitalizing on parts of it -- what it's SUPPOSED to be is people realizing that many aspects of our current farming systems aren't working all that well and creating healthy fields and land without spending as much on inputs. Some of it is stuff we've known a long time -- use certain cover crop species, manage your pastures effectively, etc, -- but some of it comes from a lot of new research and stuff you might not know yet -- so it's kind of a huge topic to cover. They have teams of scientists working on this stuff all the time, we might as well benefit from it!

(To be continued, I write too much)

 

[Okanagan]

(Continued)

Not everybody can do every aspect of regenerative agriculture in every area -- there's way too much to consider. It's just learning as many useful tools as you can to pay as much attention and manage things in a way that works for your fields and your plants and animals (crops AND pasture and so much else)

Just one other small example for some applications -- say you have HUGE fly problems every year; they bother the cows, they're a pain in the ass, etc. One method of dealing with it 'regeneratively' is to cycle chickens out there after the cows have been put through, (often in tight concentrations using whatever methods work for you; tight fencing, 'chicken tractors', etc) during the window where the maggots are starting to get big in the cow patties -- the chickens eat the maggots free, add some extra and different fertilizer to the fields (but you don't want to burn them with chicken poop, of course, since that's hot stuff, so you manage it properly by moving them frequently.) Plus, for a bit of extra time, you also then have chickens you can sell/eat. The thing is, 'regenerative agriculture' is just an extension of what a lot of us are already doing in managing problems on the farm in order to maximize field health, cow health, profit, etc -- and if we're able to use some of these 'regenerative' methods, that a lot of people are looking towards, we can use them in our own fields to make more money and solve some problems that so-called 'conventional farming' with monocultures and tilling and a LOT of expensive inputs might not provide the best solution to. Yeah, you can spray your pasture for weeds. But, you can also manage your grazing and rotations and densities in ways that will help your healthy fields to largely outcompete most of the weeds, and the nice thing is, a lot of this stuff costs less in the end because you're building up your soil to the point where it's healthy enough to make you more money on your grazing system.

It can be hard to find the time when you're farming all the time to look into this stuff, but if you get nothing else out of this post, just think about it with an open mind, at least. If you really look into some of these 'regenerative' methods you might actually find some of them make a heck of a lot of sense from a business standpoint. It's not just one thing, there's a ton out there in all areas.

I've been into farming and raising animals and gardening and composting in its many forms in 'normal, well-known' ways for most of my life, and I only learned about 'regenerative agriculture' a couple years ago. When I started looking deeper, I found there was SO MUCH to know that I basically haven't stopped learning things that help me out almost daily Personally, it blew my mind to realize there's all this knowledge out there that can be applied to our current systems.

Sorry that was so long-winded. It's just.. I really think this can help a lot of people if you're open to at least being open to the idea, instead of seeing 'regenerative agriculture' as some stupid greenwashing label that should be ignored and overlooked. I know it's made a huge difference for me when I started realizing some of these things were useful and existed, even just taking small changes here and there. Like the one I mentioned earlier -- just KNOWING how grass actually grows, and how the right stocking density for your farm combined with the right rotational grazing patterns can allow you to get a lot more grass into your cows in a year than, say, regularily rotating them after a week/month, or when things are grazed down to the ground, etc. That just makes sense, if you have the ability and time to manage your grazing that way -- why would you want to feed hay and feed that costs more money when you can get more free grass out of managing it properly? And so many people here already do some of these things with or without knowing it -- I mean, you've probably at least heard of 'intensive grazing management' whether or not you currently practice it -- but that's just one small aspect of it. (Just one random link for intensive grazing management' here: https://www.beefresearch.ca/research-topic.cfm/grazing-management-48


