sidney wrote on Dec 6^th, 2018 at 8:27pm:



Kind of not what I was saying.

I wasn't talking about dairy. And what you are saying is only relevant to very easy contour high quality land dependant on soil type. Thats a small part of our total agricultural land area. As an example Waikato peat soils can loose 3.7 t  of C per hectare a year if I remember correctly. And water quality measure almost always record a higher level of Suspended sediment in farming and pine areas than from native forest. The fact is that the issue of soil and carbon loss is going to affect grazing of hill country land considerably and even intensely farmed dairy where they rely on cropping to supplement. Pine trees are not an improvement either where you are clear felling every 25-30 years as proven at Gisborne.
I suspect that the push for pine plantation etc is more about ensuring land is no longer available for Grazing and come 25 years it may only be possible to revert that land to native if the green elements have their way.
Some interesting innovative thinkers out there, and I know of one landowner who is making $30,000+ a year out of harvesting goats from under his regenerating hill country forests.
Could be that some form of farming under permanent tree cover is a future possibility?
Which is the irony this F&B clown as you say, will never get due to his bias, that farming historically noxious animal species may well be our best solution.
The route you have gone down is one very positive avenue worth looking at from more farmers as well. But its going to take a lot of people getting their heads around at least a change in activities around supplemental feed and coming to the realisation that they may have to give up grazing of steeper aspects of their land.

Yep...  its not the nitrates produced... its the nitrates not captured that are the issue.

This isn't news to anyone other that the slow of attention span and those with opinions formed in wilful ignorance.  Like most politicians and the current crop of environmental simpletons.

sidney wrote on Dec 7^th, 2018 at 12:23am:


As a matter of interest, how are the amounts of cow poo sprayed onto paddocks measured to give an amount that isnt too much.. Is it a hand x thumb method or are there precise measurements made?

headcase wrote on Dec 7^th, 2018 at 5:49am:


I forget what the calculation is but its somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 of the total farm area that is usually allocated to effluent spreading under irrigation.  But every region may have slightly different specs...

Interesting reading but how about a reality check .... Nothing we do here will make the slightest difference to the earths atmosphere , we're just to bloody insignificant . Our carbon footprint is falling on a percentage basis and will continue to do so regardless of how much carbon we try to produce.

Secondly is carbon the problem or a symptom of the real problem that knowone wants to talk about ??? The real problem is population ! It took 200,000years to reach a population of 1 billion and in a bit less than the last 200 years we've turned that into 7 billion .? This is the issue and about half of the number is in Asia and over the next 100 years Asia alone is expected to reach 7 billion It' the real problem and its a big f'n problem at that. 7 BILLION POTENTIALLY STARVING PEOPLE on our doorstep in 100 years , who give a flying F.... about which tree stores more carbon !!

Why arent people talking about over population ?? Not pc i guess !

This is interesting to play around with, if you have details on a farm: Farm Carbon Footprint Calculator, from Lincoln Uni

What makes you say that?

Completed it too. could find a few faults and it didn't have any ability to subtract on farm carbon sinks other than telling how many H of trees needed. But gave a very rough idea of wether i could say im carbon neutral or not if I put two and two together.

Yeah so what it doesn't seem to ask is area you have in established trees, or such. Figure you should subtract that yourself from the amount they recommend you need.
Not sure what else they take into account, would be good to have a section about it so you can understand it better. All up if my understanding is correct im about carbon neutral or slightly negative.