The Red Baron Project year one

[Redbaron]

Here is a few pics of what it looks like after the rain, before I had a chance to mow. Last pic is a close up showing standing water a few feet away so you can get an idea how saturated the ground is and why I stayed out of there.

[Redbaron]

OK some new pics! Harvested my first pepper today. A hot banana pepper. Also several cowhorns and mexibells coming soon. Pretty quick recovery from the hail storm! Last shows some shadow boxing fruit set. Can't wait.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by SIP Gro-Tubs

RedBaron

My farmer Co-op friends tell me that what you are proposing is what Nobel Prize winners are made of.

Great idea's.


They even know of a Section of land in N central TX. that one of the members has that he would lease it over to you for $1 year, with lifetime renewal quaranteed.

But first there needs to be a plan of action drawn up, as to what you are going to do with that section of land.

No you can't do a test plot and have the same option of $1 year on the section, you will have to at least put in 3 distint subsections

1. Vegetable production

2. Raising cattle, and other meat source animals.

3. Growing and baling, high quality hay crops.

What do you think?

What are some of the start up materials that you will need?

Terry

Thanks for the complement. Pretty sure I don't deserve it. But I appreciate the enthusiasm for the project very much. Still hard to believe because the $1 lease part seems too good to be true. But I have to one day in the future make the plan anyway if the project expands how I hope it does. So I tackled the problem with full enthusiasm.

I have spent these last couple weeks writing and rewriting my draft for a plan. I asked for advice from my family, my friends at HMI who offered to help and even offered to publish the results if the plan is accepted by your friend, I even emailed Joel Salatin who offered some wisdom.

Here is the plan for others who might be following and may want to try a similar thing. Some of it is a repeat if you have been following all along. Sorry for that, but I couldn't assume that Terry's friend or anyone new viewing the project had all that previous information.

I want to briefly explain the concept first, so that the plan can be better understood. This can best be described as a rotational system. The animals will be raised in a rotational grazing system, and the plants in a rotational cropping system. Both these systems will be managed using a holistic management plan. In addition, the paddocks for grazing and the fields for crops will be somewhat interchangeable as they will be rotated as well. So a grazing paddock and a crop field actually could be at times the same parcel of land, even in some cases at the same time. In other cases a fallow field will be an active grazing paddock. The management of the rotation is the key. This allows "weeds" in a cropping system to be "forage" in a grazing system. "Waste" in a grazing system to be "fertilizer" in a cropping system. And pest control in both systems, food for chickens. This integration of the two is the main thing my project is attempting to solve.
Rotational grazing is well proven, rotational cropping is well proven. Integrating the two on the same land at the same time and sometimes even in the same fields at the same time is what is missing. The reason why it is missing is the difficulty in carefully controlling and managing it to avoid the animals eating the crops. However, with new breakthroughs in rotational grazing made by innovators like Alan Savory, Joel Salatin and Dan Undersander and a new cropping system being developed by me (but heavily influenced by innovators in organic and permaculture like Bill Mollison, Sepp Holzer and Helen Atthowe, ) I believe that the two can be integrated increasing the productivity of both on the same land at the same time. This is what my project is all about.
Principle 1: No till and/or minimal till with mulches used for weed control
Principle 2: Minimal external inputs
Principle 3: Living mulches to maintain biodiversity
Principle 4: Companion planting
Principle 6: The ability to integrate carefully controlled modern animal husbandry
Principle 5: Capability to be mechanized for large scale or low labor for smaller scale
Principle 7: As organic as possible, while maintaining flexibility to allow non-organic growers to use the methods
Principle 8: Portable and flexible enough to be used on a wide variety of crops in many areas of the world
Principle 9: Sustainable ie. beneficial to the ecology and wildlife
Principle 10: Profitable

Plan with 3 subsections:
The subsections will be constantly rotated and occasionally even doing double or triple duty.