Long and short of this too-long post: Regenerative agriculture is largely a huge set of knowledge and tools that you can apply to make your farm function better while helping build your soil health and the health of your overall system. For example, why would you want to spend more money on, say, insect control, when you can just plant certain things for way cheaper, year after year, (using knowlege you gain from trying to always learn new things) to keep certain bugs away from your crops, etc?) Would you rather plant a shitty variety of apple that takes a bunch of sprays to function (and, of course, more $$$), or try to plan crops that work with your area and are hardy? Some of this seems obvious, sure, but a lot of people don't think about it about some aspects that they're just used to. Like tilling. If you understand a good amount about soil biology by being open to learning about it, and you have an alternative to tilling that takes less work and time, and uses less costly inputs, would you want to do it, even if you've been doing farming a certain way a long time? That's the point -- having the ability to be open to seeing why things work, and why some things are actually not so good for our soils and our bottom line, year after year. And by getting together with other people and learning from each other, and just through experience and paying attention to the knowledge that's out there, we can make fewer 'costly choices' that don't do much for our farm year after year, and make ourselves more profitable by having systems that work well.

(I'm not demonizing tilling or anything else personally; I think a lot of different farming techniques have a place in the right circumstances, just... if you keep learning and keep an open mind, you might find strategies that work better for your farm.)


Things aren't the same across locations and climates, and it's a lot about paying close attention to your conditions, and adjusting accordingly, using all this free knowledge that's out there. The more we know, the better off we are, yeah?

Anyways, a lot of us do this stuff anyways (learning, paying attention, adjusting, watching the science unfold about what we're doing so we can do it better and more profitably), but I've found SO MUCH useful stuff under the 'regenerative agriculture' label that steers me away from certain 'conventional' farming practicies that I would have never thought twice about several years ago (and hell, it saves me a LOT of money on stuff I don't need!) so I just really felt like I should put this out there in case it convinces a couple of people not to just dismiss anything that looks like it might be 'regenerative' because we're putting up a wall against it.

Saves money, if nothing else!

Cheers!

 

[adammck15]

I'm curious if anyone here farms with tall prairie grasses? I've seen some videos and articles on it with guys saying it's healthier for the ground, the microorganisms, and the cattle. Just. Curious what you all think.
Before anyone judges me, I'm usually just a fly on the wall in these threads and trying to piece together a plan to start a farm/herd in a few years. Not claiming to be an expert of any type! I just have to get out of this commiefornia state first haha that's step one.

 

[Okanagan]

I'm curious if anyone here farms with tall prairie grasses? I've seen some videos and articles on it with guys saying it's healthier for the ground, the microorganisms, and the cattle. Just. Curious what you all think.
Before anyone judges me, I'm usually just a fly on the wall in these threads and trying to piece together a plan to start a farm/herd in a few years. Not claiming to be an expert of any type! I just have to get out of this commiefornia state first haha that's step one.

I know a guy here in southern BC, Canada, that's REALLY into native prairie grass grazing with cattle. I'll check with him and see if he can connect -- he seemed to really be deep into it!

 

[adammck15]

I know a guy here in southern BC, Canada, that's REALLY into native prairie grass grazing with cattle. I'll check with him and see if he can connect -- he seemed to really be deep into it!

That would be awesome! Again, I'm still just kind of coming up with a rough plan, but the little bit I read about it, it sounded very interesting! Thank you!

 

[wbvs58]

I am probably at a bit of an advantage to those who have grown up in rural areas. I grew up in the city and then when I married we have always been living in peri urban areas on a couple of acres with our only livestock being horses. I have always been interested in farm life and worked on a grazing property in western Qld during my Uni vacation and loved it. So when I retired 15 years ago and moved to this place it was like a clean slate, I have read a bit but frankly a lot of the reading was a bum steer, I wasted a lot of money trying to achieve things as the country here is pretty unique and pretty difficult, some things have worked and some things have failed however I believe I have now got things sorted and the way I do things seem to keep my grass growing, my cattle herd continues to improve, my calves weaning weights are 2nd to none and the cows go back into calf mostly by AI or my cleanup bull. This is all by doing what I feel is right and I do think I have the advantage in what I do is not influenced by following traditional ways of doing things from my upbringing.
I do read anything that mentions Sustainable agriculture, Regenerative farming but I find everything I read is very short on detail on how things are done to achieve these titles. So it is back to doing it my way. I do think they are "feel good " titles.

Ken

 

[wbvs58]

I know I'm brand new here and nobody knows me yet (long time lurker), but I wanted to comment on this as I feel it's an important topic.

