Worried about what you are "really" eating? Have peace of mind with pasture grazed meats.
Pasture crop fall 2021
We are in year two of the CCTA-Farms Advancing Regenerative Management Systems project. For our experience in year 1, refer to these two posts:
Rain makes you look smart
The cover crops (pasture crop) planted in perennial grass pasture in 2020 looked great with 2 inches of rain shortly after planting. Looking back at the 2020 blog post, one can easily row emerged seedlings. In 2021, our farm had a dry summer and we seeded the pasture crop on September 11th. The farm did not receive a significant rainfall until the end of October! We cannot “row” the emerging seedlings in 2021 as we could in 2020, but on closer look, we are finding some seedlings.
When looking across the seeded area, the peas have displayed the most growth. Rye/triticale is difficult to find but we hope that these annual cool-season grass seeds have germinated and we will see good growth in the spring. Soil moisture is fairly good in our opinion, well into December. Overall we have experienced a very warm fall with our first killing frost much later than normal.
Another difference between the 2020 and 2021 seeding was seed treatment. In 2020 we sprayed worm juice (vermicompost) on the seed before planting. In 2021, the seed received a compost tea treatment. Next year we will attempt to treat some seeds with vermicompost and some with compost tea as a side-by-side check.
Seeding into reeds canary grass
Several years ago we described using animal impact to shift plant composition in a solid stand of reeds canary grass (July 2015 post and November 2016 post). We have been surprised how well the seeded cover crops have sprouted and grown within an area of reeds canary grass. The grazing impact during the growing season to facilitate planting has probably helped to allow the seeded covers to take hold. The persistence and growth of hairy vetch within the reeds canary grass has been the most impressive.
We are thankful for the support of CCTA to carry out these investigations on our farm and look forward to our final year of the project in 2022. With that, we wish you a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!
