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[vfem]

Now, I'm confused, so here's a good place to ask. There are farms not allowed to use animal by-products to fertilize due to the USDA statements on contaimination. Is this federal or State to State?

 

[Organics North]

I hear what you are saying Katy. Their is still a fair amount of land in resting CRP in Wisconsin.

Vfem,
I do not understand? I am not familiar with that?.... Animal byproducts? As in manure? Things like blood meal and bone meal are great for the garden but to costly for large scale.

ON

 

[Frosty]

Would it possible to use livestock as part of the rotation? Instead of cattle, pigs, and poultry kept in feedlots and cramped in buildings, maybe rotate them through? Would it be possible to then sell the meat for a bit higher of a price and advertise that it was pasture raised humanely? I live in the grain belt, which is why I said that it's labor intensive and not always readily available...

On the far side of my pasture there is a crop field and every fall after the crop comes out there are cattle moved in. I'll have to watch and see if he uses anhydrous...

 

[Organics North]

I would suspect so.
Yes the practice of putting cattle in a harvested field is common. If I recall Katy does this but, her farm is a bit of a rarity in the grain belt. Most folks only grow grain and have no livestock. Regardless cattle on the field in not enough nutrient in it self. Still need to fertilize.

Pretty simple actually unless 100% of the crop to feeding livestock that 100% of the manure goes on the field, you are taking from the land what needs to be replaced. Heck even by taking the cattle and selling them and not composting the remains and spreading them on the field you are taking from it....

(I am not suggesting one does that, just making the point.) We humans are accustomed to taking more than we put back... We do it with logging, farming, mining and on and on...

ON

 

[Katy]

Quote:
Good luck finding a large number of people willing to do what you suggested. I don't think trying it on a large scale would work very well. Just getting in to the position to do it a farmer would have to have such a large cash outlay I would think most would find it cost prohibitive.

Fencing would be an issue.

Do the animals have a water source? Would drilling a well be needed or would you have to haul water?

Do you even have the animals to do it with?

Where are you going to put the livestock and what are you going to feed tham during the winter when grazing may not be available?

Is there shelter or at least a windbreak available to them if they are on pasture year round?

If you are rotating acres into grass it takes probably 2-3 years for the grass to be able to handle animals grazing on it on a consistant basis.

We pasture our cows on our corn and bean stalks when we bring them home in the fall, but that only feeds them for about 2 months....3 if we're lucky.

Livestock are a 365/24/7 job ..... a lot of people aren't willing to invest the time or money into them.

 

[vfem]

I've been told that cow /horse manures were not allowed to be used in production farming for fertilizing. Now where that is? I don't know.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
I've never heard that. Even big hog and poultry operations will use what they pump out of their waste lagoons as liquid fertilizer spreading it on with what we call a "honey wagon".

You can't get anymore "organic" than using manure as fertilizer.

 

[vfem]

Nevermind, I think I found what I was thinking. It was a proposed ban in Iowa, they're tried to pass it a few time because they believed it was the animal waste side of fertilizer getting into the Mississippi river from wash. I knew I kept hearing it, and was thinking its not your basic manure, its the chemical fertilizers!

Anyways, family in Iowa, they tell me stuff going on there now and then... it sticks in my head, and then I forget what and where I heard something from. Good thing I looked it up!

 

[Frosty]

Yeah, I thought about it later and realized that you would also need a lot of livestock which would drive the prices down.

I suspect the guy in the next field also feeds his cattle out there, every time he goes out with a pick-up the herd chases the truck. I have seen another neighbor spreading his horse manure in another section of the guys field which is good because the horse guy used to pile it up and burn it. Fooey... it sounded good in my mind last night!

 

[tazcat70]

I wanted to ask anout the soy in products.

What type of tuna were you looking at? I buy tuna packed in water and it does not have soy. But I am sure that the soy you are seeing is from oils. Soybean oil is used in lots of products.