While there is a lot of environmental buzzwords going around, it's important to consider that things like 'regenerative agriculture' are largely about people in the agriculture and scientific communities learning more info on animal and pasture management in order to optimize how much money you can make. Just hear me out for one second on this one -- if you're turning away from anything that might seem new or buzzword-ish, just consider, as one example... (It's a lot about learning what info is out there, and not being open to new ideas because there can be ways of doing things that are more profitable than the way a lot of us have been doing certain things for a long time now...)

So, just one example of SO many things that are part of 'regenerative agriculture' ... with the way grass grows -- if you let your animals graze the grass right down low, the grass doesn't have the energy to grow back as quickly once you give it a rest with no grazing pressure. But if you are careful, and managing your grazing carefully (which some people are doing anyways without even knowing it's a method considered 'regenerative'; they're just paying attention, whether or not they know the science behind why it works) -- you can take it down to a level where it's still high enough to be in an active stage of growing. So, with a rest, the grass grows back quicker. Obviously a lot of us know this, but it's surprising sometimes how little people do know, despite the knowledge out there, and despite some people having done this for a long time, driving around looking at people's management practices. (I think it's because we're all so damn busy all the time to learn anything new!)

But, of course, if you let it get tall enough to go to seed, it slows down growing, and then the ability of the grass to regrow AND the nutritional value to the animals can be lessened. So, for example, moving your cows once a year, and supplementing a bunch of hay, isn't going to be 'regenerative' because you're basically screwing over your field's ability to produce as much free grass during the growing season as possible.

Basically, the more you can learn and be open to knowing WHY things work the way they do, the more you can do small things that help you spend less money on inputs that cost $$$, and at the same time you're working to build healthier soils and healthier cows and all that.

That's the thing.. it's not just 'people are raising cows and calling it 'regenerative', it's learning a ton about all the MANY, MANY different ways that these things work, and how you can make them work for you to help you make a profit and put health INTO the land instead of just needing to add inputs (fertilizers, herbicides, etc) all the time. It's not some greenwashing bullshit, although there are probably some fresh-out-of-the-city goofballs capitalizing on parts of it -- what it's SUPPOSED to be is people realizing that many aspects of our current farming systems aren't working all that well and creating healthy fields and land without spending as much on inputs. Some of it is stuff we've known a long time -- use certain cover crop species, manage your pastures effectively, etc, -- but some of it comes from a lot of new research and stuff you might not know yet -- so it's kind of a huge topic to cover. They have teams of scientists working on this stuff all the time, we might as well benefit from it!

(To be continued, I write too much)

Welcome Okie, I am pleased you joined in and added to the discussion.

Ken

 

[Rydero]

So what "regenerative" (or whatever you want to call them) practices are working and not working for you and why?

For me a huge difference maker has been developing more and more paddocks. Every year I put some money aside for interior fences and developing water sources. I also stopped running 2 seperate herds and just run one. I'm up to 12-14 paddocks (all my land touches). Grass can be managed more effectively, the calves gain better, not as big a deal when one bull goes down. A huge benefit I didn't anticipate was developing the watering sites. Lots of folks have had to move cattle out of pastures or drill new wells because of drought - I already had good watering sites in place.

I've tried breaking down pastures with electric fence wire on spools and step ins but with a day job it's a big commitment moving cattle that often. While I agree it stretches the pasture I don't see how it would make an exponential difference in my stocking rate and justify the labor. I do like it when I'm grazing seeded crops to maximize how long they last but it really depends what else I need to be doing at the time.

Polycrop mixes (sometimes 20 species+) seem to grow/yield well without adding fertilizer here. I'll be getting some soil test results back very soon that will give an indication if I'm building any fertility/biology in the process.

I read articles all the time that say if you don't spray, add fertilize, do any tillage etc. that soil microbes will supply all the nutrients the plants need. There's countless examples around me where people do nothing with their hayfields for years and years and they all go the same way - less and less production until it hardly/doesn't pay to cut them on a dry year. I call BS on that in this area at least.

 

[anewcomer]

So what "regenerative" (or whatever you want to call them) practices are working and not working for you and why?

