Light Land

Much better Paul

Do you ever mow the grass in the morning then put the milkers in the paddock that night so they eat less water in the grass/make abit more milk Julian?

MoP going down the spout Ol with building any trace elements up before hand. No N at last leaf but YaraVita MagFlo goes in the tank along with the herbicide spray as a foliar feed.

Very interesting Alex.

If you don't mind.....

What were and when for the N and P ?

Reading these English storys/layouts you seem to be big users of MOP are you really short of K?

You don't have issues with salt loading putting that down with the drill?

Whats the biggest limiting factor to yield for maize there?  

What fert are you English men putting on for maize Alex? Will you knife in any N at last leaf?

Interesting Alex. Been a good few years since I destoned with a cs150, but we were using it to take spuds out of the soil from the year before to plant carrots again not to grind up the soil or remove stones.

The apple wasn't really compared with an apple hey Alex?

How many ha's will a de stoner handle each day?

A nice model Paul, like all Replicagri Agrisem tools. Very strange to see discs AFTER a cage roller. You would expect it the other way round. I wonder why they did that. I guess the roller is there purely for depth control and the disc's leave it nice and fluffy? I can't see this working in the UK under wet conditions. Discs need to be in front of the tines in order to aid thrash flow. Any thoughts?

 

http://savasukis.lt/uploaded/images/Katalogas/Zemes%20Ukio%20Technika/GiluminiaiSkutikai/AGRISEM/Agrisem15.jpg

Cage roller will fill up with wet compaction clods and need unblocking all the time in tacky conditions I think. The disc's only being one row wont do much of job any way. A simple packer like the he-va sub-tiller has would of done the job really.

At home we rear bull beef which are a mix of pure bred beef animals from our suckler cows and Belgian/British Blue x holstein bulls. They are left entire and fed a ration of barley/protein pellets and silage in housing all year. We aim to finish them at 13-15 months of age and around 600-700kg. All sold through a market as we send around 3 per week, buyers are mostly butchers which buy the premium end of the market. Typically we would spend no more than roughly 5 hours a week on around 70 head of fattening bulls.

 

Pro's of the system are:

It uses hardly any extra machinery than we have for the other enterprises on the farm, the exception being an auger bucket for feeding the barley.

Converting straw from the arable side into muck which is spread back on the arable fields, adding organic matter and nutrients.

Improves cash flow as it provides an income when all the grain has been sold etc.

All the cattle buildings are on farm from when we ran a dairy herd so very little alteration was needed for beef.

The social aspect of markets/selling offers a good chance to catch up on news/put the world to rights/gossip.

 

We've found that it leaves a decent profit margin and uses the machinery for a larger proportion of the year when otherwise it would be sat around depreciating.

 

Other ways of fattening beef are to castrate bulls and feed them a largely forage based diet and graze over summer finishing them at any age up to 30 months. It is possible to out winter cattle although very few sites are suitable and we are subjected to greater regulations regarding pollution which makes outwintering a less viable option.

Always interesting Pat.

Grass/kale feed takes about 18-24 months here. Unless your up above our place getting into the hills/low input beef cattle have sort of left the area as they aren't worth growing as they can't pay for the water it takes to grow the amount of grass them big buffalo's eat. 

Beef cattle inside like that must have really high cost structures hey Paul, lot of kit and work the cattle must fund+ profit? 

We've all got story's of this or that tractor/combine brands particular series being no good. 

Since when has your name started with the leter J   

must be time for an update Mark.

Your getting better on your dio's Julian, credit were it's due. Were has the Puma gone from the yard?

Shouldn't be a lot more Paul, the extra legs are to bring up smaller lumps and leave a channel down for the roots as Smithy says.

Not sure on current spot price mate but futures closed one week ago at ex farm £133/t so optimistic, im sure its a different story by now which such volatility in this market.

Is that feed wheat Alex? that's low all the same.

Grain shed looks good Alex, Whats the price of wheat there now?

Why not put liquid fert on Alex to keep the show on the road, a cookie is better than missing dinner.

Good movies Alex,Interesting Andrew Tetlow saying his old combine (that's not really old) needed cleaning down each day. 

I thought that Grimme gizomo is for going after the planter to pull more soil over the spuds have I got it wrong? 

Interesting Alex,thanks for the reply. 

Thinking out loud.... use 1/2 width ctf for the the years in grass? easier to handle kit wise and grass stands up to traffic better than other crops and after the grass is out keep using the old full width ctf lines for straw crops. The soil would soon pop up again with the grass roots and no traffic going over it may also be a chance to get lime on before a return to straw crops with it being such a pig to spread. If energy crops make more money the blip in the perfect ctf system by a few years in grass/energy would no doubt make more money than the cereal crops growing on the best conditions. Just what popped into my head

Thanks for the updates there julian. It dose take effort to keep a layout going I enjoy looking in on whats happening with Orchard Farm,thanks.

I would of thought the chance to grow different crops on the arable land would help with the 4 crop rule you have now days plus the benefits of abit of bio diversity about the place Alex?? 2 years in grass would help the soil more than a load of muck or do you have AD crops just around the plant?

AD crops like maize make more money than barley as rule?

What grasses do AD plants like?

Thats this weeks Q & A     

The CTF baby is born, I do admire your passion for layouts.   

Make some models Gavin! been to long since you showed us your talent. 

Your house is really something Sean, very nice layout.

yep true, takes time alright on your own.

Drilling a few headlands this week before the rain on the weekend.