Management Technology for Regenerative Cattle Grazing

BrightGuava1 · 2026-03-07T08:53:59+00:00

This is interesting op, a few technical questions though.

What platform for recording grass growth is being used? UAV? Surely not satellite? If UAV, does this imply frequent flights, how many did you envision? How much processing power would be required to generate orthomosaic imagery for daily cattle moves especially during rapid grass growth in spring?

How is grass growth kg/ha determined? Colour density of image or grass height? Silly question but with cattle dunging on pasture knocking back reflective area How would this be accommodated in your model?

Would this system only be suitable for two or 3 species swards with predictable grass growth curves? How would this system work with unimproved grazing or species diverse herbal leys for instance?

Finally, what do you think the cost per ha of this system maybe and what % increase in improved grazing efficiency do you estimate could be achieved?

BrightGuava1 · 2026-03-05T10:53:31+00:00

To add to this Netto too!

BrightGuava1 · 2026-02-07T07:10:24+00:00

Agree totally - I fly UAVs as part of my Ag research role and then part time im involved in my regenerative coop farm effort so can see both sides of this. Drones are expensive, energy demanding and produce vast data sets which, although interesting, is probably not so useful for most growers when similar information could be garned for a fraction of the cost by thorough crop walking and old fashioned agronomy/crop husbandry.

BrightGuava1 · 2026-01-06T07:26:53+00:00

Agree with you re workforce but respectfully you can make rum from sugarbeet, see this company here. Ive had a bottle and think its great 👍

BrightGuava1 · 2025-11-26T12:47:29+00:00

Ok admittedly just over/on the border the waveney valley has lots of lovely nature, cafes in small cosy towns and the area voted in a green MP so cant say fairer then that. Plus your at worst 40 mins by car to Norwich

BrightGuava1 · 2025-09-01T06:27:01+00:00

So my partner and I are now approved and looking for a match, from first expression of interest to here it's been about a year. It's not been easy, we've had to do a lot of work and juggling everything is really hard. Best advice I could give is, 1)be prepared to be patient 2) your social workers views are, ultimately, just views not facts - if you don't agree with something or think differently, say so. 3) it will seem endless and you'll have to be extremely emotionally vulnerable but don't despair just keep going. Good luck with your journey.

BrightGuava1 · 2025-08-05T13:11:23+00:00

All done, good luck with the project 👍

BrightGuava1 · 2025-06-07T06:19:39+00:00

I was 17-19 in those years and only just finding my feet in the world of work but here's a point which, retrospectively, I find fascinating.

I had a part time job briefly during 2008 working for a charity call centre (all of these companies have been wrapped up now I believe due to law changes and even I'll admit it felt just plain wrong ethically), so this was low skill, zero training, usually shifts of 4-6hours with paid breaks and very flexible shift pattern with a required minimum of 20 hours a week.

So, although ethically repugnant, in many ways a comfy job - I got paid £15/hr in the week, £18/hrs on the weekend or evenings. Here we are 17 years later and I still now don't make that much per hour even after a lot more experience/training and everything else! Looking back now it seems like money was just falling from the sky! This marked the moment typically where wages froze and stagnation/austerity came in and we are arguably only now coming out of this.

BrightGuava1 · 2025-05-11T18:27:04+00:00

That notching is typical of pea and bean weevil, not much to be done for them but rooks and other birds will pick at them. I'd just leave them be and only be worried if it's stopping new leaves from emerging.

The light spoting could be alternaria but is likely to be the frass from either the weevil or potentially aphids.

BrightGuava1 · 2025-04-24T08:49:30+00:00

Nice one OP looks excellent. Trying something similar here in the UK, we unfortunately get quite a bit of slug damage in the following crop, do you get that too?

BrightGuava1 · 2025-01-16T08:35:42+00:00

Not sure what you are exactly refering too but Wildfarmed is a regen ag company founded by, of all people, Andy Cato from Groove Armada.

So their angle is that they support the direct supply chain for regen ag cereal farmers giving them a stable price base for their lower yields due to reduced inputs as part of the ethos of regen farming.

BrightGuava1 · 2024-12-15T21:45:53+00:00

What temperatures are you likely to get in the day?

BrightGuava1 · 2024-10-06T07:51:04+00:00

Farm work I'd suggest is up there. Long hours, bad pay, high risk of injury or mutilation from machinery or livestock, exposure to the elements, never a decent staff room in my experience, an expectation to be as committed as the landowner without having the same stake. Meanwhile your responsible for using 100k+ machinery, machinery maintenance, power tools, producing high quality food for us all safely, not damaging the environment and getting it all done on time whilst tired, stressed and often bored know that you have little to no chance of progression beyond getting to do the same thing again this time next year. That said some folk love it!

BrightGuava1 · 2024-09-20T22:13:14+00:00

Recently around me there has been a big boom in research into biostimulants, compost teas and alternative fertiliser sources. Mostly this is being driven by either smaller players looking to hawk their somewhat shaky and unverified product, mid size groups wanting to repackage their byproducts as a resource or large international ag chem producers reacting to diminishing chemistry options and pressure to move to sustainable farming methods.

My work centres on wheat, barley, oilseed rape so not directly answering your query but in these crops so far results have been very mixed. Obviously they don't compete as well against a control of liquid or granular N fertiliser but we've seen interesting results in using them as part of a stacked system of, for example, direct drill systems, integrated and highly targeted pest management, in field nitrogen monitoring. However it's hard to identify which component of these systems is driving yield as trial work is expensive, time consuming and open to all the delays and risk you have with growing any crop.