For me a huge difference maker has been developing more and more paddocks. Every year I put some money aside for interior fences and developing water sources. I also stopped running 2 seperate herds and just run one. I'm up to 12-14 paddocks (all my land touches). Grass can be managed more effectively, the calves gain better, not as big a deal when one bull goes down. A huge benefit I didn't anticipate was developing the watering sites. Lots of folks have had to move cattle out of pastures or drill new wells because of drought - I already had good watering sites in place.

I've tried breaking down pastures with electric fence wire on spools and step ins but with a day job it's a big commitment moving cattle that often. While I agree it stretches the pasture I don't see how it would make an exponential difference in my stocking rate and justify the labor. I do like it when I'm grazing seeded crops to maximize how long they last but it really depends what else I need to be doing at the time.

Polycrop mixes (sometimes 20 species+) seem to grow/yield well without adding fertilizer here. I'll be getting some soil test results back very soon that will give an indication if I'm building any fertility/biology in the process.

I read articles all the time that say if you don't spray, add fertilize, do any tillage etc. that soil microbes will supply all the nutrients the plants need. There's countless examples around me where people do nothing with their hayfields for years and years and they all go the same way - less and less production until it hardly/doesn't pay to cut them on a dry year. I call BS on that in this area at least.

 

[anewcomer]

Ryder, you have made many good decisions thus far. Glad to hear they are working out. I know you are in the North Country and I am not. But, I would be stunned if you did not see vast improvement from doubling or tripling your paddock numbers with polywire. Time is a factor, but once set up , you're probably only looking at 15-30 minutes a day to roll up old wire and roll out a new one. Keep up the good work!

 

[anewcomer]

Okanagan, thanks for an excellent post to the Board! You saved me a lot of typing!

 

[greybeard]

IMO, you can never go wrong with cross fences and plenty of gates no matter how much acreage you have.
(admittedly, I've never owned thousands of acres but do have a cousin running cows and sheep/goats on 3 sections out West. He is always adding cross fences and drilling wells and erecting windmills. Unless something has changed since 2018, he has never fed hay)

 

[Rydero]

It'd be nice to know where the point of diminishing returns is on crossfencing. Something worthy of study. I imagine it would vary based on the length of growing season and the year/rainfall received.

 

[wbvs58]

Yes dividing up the big paddocks and grazing one mob has made a big difference, the max they graze each paddock would be 4 days in summer and less in spring until the summer grasses really get going. We are having such a good season that they are doing 4 days already and it is still spring. The jewel in the crown here though is the 600 acres of scrub that I have now bought adjacent to my farm, the old tin mine, With our light sandy soil we are only ever 2 weeks away from drought in summer (I think Dun used to often say those words, well they apply to me). If another rotation is going to take my ground cover below what I am comfortable with, no I don't measure it just eyeball it, I dump them into the tin mine where they can always find something to eat albeit low quality and it is easy to supplement if necessary.. My wife who is not very observant said to me a few weeks ago, do I think that the grass is getting better amongst the trees in the tin mine? That is an observation I have noticed for some time, I have been using it for about 12 years now, mostly for the dry cows from weaning until they start to calve, (late March until late June). I think chopping the grass down and trampling a lot of the mulch, old grass and leaf litter in as well as the occaisional bit of manure has had a terrific effect. I am using the tin mine a lot more now even in spring when the cows have young calves on them, I have gained confidence in the calves finding their mothers a way around it.
I have learnt that the fertility of my place is very fragile, nutrients leach out so rapidly. I have dabbled in planting some crops such as millet in summer and oats or rye in winter and done a bit of hay but mostly for getting the ground ready to plant some subtropical pasture but the crops rapidly deplete the fertility, the N is easy to replace but I end up needing P, S,K along with many trace elements which becomes uneconomical. I have done well with the subtropical pastures and they seem to persist but they don't start until late Nov and have to be grazed aggressively or they get too rank. I doubt that I will do any more other than put out a bit of seed here and there such as when I clear for a fence line, I'll just work on improving my native grasses with fertiliser and legumes. We have a low quality grass African Lovegrass that rapidly takes over so having any bare soil makes me nervous.
I have good water both at home and in the tin mine, mostly surface water in dams, we had what some people say was the worst drought since settlement in 2018/19 and I never ran out of water both for the livestock and domestically, never spent a cent on water, not too many people could brag about that. In fact I got through the drought very well with little cutting of numbers of my breeder herd and never having to decimate my grass and got a terrific response when it did rain.
So that is a little of what I do to be "sustainable". I think I have pretty much got it worked out now so I don't have to waste money. The son of the previous owners of 30 years still owns 100 acres up the back that I lease, he reckons the place had never looked like it does now when his parents were running cattle on it. My motto is you always have to have options, ie when things go belly up you need to know what you are going to do.