1) Vegetable production
a) Grazing paddocks will be converted to crop fields by using a no-til mulching system I developed using large round bales of hay rolled over commercial sized rolls of paper weed barrier. Because chickens will be integrated into these fields the row structure is designed to allow room for them between the mulched rows. Thus the mulched rows will be 4 feet wide to accommodate the hay bales and the distance between the mulched rows will be 12 feet to accommodate the 10X12 mobile chicken cages (hereafter referred to as "chicken tractors"). The rows will be 350 feet long because the time on pasture is 35 days for broilers. When the time comes to rotate a crop field back into a grazing paddock, a no-til seed drill will be used.
b) The first season of the annual crop rotation will be "seedling" crops like Tomatoes, Peppers, Brassicas etc. The exact crops will be determined by the water availability, soil, other local growing conditions and market.
c) The second season of annual crops will be a soil restoring blend of annual cover crop of legumes and forbs, doubling as good forage for animals and soil building. The thick mulch and first seasons crop residue will be broken down by the use of animals to clean up. Then a no-til seed drill will plant.
d) Successive season's crops will be a rotation of legumes and direct seed crops like beans and corn and seedling crops. Again the exact crops will be determined by water availability, soil, other local growing conditions and market.
e) At least one or more rotations will include grains as feed supplements for the animals.
f) At least one or more rotations will include high quality legume hay.
g) The last crop before returning the field to pasture will be an annual legume like alfalfa blended with reseeding native high quality pasture perennials planted with a no-til seed drill. And will be used to make high quality hay.
h) Fertilizer will be made by composting the bedding/manure from the chicken brooders and directly in the field by decomposition of animal wastes and mulches as well as "fixed" nitrogen from legume crops.

Please note that the first year there will be only 1 paddock/field in crop production. The second year 2, next year 3 and so on.... because you can't easily plant using a no-til seed drill without first killing the "weeds" in 4 foot strips with the mulching technique I developed.

2) Raising cattle, and other meat source animals.
a) Cattle will be raised in a system of Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing using holistic management. This is done by using portable electric fencing to create small paddocks and moving the cattle to a new paddock each day. The size of the paddock is determined by the forage available and the size of the herd. Details of the exact way that is determined can be found here: Undersander, Dan et. al. "Pastures for profit: A guide to rotational grazing, University of Wisconsin Extension.
b) Chickens will be sub-divided into broilers and egg layers
1) Broilers take 8 weeks to raise, 3 weeks in the brooder and 5 weeks on pasture. I will need a building of some type for the brooder. The broilers will then go to the chicken tractors @75 per tractor. The tractor will be moved daily for 35 days through the crop fields between the rows. They will forage the plants and insects and also be fed grain.
2) Egg layers also require a brooder to start but instead of going to a chicken tractor they will go to an egg mobile with shelter, roosting areas, and nest boxes; and free range the grazing paddocks. Each egg mobile will house approximately 1,500 hens. The hens will be contained by portable feathernet electric fencing. The egg mobile will also be moved daily into paddocks vacated 3 days earlier by the cattle. This allows them to forage for insects and new shoots of pasture plants, providing both pest control and reducing grain costs.
c) Eventually the grain supplements required by the animals will be grown by the rotation in the crop fields. However, in the beginning we will have to buy feed until the creation of crop fields by rotation is complete.

Please note I plan to start with cattle and chickens. Additional species can be experimented with and added in later years as appropriate, but the basic system starts with the symbiotic relationship between the herbivore (cattle) and an omnivore (chickens) and the land. The exact herbivore and the exact omnivore will vary depending on what the farmer/rancher is most familiar with, lives well in the specific climate, and has a good market available. In this case the herbivore is cattle, but there is no reason someone else couldn't use sheep or any other herbivore.


3) Hay production.
a) Grass hay will be made from paddocks just after peak seasonal growth when the cattle can't keep up with the growth in their daily rotation. This is also explained in Pastures for profit: A guide to rotational grazing.
b) Higher quality grass/alfalfa blend premium hay will be made in the crop fields when they are in their last rotation before being turned back into pasture and from cover crop blends grown between vegetable crop seasons.
c) All hay will be made by standard 4 foot round bale machinery.
d) Hay will be used for feeding animals, bedding in the brooders, and mulching the crop fields for weed control.
e) Excess hay can be sold as an extra income stream when available.

Please note if you start the project with rotational grazing first, and don't start the crop production until after hay is made, you will never need buy hay. But if you want to start crop production right away, hay will need to be purchased.

