[compost_tea] pasture experiment

From: <msnow_at_valley.net>
Date: 01 Aug 2004 20:43:54 EDT
pardon the repeat post.

Thank you for your response, Bob.  I am farming here on an interim basis (even farmers get Sabbatical here), but a three year test may be feasible with some interest from permanent faculty.  Of course, I would like to see results next spring and summer, but hey, can't rush science.  Why three years, not less or more?

In response to Kirk's question, we are not certified organic, but meet those requirements and have no intention of doing otherwise (the head farmer is a NOFA certifier).  We raise a dozen or so beef and upwards of fifty sheep on 250-300 acres, part wooded, as well as poultry, pigs, and vegetables..  This is a New England hill farm, and comes with the goods and bads of this natural history.

>If you choose to  use the Polyester as marker tape I will be happy to send you 600 feet of the tape about 4 inches wide. NC  How to hold the tape down?  >My best idea so far is with nice smooth round wet adhesive cow pies. As I recall they last about 4 years and would be compatible with the natural setting.  >Can you get the cows to put them on the lines?   Grin  Bob

I will give the polyester a test run.  We have enough here - thank you for the offer!  And as for holding it down, well, I'll ask, but I'm not going to be the one to hold it in place for them.

I've included the original email again in the hope for more feedback.  I appreciate Elaine's recent comments on b:f ratios and grasslands, but am still curious about "fixing" our pastures - Adding CT to "improve" our pastures, What would that look like - just grass and legume?  By improving the soil would we be losing deep rooting annual and perennial herbs (preparing, as I understand it, NE soil to return to forest) - I suppose the question might also look like this: is a pasture with these herbs (chicory, hawkweed, blackeyed susan, yarrow, dandilion, buttercup, wild madder and northern bedstraw, stichwort, some wild parsnip, some wild strawberry, selfheal, plantain) less bacterially dominated than the "classic" grassland?  What am I missing here, any reference suggestions?

>A few people you may want to ask help from would be Betsy Ross at betsy_at_rossfarm.com ,  Paul Sachs at ps@norganics.com  and Elaine Ingham at  >soilfoodweb inc. 


________________________________________
msnow_at_valley.net wrote:
Hello all. I've been a lurker on this list for about eight months or so, and have learned a lot from all the back and forths - thank you for letting me listen in without contributing.

I would like to set up a tea experiment here on our farm and would appreciate your comments and suggestions for this test. This is my first year at high school program in the Northeast, and my first living with livestock; we raise most of the food we consume here - veggies and meat mostly (syrup, of course). We rotationally graze beef and sheep as the season allows, and take hay for the winter. After cutting, the beef and lamb do graze the hayfields. The hay is used as feed and bedding, which is then composted and has been added to the garden until a few years ago. So, other than certain fields which get pastured poultry in the summer and fall, and the scattered poop of late season grazin! g, the valuables of the hayfields have been taken and not replaced.

We now have a composting program and spread it on the hayfields at a rate of about the whole farm every three years (so far). I'd like to test the use of compost tea for pasture improvement.

My initial thoughts are:
10' x 10' plots, randomly arranged in three locations:
-Garden Hill, which is a decent pasture and normally gets consistent growth.
-A long pasture which is droughty at the top and wet at the bottom (I anticipate testing at the middle section)
-A long hay field adjacent to the long pasture. These are lower quality fields.

Some plots would get compost, and some would not. A control plot (or two?) will receive nothing. Within the groups of compost/not compost, 1)tea will not be applied
2)tea will be applied once (in the fall, before frost?)
3)tea will be applied weekly until frost (or snow? or freezing?), or applied after each grazing.
4)possibly, receive a lacto! bacillus culture, or possibly em
5)possibly, receive an amendment of rock dust

Visual evaluations would be made throughout the fall, and in the spring.

I anticipate using a Biti-Bobulator, and the use of a YSI DO2meter. Any recipe suggestions?
As these are small plots, can I use too much as a soil drench?
Have you any suggestions for marking the plots? We would like to observe the grazing patterns of the cows on the plots - how to mark them through rain and winter snow, while allowing grazing access?

Am I forgetting any important questions?

Ah, I might add there are many herbs in our pastures, which we generally feel to be advantageous to the health of our cows. From what I've read, a grasses want to be more bacterial. But we are not interested in ELIMINATING herbs (should we be?). As these herbs are digging for nutrition and preparing for successional vegetation, what do they want, something slightly more fungal?

Many thanks,

Mike Snow

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Received on Sun Aug 01 2004 - 22:08:42 EDT

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