Thanks for the ground breaking trial Colin. Its really important to demonstrate that multispecies crops are actually beneficial from a financial point of view as well as for soil health to help encourage more farmers to get away from the traditional monocultures they are used to growing.
I don't see anything ground breaking here. Sheep prefer broadleaves to start with and there's nearly double the pounds of seed per acre on the higher gain paddock. The quality and quantity of food is obviously going to be far better on the multispecies crop. I guess it's good to have trial data but it should have been a pretty predictable outcome.
Double the lbs of seed. No, not even close. It was an additional 5 kg per hectare(10% more seed). And in order to State the obvious for academics not on the land, it was necessary to set up this trail and collect data.
@@TS-vr9of Sorry, I was referring to plant population (seeds per acre) not the actual pounds per acre of seed. I just didn't word it as well as I should have. It's way more than double, I was being conservative. Let me reword the OP. There was a far higher plant population on the mixed species paddock than the pure stand barley paddock. I'm not going to break it down and convert it all between pounds per acre and kg/ha.
@@Digger927 Ya, your right about the per acre plant population. the turnips and forage brassica's are in the 100's of thousands of seeds per pound so the population was probably much higher. Either way the diversity paid for itself. 40% additional seed cost, but an additional 100% base lamb production gain.
@@TS-vr9of Yep, no doubting the results. Barley alone is fairly low nutrition compared to a mix like that with a good ratio of legumes and brassica. The protein content alone in the mix was bound to give vastly improved performance. I'm planning on doing some pasture cropping this fall which is how I found and started following Colin. If this damned Covid don't get me first...
Thanks for the ground breaking trial Colin. Its really important to demonstrate that multispecies crops are actually beneficial from a financial point of view as well as for soil health to help encourage more farmers to get away from the traditional monocultures they are used to growing.
Sounds like you got ripped off on the cover crop costs for prices that were at 2 years ago.😔
It is very interesting, but the math doesn't add up on the profits.
I don't see anything ground breaking here. Sheep prefer broadleaves to start with and there's nearly double the pounds of seed per acre on the higher gain paddock. The quality and quantity of food is obviously going to be far better on the multispecies crop. I guess it's good to have trial data but it should have been a pretty predictable outcome.
Double the lbs of seed. No, not even close. It was an additional 5 kg per hectare(10% more seed). And in order to State the obvious for academics not on the land, it was necessary to set up this trail and collect data.
@@TS-vr9of Sorry, I was referring to plant population (seeds per acre) not the actual pounds per acre of seed. I just didn't word it as well as I should have. It's way more than double, I was being conservative. Let me reword the OP. There was a far higher plant population on the mixed species paddock than the pure stand barley paddock. I'm not going to break it down and convert it all between pounds per acre and kg/ha.
@@Digger927 Ya, your right about the per acre plant population. the turnips and forage brassica's are in the 100's of thousands of seeds per pound so the population was probably much higher. Either way the diversity paid for itself. 40% additional seed cost, but an additional 100% base lamb production gain.
@@TS-vr9of Yep, no doubting the results. Barley alone is fairly low nutrition compared to a mix like that with a good ratio of legumes and brassica. The protein content alone in the mix was bound to give vastly improved performance. I'm planning on doing some pasture cropping this fall which is how I found and started following Colin. If this damned Covid don't get me first...
Great presentation
Thanks guys
Thanks thomas!
Great video. I'd love to see more trails like this.