4) Start up materials needed:
a) Electric fencing, both wire and feathernet.
b) Building for a brooder.
c) Chicken tractors 10 X 12 or materials to build them
d) Egg mobile or materials to build it
e) Standard farm equipment and tools like tractor, quad runner, truck, wagon, trailer etc
f) Specialized farm equipment for planting and harvesting like no-til drill, hay baling equipment, combine etc
g) Housing for myself and/or laborers/ranch hands.
h) Barns for storing equipment materials and/or crops
i) Feeders and waterers for the animals
j) Greenhouse or equivalent
k) Specially trained guard dogs for predator control
l) irrigation

A lot of these materials can be double use. For example: The greenhouse or one of the other buildings could be used as the brooder for the chickens when not in use starting seedlings, or even a barn used for equipment storage could have an attached room for a greenhouse. A truck trailer could potentially double as a wagon or vice versa. The irrigation system could also be part of the animal watering system. Also a lot of these materials you may already have, or can borrow/rent. Things like that. Specifics will vary according to each individual plot of land.

PS The plan hasn't been approved, and there is no guarantee it ever will. So for now I am simply proceeding as originally planned with the project, which is start small and gradually work my way up.

[Master_Gardener]

Scott:

You may consider applying for a grant. There are a number of them set aside for projects like yours. I looked into it briefly, but I though that my project was too small to get any attention.

Russel

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Master_Gardener

Scott:

You may consider applying for a grant. There are a number of them set aside for projects like yours. I looked into it briefly, but I though that my project was too small to get any attention.

Russel

Same with me. I am small now too. It all boils down to adapting to opportunities as they arise. Once (if) the general plan is approved, then I will of course need to work out how start up costs are financed. I will need to work on marketing too. There is a tremendous amount of work that will need to be done just on the business side. Not only that but an additional pile of work monitoring and establishing data for potential publishing. None of which can be done until(if) the lease is signed. I certainly won't be ruling out a grant, but I am not going to be dependent on it either. There are a tremendous number of options to start this up. For example: One option is to get paid by others to manage their cattle. This allows me to not have the huge initial investment in actual cattle and the first payment can be used to buy electric fence. Then gradually buy my own cattle with profits. For chickens, there is a common business model where the seller of the final product invests in the grower with a contract to sell the birds. CSAs are a good possibility for veggies and eggs. One also could have potentially their own private possibilities. There are a lot of ways to skin that cat, none of which can happen without a signed lease or owning the land. So for me personally it boils down to waiting for approval. I haven't even heard back yet. Not a yes or a no nor even a maybe. I am not going to rush it though.

[Redbaron]

Update on the project. I watered for the first time today. It hit 100 and about 25-30% of the plants started showing heat stress, a couple fairly severe. The soil isn't completely dry, but the plants perked right up from the watering, more I think due to cooling the air a bit, than actually needing the water. So far no plants died from the heat but fruit set is pretty low, even for the sungold f1s. All in all the plants are doing far better than the neighbor's who doesn't use mulches, does use miracle grow and waters heavily. They are about 2-5 times bigger and showing less stress. My other neighbor who has used lasagna methods for several years now are doing even better. So it is pretty much as I expected for year 1 considering the late start from an unusual spring.

The mulch is getting a bit thin from all the bioactivity and new grass has sprouted from using hay with a high seed content. But it is reasonably low and actually seems to have provided some shade/respiration benefit from the sun and heat because the tomatoes with no volunteer grasses at all around them are generally smaller, more heat stressed, and have not as yet set any fruit. One section (about 10' of the 30' row) I did with no weed barrier at all had too much grass grow and I have had to weed it 3 times so far. Bermudas!

I did loose one plant to gophers, and one other set back from damaged roots due to the same gophers. I replanted the dead tomato plant and put peanut butter flavored poison in their tunnels. Then I did my best to warn them away with stinky organic "repellent". If they ignore the repellent and come anyway, they will find poison waiting on them.

