Conservation Thread

Kevtherev

Member
Location
Welshpool Powys
Idea I had today but it may already have been done.

Say you have a ten acre all grass field down to grazing.
Could you fence out small squares say 6x6 to create a ‘cell’
Sow these cells with wild flowers to create habitat for bees and birds.
I know this is already done with buffer strips wild bird strips etc but it could prove useful and not much in monetary terms to do.
Thoughts?
 

RushesToo

Member
Location
Fingringhoe
Idea I had today but it may already have been done.

Say you have a ten acre all grass field down to grazing.
Could you fence out small squares say 6x6 to create a ‘cell’
Sow these cells with wild flowers to create habitat for bees and birds.
I know this is already done with buffer strips wild bird strips etc but it could prove useful and not much in monetary terms to do.
Thoughts?
Wild flowers go where they want. If the conditions are different from the wider area it might work over time.

I think you should be sure of what you want to achieve and then work to it. Stuff tends to happen in an orderly way not randomly.

To achieve a 6x6 cell of wild flowers would require some thinking about how to make it so it would work - flowers don't like fighting so if there is strong N fed grass it might take some time? There are others more expert - this is just questions it seems sensible to ask you.

You are probably the expert of your soil, weather and conditions. Experience may come from elsewhere,
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Wild flowers go where they want. If the conditions are different from the wider area it might work over time.

I think you should be sure of what you want to achieve and then work to it. Stuff tends to happen in an orderly way not randomly.

To achieve a 6x6 cell of wild flowers would require some thinking about how to make it so it would work - flowers don't like fighting so if there is strong N fed grass it might take some time? There are others more expert - this is just questions it seems sensible to ask you.

You are probably the expert of your soil, weather and conditions. Experience may come from elsewhere,
Agreed. The difficult would be avoiding excessive soil fertility in that small cell. Unless the cell fertility was low then wild flowers would never dominate it.

Nice idea though
 

alex04w

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Co Antrim
P1180524.JPG
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Fledgelings everywhere here atm. Wrens, blackbirds, chaffinches swallows and more, all seem to have hatched first clutch about the same time .
12 acres of unfertilised wildflower area here. Only a few poppies showing big early i guess....:unsure: well apart from the buttercups that is :rolleyes:
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
3 hares playing together on an aftermath but not close enough to photograph.

View attachment 807948
So a picture of some of my unimproved - no input grass
I nearly drove over a hare this week! They usually move when I drive past but this one sat tight and I saw him last second in the rushes and swerved the quad away from him. I could have jumped off and caught him he was that close.
Someone mentioned swallows. @Bald Rick will be glad to know mine have showed up in the last 10 days or so but only one or two pairs which is much less compared to usual. Where the hell they've been till now I don't know.
 

Kevtherev

Member
Location
Welshpool Powys
Fledgelings everywhere here atm. Wrens, blackbirds, chaffinches swallows and more, all seem to have hatched first clutch about the same time .
12 acres of unfertilised wildflower area here. Only a few poppies showing big early i guess....:unsure: well apart from the buttercups that is :rolleyes:

Lots of fledgling wrens and sparrows at caravan park where I’m working at moment there’s 2 crows systematically killing these young birds daily as they leave the safety of big conifer hedges.
Can’t be shot too many people about!
 
I nearly drove over a hare this week! They usually move when I drive past but this one sat tight and I saw him last second in the rushes and swerved the quad away from him. I could have jumped off and caught him he was that close.
Someone mentioned swallows. @Bald Rick will be glad to know mine have showed up in the last 10 days or so but only one or two pairs which is much less compared to usual. Where the hell they've been till now I don't know.

Another pair of swallows and pair of house martins turned up here on Friday.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Two pairs of swallows busy feeding chicks, another nest, I think, has a parent sitting eggs. I opened the agrihovel door the other morning to an explosion of fledged wrens who'd moved in under the porch.

It might not be as gripping as a wildlife documentary from a Veldt, but I watched a roe buck grazing close to the cattle in their present 3 acre field of rush dominated wet pasture that's steadily coming into flower - ragged robins coming on from Lady's smock, and lesser birdsfoot trefoil and meadow vetchling shooting up, still in the green. Grey partridge just by the hedge, and swallows flying above.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
View attachment 807910View attachment 807912View attachment 807914View attachment 807916View attachment 807918View attachment 807922

All within 5 yards of each other on permanent grassland extensively grazed by sheep and cattle for decades. If anyone could name them for me I’d be delighted.

I like the small leafed clover apparently happy in moss in your second photo, and what looks like pennywort leaves in the third.

These dense, mosaic swards don't come about overnight, so you've a jewel of a field there.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
I like the small leafed clover apparently happy in moss in your second photo, and what looks like pennywort leaves in the third.

These dense, mosaic swards don't come about overnight, so you've a jewel of a field there.

It’s not a field, it’s a previously (loooong time ago) improved part of a 315 acre expanse of ground with a mixture of green rough grazing, heather, bog and scrub. There won’t have been much in the way of grazing management going on here for a long time, I just had the cattle and sheep elsewhere for calving/lambing, and with a favourable spring it was remarkable all the things that popped up.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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