"Watch This Before Buying Cows"
Watch This Before Buying Cows
- Thread starter SoilBuilder
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Ebenezer
Well-known member
Buy low, sell high. Saves watching videos.
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i like that cliché too
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How To Be Profitable With Beef Cattle - Low Cost Inputs
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Slash Your Expenses And Boost Your Pasture With Diy Tree Growth For Silvopasture
kenny thomas
Well-known member
This guy has decent ideas but so few calves on that many acres is not enough.
Clinchvalley86 should make a video. When he or I get grass that short we will consider were out of grass.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
Notice he talks about traveling and giving talks. And selling trees. Nobody, absolutely nobody would plant Locust or especially Honey Locust. And nothing about cattle.
StrojanHerefords
Well-known member
I would take the time to share my well deserved deep hatred of planting trees but I fear that soil builder will take down legitimate challenges to his ideas.
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Rising above hate today, i enjoy the trees in my pasture, as do my livestock, my bahia grass, and my reduced feed bill. YMMV.
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Honey locust is definitely not for the faint of heart. i have seen many stories of thorns puncturing boots and tires. i planted reduced-thorn/no-thorn varieties derived from the Hershey honey locust. reduced input costs in the cold season from Hershey seed pods vs a thinner wallet.
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Silvopasture won't help conservation if it doesn't help farm bottom lines - Trees For Graziers
I’ve been very encouraged lately to see more and more conservation groups gain interest in silvopasture (in this case, specifically planting trees into pastures) as a powerful conservation tool. These include groups concerned with climate change and carbon sequestration, groups working towards...
treesforgraziers.com
"...Farmers will not adopt silvopasture if it does not make sense for them. Planting any old tree in a pasture might suffice for conservation purposes and carbon sequestration, but for the tree to earn its keep on that farm it will need to make significant contributions towards the farm bottom line, with minimal downside or risk. My concern is that as more groups support silvopasture from a conservation angle, but without the nuanced understanding of the needs of farmers, important corners will be cut in favor of cost savings, resulting in low quality trees being used. If those trees ultimately do not support the bottom line of the farm or end up causing more headaches than they are worth, they will be removed and the practice as a whole will get a black eye.
Let's take honey locusts for example. Honey locust is one of the most widely applicable trees for silvo, but can have one very significant yet preventable downside: thorns. Yes, it is undoubtedly cheaper to cost-share seedling trees without giving thought towards the long-term consequences. We can get a photo-op and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, but, if five years down the road the farmer is left with a bunch of thorny trees (half of which are males and do not yield pods). they might justifiably decide to cut the trees down rather than risk the trees becoming a nuisance.
The best honey locust trees for silvopasture are going to be all female, completely thornless, and high yielding with big, sweet, juicy pods. Those are not trees that you're going to get through cheap seedlings from off the shelf. Such trees need to be clonally-propagated from carefully selected stock. In the long term, these trees will return more than the initial higher investment, but they will cost more to establish. This might put the interests of farmers at odds with the interests of conservation groups, since the cost of a generic seedling is going to be significantly lower than the cost of a clonally-propagated, high-quality tree, yet the conservation benefits will be the same either way. Because of this, a conservation group bringing funding to a project might not see the motivation for planting improved tree stock. Yet when we reflect for a minute, it becomes clear that if the trees do not contribute to the bottom line of the farm (or worse, cause significant management challenges), those trees will not be on the farm long enough to provide the promised conservation benefits we set out to achieve. "
Ky hills
Well-known member
I'll definitely not be planting any kind of locust trees ever, we have plenty of naturally occurring locust trees without planting the darn things. They cause more problem than they are worth in my opinion. Short lived trees that come break off and come down on fences.
I'm so far behind cleaning up fallen trees I'll never catch up. The locust wood is good to burn if anybody heats or supplements with wood.
Wondering when we'll see a video about the benefits of bush honeysuckle?
I'm so far behind cleaning up fallen trees I'll never catch up. The locust wood is good to burn if anybody heats or supplements with wood.
Wondering when we'll see a video about the benefits of bush honeysuckle?
Dave
Well-known member
Try to plant trees here would be a total waste of time and money. The trees would all die. The only trees that grow here are Junipers Those water consuming suckers are a weed and get killed by numerous methods. Eradicating them is expensive. Having them in your pasture is more expensive.
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i hear you on the fallen trees, i have had several water oak trees and pine trees from the neighboring properties fall on my fencelines.
We had a row in the backyard beside the pasture fence. I remember us kids thought those pods were candy. We'd break them open and get the goo out and eat it. Lots of people would cut locust for fence posts. Never thought of them as short-lived though. Those trees are still alive at my mom's house. I am 68 and these were huge mature trees back then. There are some down on the Kudzu place, and Corrientes LOVE those pods as much as us kids did!
Ky hills
Well-known member
Here we consider them short lived. They grow fast and get big but start to rot seems like from the inside out.
From what I just read said they can live around 90 years but start degrading at about 40 years which we s pretty consistent with what we see here. Once they start rotting wind takes big limbs and trees down. Pretty much ever strong wind we have we get trees down.
I don't know what species of locust we have here. I think there are probably different kinds or varieties. The fence post people cut out of them get hard as iron. Almost like petrified wood. Can't hardly drive a staple in once they get completely cured out. These have big, purple pods...what does y'all's look like?
Ky hills
Well-known member
Ours are black locust but every body just calls them locusts. They can be used for posts and yes they get so hard you can't get a steeple in but seems like the posts rot out on the inside pretty bad too.
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Curious if there are any here who believe the presence of shade trees irrespective of their fodder potential on their pastures provides an overall benefit to their operation in terms of reducing heat stress? i have seen references to a few research studies showing heat stress negatively impacts fertility rates and reduces lactation of cows and that of their daughters and granddaughters.
