Order of Operations

Again, the idea here is to show you my thought process.

I want to produce high quality meat. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, it consists of two things: the quality of production and the quality of product. So humane treatment. In other words, stress prevention. It means raising livestock in a way that they can live good, wonderful lives with one bad day. That bad day being the last day, obviously.

The other component – the product - is that the meat should taste good. For a lack of a better term, it cannot taste too “gamey”. You can have livestock in a less than ideal environment and still walk away with a good tasting product. Think feedlot Wagyu. Prime and Choice grade angus beef. Of course, genetics and butchery plays a role in the product as well. We can control both - to an extent.

So, what must be done to produce high quality meat? As in, what can we manage outside of genetics and butchering?

I started with having livestock, but I’ve learned that it’s not a good first step. At least, it’s not a good first step for a working for-profit agriculture operation.

It's my belief that sourcing feed is the most important thing that can be done. It matters more than the breed of the animal, or the production method. Differing production methods meaning grain-finished versus grass-finished. Many, if not all, cattle are fed grass. Hay. For their majority of their lives. Thereby leaving the term "grass-fed" as a poor distinction.

The highest quality feed comes from the highest quality soil. Now, of course, soil can be amended. It can be worked. There are both natural and “man-made” remedies to improve soil health. I would prefer to stay away from “man-made” remedies. For example, ammonia and annual tillage.

I don’t have high quality soil. 50 years of non-stop farming with neither adequate rest and recovery will do that. Sure, yeah, corn will grow. So-called weeds will grow, some of the weeds that grow are soil remediators. For example, queen anne's lace and goldenrod. But it’s far from ideal and yields aren’t great. There’s deep compaction, so the roots don’t travel far down.

Of course, you, rather I, can use a no-till seed drill and plant daikon radishes that breakup the ground, but from what I gathered, it wouldn’t affect subsoil compaction. In other words, the deep compaction that occurs from the axle loads in heavy machinery. That compaction results in poor drainage, and poor drainage means crops can be flooded with one storm. And flooded crops are lost crops.

Now, don't get me wrong - daikon radishes and other cover crops can fix this, but that will take years and years. Personally, I don't want to take years and years. Perhaps as a part of an experiment, I can use practice STUN on acreage I plan to use in the future. STUN means strategic total and utter neglect.

With all that said, here are my order of operations:

Year 1:

·       Mow the fields

·       Spread cow manure and chicken manure

·       Use a subsoiler or a Yeoman’s Plow

·       Use a no-till seed drill and drill a variety of northeastern cover crops. Fall and Spring.

Year 2:

·       Use a roller crimper to termintate the cover crops. The cover crops then will become green manure.

·       Use a seed drill to plant forage crops. Such as little bluestem, buffalograss, ryegrass, clover, alfalfa, fescue, and timothy.

·       Build fences and shelters and corrals. There will need to be an interior fence and a strong perimeter fence. The interior fence is to section off the pastures into paddocks. Cattle will respect a one strand electric tape with pigtail posts. Deer and Elk and Bison might need to be in one open pasture. Separate pastures, naturally.

·       Dig out Ponds and Swales and Ditches

·       Plant out tree orchards. Chestnuts, oak, walnut. Hickory and Elm. Maple. Fruit trees.