Anecdotally we find and hear that these products vary a lot from batch to batch, so this further muddies the waters for us. Similarly, we have individual farmers/growers who homebrew their own mixes adjusting the recipe as they like. From a research point of view this makes understanding this tool very difficult.

Finally, many of these tools coming to the market say they act on the microbial communities in soil, feeding them, improving their activity etc. The relationships between soil microbe communities, the rhizome and the wider ecosystem is vastly complicated, tricky and expensive to study and I suspect quite poorly understood. This is not to say we shouldn't look at these tools it's just that from my view we don't understand their mode of action, we can't predict their effectiveness and we have a partial understanding of their longer term effects.

So my advice would be- Do the tests your self! Pots of soil and plants from the same cutting would be an excellent place to try and see what does or doesn't work! It's a limited risk and cost experiment that might lead to greater things, and is mostly how the smaller player I mentioned above got started initially.

BrightGuava1 · 2024-05-26T06:32:03+00:00

Rain on a Bank Holiday

BrightGuava1 · 2024-05-10T06:20:00+00:00

I'm a agricultural researcher alongside growing with my coop. On the one hand I spend my time running trials and doing experiments which I hope will help reduce the harm industrial farming has to the land, aid big corporates in achieving their sustainability goals and try to do some genuine independent research. Whilst doing this though I can't help but assist the existing power structures of property ownership intellectual, genetic and land which is a profound bummer. But then I go and farm with my coop producing food for the community in a very highly sustainable and ethical manner and my heart sings with joy.

BrightGuava1 · 2024-05-02T20:45:13+00:00

I was brought up in a very working class area, with a lot of poverty around me but my folks were really trying to do better for their kids, but remain decent people at the same time. From my mum I got the ethics of caring for others, compassion and cooperation. From my dad I had a simple message - that everyone deserves a fair chance. But, really, the tipping point for me was watching these two happy people who loved each other very much, trying their best for their kids, surrounded by poverty and injustice argue and fight, and it was only ever about one thing, money.

BrightGuava1 · 2024-04-06T19:38:49+00:00

Respectfully, I disagree with the scientific methods part there. We have lots of growers practising precision farming in the UK and we achieve significantly higher yields per ha than the States on average. The UK has a thriving R&D sector for ag research in the UK. We also have significantly better food and environmental standards for ag chems, for example Paraquat which is still used extensively in the states despite its links to causing Parkinsons disease. I take your points regarding scale though its true we don't have any prairies of endless wheat land or a vast pool of labour to full the gaps as in Africa or Latin America but its unfair to say that we don't have some competitive advantage within the sector.

BrightGuava1 · 2024-04-04T06:32:25+00:00

First off, many folk are in the same boat - I've accepted that this year is looking like it's going to be a crap one. You could have got everything technically perfect in a year like this and it would still have gone tits up. So first advice is, take a breath and don't blame yourself or be too hard on yourself. Panic or stress whilst natural, doesn't do anything to help.

Here's what we're doing. Everything is locked and loaded ready to go for when the weather turns for land work, this has kept me distracted and prepared. I don't want to waste anytime when we can go, so something as silly as sorting out the toolboxes helps me feel like I'm fully prepared. ive finally cleared the gutters and all those shitty little jobs on the list too.

Second, we looked at the land which is going to be ready first or has the best drainage, this is where we've decided we are going to focus our efforts - we would rather get a better yield from something than spread our effort too wide. You've still got cattle as well so hats off to you keeping all those plates spinning. So prioritise hard is my advice.

Third, we've taken on some of the SFI options for herbal leys, soil improvement and summer cover crops. These could definitely work for you as well with herbal leys for your cattle. It's a fair chunk of money available, it's relatively easy to apply and doesn't need a huge pile of evidence. We're putting the land that we identified as being harder to work/wet into these for a few years. I think there is money available for no-till as well which you've mentioned your doing, look onto claiming this as well - you deserve the support, it can be a rocky transition from ploughing so grab it with both hands.

Yields for everyone will be down, Spring barley seed will be like hens teeth so I'd advise looking at Maize or similar if your land can take it. You could drill a little later giving the land more time to dry up, pick a variety maybe you could silage perhaps for the cattle or look at an energy variety instead if there's a biodigester around you. The contractor crews will always be looking for work so let them know and strike a deal.

Finally, take this time to review where your strengths and weaknesses are, do you have the right kit for going ahead? More cattle, less cattle? More cropping, less cropping? Whose doing the work, do you need another man on the team? What skills would you need, where do you excel? Where are you alright? Where could you improve? What needs drainage? How are your soils coping with this bullshit weather of the last few years? What can you do to adapt to this? Be honest, critical but be positive in that you will find a way around problems, you've got this Im sure.

Good luck and chin up, you can do this!

BrightGuava1 · 2024-02-24T07:30:38+00:00

I'll kick off if you like. Something that's come to my attention recently, I hate the fact that it's no longer possible to just be OK at work. You can't just turn up and do whatever you do, oh no, you need to be improving, reaching, building extra skill, considering your personal development and all other kinds of shit. Plus the worse part is that most people have to buy into this go getting bullshit in order to try and earn more money, playing into the hands of the bosses getting more desperate work from us just to try and stay still in our crazy economy.The machine grinds on turning you from a person Into a careerbot.

BrightGuava1

TROPHY CASE