[crocee]

This has been a very interesting thread and hopefully a way for me to use the hard double bubble clay my location calls soil. I have an area that I have tried to use as a garden in the past but its a lot more prep work than my body will allow. Your method sounds very promising and easy to do. As long as I'm able to work I have an almost unlimited supply of cardboard, worthless to feed animal hay I can get rather cheaply. I've raise 7 goats and 3 sheep so I have a pretty much unlimited supply of manure. Keep up the great work and keep posting so I can continue to learn. If Tville had a like button I'd push it way more than once.

[Redbaron]

Today's update will be about Principle 9: Sustainable ie. beneficial to the ecology and wildlife.

When you monitor ecosystem health you look for certain indicators , sometimes called sentinels, that can tell you about the whole system. They are the first to arrive when healthy and the first to leave when problems arise. In other words a "canary in a coal mine" approach. Worms are a good example for soil. One of the best sentinels is amphibians. Their highly porous skin makes them highly susceptible to environmental pollutants and toxins like pesticides. Bare ground is another. (yes I know most farmers and gardeners purposely make bare ground, but in most cases it is still an early warning that something very wrong is going on) An indicator of a better functioning environment is newly sprouting diversity of plants and a return or increase of wildlife.

Putting Holistic Management In Place
Animals as Environmental Sentinels of Human Pollution
Amphibians as environmental sentinels
Amphibians in U.S. Declining at “Alarming and Rapid Rate”


So today I will post pics showing both. I wish I had pics from last year showing how poor the area was. I couldn't even hardly grow grass. This year even between the rows the grass has come back with a vengeance. I do have a pic of that, just after mowing. I also have a pic showing a tree frog in my tomatoes! Even though we have no lakes or streams near by, we did have floods this spring long enough for tadpoles to hatch. And my tomatoes are providing habitat! I have a lot of baby toads too. But those little guys are FAST! They always jump out of the picture. The frog is sitting still thinking he is invisible! He almost is! See if you can find him in the first pic, or from another angle, or if you cant, I zoomed in on him in the third.

[Redbaron]

I received a private message today asking why I haven't posted in a while. Sorry for that. I am very busy trying to find some land to expand this project next year. Be sure though. I will continue even without the new land if necessary.

Here is a little update. Year one was a miraculous success by my reckoning. I pulled in over 1,000 dollars in profit even after the higher than normal start up costs associated with buying stakes and such. Since this was only a 3000 sq ft trial, that pro-rates to over 10,000 dollars an acre profit....if I can find the land to expand. Pests were VERY minimal as expected. Diseases were also minimal. I didn't need to add extra ferts. The taste of the produce was noticeably superb to excellent. Production was good and continued right through the heat (although it did slow a bit over 100 degrees). Customers were incredibly happy, many giving me their phone numbers and asking me to call them any time anything got ripe. The soils in all the trials improved dramatically, including masses of earthworms churning up the soil, far more than expected. So in all respects I am happy with the year one results.

[Tania]

What an amazing project and a great thread! I am not sure how I missed it before...

Outstanding results!!!

[salix]

Glad to hear it, Scott. Wishing you success in your expansion programme!

[bower]

Congratulations, Scott! It sounds like your methods and materials were well suited to your environment, so keep it up. The information you posted about your trial of different barriers was really interesting too. Thanks for sharing the information, and keep us posted on your plans for next year.

[Redbaron]

Here is a USDA NRCS webinar I found while researching for my project.

Farming for Beneficial Insects: Pollinators, Predators and Parasitoids

It is a bit of a rough presentation. And much of it is repeat for me. But if you can be patient and get through it, there is some good information. I will be using some of this of information in year 2, and already used much in year one.

[Redbaron]

Proud to announce year two of the Red Baron Project will be progressing as planned, because I was able to finally find the land to expand. Updates will be posted in the new thread.

The Red Baron Project year two

[kenny_j]

Scott, wanted to let you know I am on board as a follower of this thread. Just found it today. I have decided that working on soil improvement should be my #1 priority for having the best gardens, and it led me here and a few other places. I joined a local garden club last year, and have had my eyes opened by a few very knowledgeable people the virtues of organic gardening and permaculture. I am new to all this but excited to learn and start a total transformation away man made fertilizers. Thanx for this thread,

ken