Bringing Livestock onto Arable Farms

It could be said that the arable sector suffers most of all at the mercy of fluctuating input costs and unrelenting soil degradation. By re-establishing the rotation to include herbal leys for soil improvement alongside cash crops we can reinvest in the farm's natural capital - the soil - to improve the yield and quantity of arable produce. By far the best way to manage and utilise herbal leys is to reintroduce livestock into this rotation. Using methods such as mob-grazing, livestock can be easily managed and will naturally recycle and deposit nutrients and organic matter back into your soil. 

Grazing herbal leys helps to maintain the diversity of sown species, allowing us to maximise the benefit of the herbal ley whereas cutting regimes can have the effect of simplifying the mixtures due to high levels of competiton. Grazing instead of cutting also reduces the inpact of using heavy machinery such as compaction, particularly during wet periods of the year. 

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Date Posted: 29th January 2018