Grazing Ewes on Cover Crops

Ewes Grazing Cover Crops

Well the rams have really been doing their stuff in the last 4 weeks with almost all of the ewes now hopefully pregnant.  In the first week over 600 ewes were mated, as indicated by the chalk dye that the rams leave of the rumps of the ewes during mating.  The colour is changed every week so we have an idea of which ewes are likely to be lambing and when. The gestation period is about 5 months so we're on for a mid April lambing, which next year will be outside for the majority of the flock for the first time.

At the moment all of the ewes are out grazing the cover crops on the arable fields.  The cover crops are a mixture of forage rye and vetch or black oats and vetch with a few extra goodies thrown in for good measure.  These extras include phacelia, buckwheat and berseem clover.

The hard spell of weather recently, although it didn't last very long, has certainly knocked the cover crops down but it hasn't killed them and we are getting some regrowth on the rye fields.  This will hopefully continue over the winter and into the spring to enable another grazing before the ewes lamb and the fields are planted with spring cropping. The field below is due to be planted with Soya Beans in late April so we should get a second grazing before then.

Cover Crop After Ewe Grazing

The ewes are doing a great job of eating the majority of the green material. But it's not just the cover crops, volunteer wheat and some black grass as well, whilst trampling some of the material into the soil to feed the microbes and worms. This is a great news as the field/soil surface looks well protected from the heavy winter rainfall that we must surely get at some point.  We'll have to watch it on the heavy land fields so that we don't get too much surface compaction if it gets too wet, but we are not there yet.  The soil has restructured itself  beautifully on the clay soil part of the farm enough to carry stock, but it has taken 3-5 years of no till to reach this point. There is still a long way to go until the spring so we'll have to see how things progress.

Buckwheat Cover Crop

Buckwheat Emerging After Peas

We tried a single species cover crop this year in a very quick slot after the hand picked peas up on the hill on those fields that we harvested early enough.  The Buckwheat was planted right behind the pea pickers and rapidly covered the  ground.  The idea was for these roots to start to undo some of the damage to the soil caused by the heavy traffic (tractors and trailers) during the harvest.  The crop grew for 8 weeks and was really flowering well (below top left), almost too well and we are finding a few seedlings in the following wheat crop, which isn't causing me too many alarms.  Buckwheat will die when temperatures get to below 5 degrees. The bottom picture shows the Cross Slot opener (seed placement bit) actually planting the seeds and the third picture (top right) shows what the field looked like after the drill had passed over the field.

Cross Slot Drilling into Buckwheat Covercrop

It certainly looks very different to a conventional field, without the green lines on a brown background but to me this is how mother nature plants her seed, no cultivation just the seeds working into the ground.  It really is a case of retraining the mind to actually appreciate what is happening in the field.   The residue of the peas and the buckwheat is spread on the soil surface with the seedlings making their way up through to the light.  By next harvest all of that residue will have been returned to the soil by the worms and the weather, recycling the nutrients locked up within it.  Where the system really benefits the wider environment in in terms of carbon capture.  Without cultivating the soil the carbon retained within it, in the form of organic matter, stays in the soil, it is not oxidised and released to the atmosphere. So the soil is not being depleted and the dead plant material is slowly being turned into organic matter and then humus.  But it will take a long time!    

Wheat Emerging through Buckwheat Covercrop

Wheat after cover crops have all emerged really well this year which is always a great relief!

Looking Underground for Long Term Solutions

I had a really nice comment, via a good friend, from a local retired farmer. "Bredon Hill is looking very green".  Now I am not sure it was meant as a complement or a statement but I shall take it as the former as that is what we are trying to achieve.  We need to cover up, indeed don't farm naked, to protector our biggest and most valuable asset, our soil.

Buckwheat Companion Crop with Oilseed Rape

We have had a really super summer and autumn, after the damp and cloudy June, we've had good sunlight, warm temperatures and periodic rain events.  It reminds me of the summers I can remember growing up as a child, endless days of sunshine.  Harvest ran like a dream, our new header performing very well and crops nice and dry, although the yields were disappointing they were on par with our neighbours, which with a completely new system is very encouraging indeed.

The cover crops we have planted have all grown very well indeed and are now producing many environmental benefits.  The most obvious to see is the huge array of flowers producing pollen and nectar for insects to feed on.  During the sunny afternoons these fields are filled with bees.  There is so much insect feed available that a local bee keeper has brought 6 hives down for his bees to feed on the flowering buckwheat.

Buckwheat Root, Root Hairs and Mycorrhizal Fungi

There is also a lot going on underground that we are unable to see, unable to really understand, but we are starting to explore the dark world of the plant and fungal interaction.  The fact that we have plants growing in our soils means that they are capturing every bit of sunshine and turning it into organic matter.  They are growing roots, root hairs, leaves, stems and even fruit.  All of this is capturing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it up in the soil.  The roots are pushing into the soil, helping to repair soil structure so that when we get heavy rains it will infiltrate the soil rather than run off.  The leaves will intercept rain droplets and stop them compacting the soil surface.  The roots are feeding the fungal and bacterial populations in the soil, helping to build a web of different colonies able to scavenge for nutrients as the plants need them.  As these populations grow, they excrete waste which the plants can use.  The waste has a high level of nitrogen in it, which is a key nutrient for our crops, so we can in time use less natural resources in the form of fertiliser.

Cross Slot Drill Planting Wheat into Buckwheat Covercrop

One of the key aspects of making this system work is by having a planting machine (drill) that can cut through these heavy crop and cover crop residues to get he seeds into the soil with good seed placement.  The fact that we can also add starter fertiliser and any slug control products at the same time makes this a very efficient system.  Its better for the environment, better for our productivity and our profitability.  In an uncertain; post Brexit world, where farm support will be reduced, reducing costs and reliance on purchased inputs will be essential to arable farming survival but I believe we are developing a system that will enable us to achieve this.