Ken

 

[Stocker Steve]

And Stocker Steve...yes...POLYWIRE.

They should remake the movie - - The Graduate.

 

[Stocker Steve]

It'd be nice to know where the point of diminishing returns is on crossfencing. Something worthy of study. I imagine it would vary based on the length of growing season and the year/rainfall received.

Depends. The folks who excel at cross fencing and frequent moves usually fall into several camps:

- dairy guys who move their cows every 12 hours
- management guys who have their interns or their kids move cattle every couple hours
- focused guys who only have continuous permanent pastures to maintain

So improving paddocks is a time and density thing, not an area thing.

 

[Okanagan]

Welcome Okie, I am pleased you joined in and added to the discussion.

Ken

Haha, thank you.

 

[Okanagan]

So what "regenerative" (or whatever you want to call them) practices are working and not working for you and why?

For me a huge difference maker has been developing more and more paddocks. Every year I put some money aside for interior fences and developing water sources. I also stopped running 2 seperate herds and just run one. I'm up to 12-14 paddocks (all my land touches). Grass can be managed more effectively, the calves gain better, not as big a deal when one bull goes down. A huge benefit I didn't anticipate was developing the watering sites. Lots of folks have had to move cattle out of pastures or drill new wells because of drought - I already had good watering sites in place.

I've tried breaking down pastures with electric fence wire on spools and step ins but with a day job it's a big commitment moving cattle that often. While I agree it stretches the pasture I don't see how it would make an exponential difference in my stocking rate and justify the labor. I do like it when I'm grazing seeded crops to maximize how long they last but it really depends what else I need to be doing at the time.

Polycrop mixes (sometimes 20 species+) seem to grow/yield well without adding fertilizer here. I'll be getting some soil test results back very soon that will give an indication if I'm building any fertility/biology in the process.

I read articles all the time that say if you don't spray, add fertilize, do any tillage etc. that soil microbes will supply all the nutrients the plants need. There's countless examples around me where people do nothing with their hayfields for years and years and they all go the same way - less and less production until it hardly/doesn't pay to cut them on a dry year. I call BS on that in this area at least.

I'm curious -- do you find you have any issue with compaction on any piece of land where the cattle move from one area to another? (Like through regular gate areas, etc) Do you have gates to every section, or do you have to move them around through the same lanes a lot?

I've heard a lot of good things about multi-species covercrops as well (like 5+ species or so in the same cover crop) - we haven't had a chance to test that one out yet but we're thinking about trying it next season if we can figure out a decent plan.

Would love to hear back on your soil testing when you get results if you wanna share!

 

[Okanagan]

Okanagan, thanks for an excellent post to the Board! You saved me a lot of typing!

Well thanks! I feel like I type too much most of the time but it's hard to slow down when it's stuff I'm interested in! XD Still trying to figure out ways to say the same stuff with fewer words. XD It's a work in progress.

 

[Rydero]

I'm curious -- do you find you have any issue with compaction on any piece of land where the cattle move from one area to another? (Like through regular gate areas, etc) Do you have gates to every section, or do you have to move them around through the same lanes a lot?

I've heard a lot of good things about multi-species covercrops as well (like 5+ species or so in the same cover crop) - we haven't had a chance to test that one out yet but we're thinking about trying it next season if we can figure out a decent plan.

Would love to hear back on your soil testing when you get results if you wanna share!

There's a few problem areas. Mainly where I travel to check water systems and a few pinch points. When I get a well drilled it's in a central area with gates going out in 3-4 directions so the cattle aren't always traveling the same way. I try to manage it but we have to do what we have to do too.