Countryside Seeds Ltd

Countryside Seeds Ltd

As of the 1st July a slight change to the business, it's become incorporated and with it a change of name. Farm machinery sales have not been a part of Farm Equip's business for a number of years and we felt now was the time for a new name to reflect more of what we do, so Countryside Seeds Limited was born.

We still offer friendly service and advice with up to date products at keen prices.

Company History

Farm Equip was launched by myself (Kevin) on the 1st January 1980. Initially selling farm consumables from the back of a yellow transit van.

Over the past few years the business has become almost predominately the sale of seed in its varies guises where it be a single bag of lawn seed to tonnes of grass/cereal seed.

I am in the very lucky position to be a distributor for some of the UK’s leading seed houses which include Barenbrug UK Ltd, DLF Trifolium Ltd, Grainseed Ltd and Soya UK to name a few.

I am more than happy to work with the customer on compiling their own mixture.

To contact me you may PM through the forum or I am very happy to be telephoned on 07881 804442.
Email: [email protected]

As like a lot of you I'm self employed so no 9-5 here so please telephone at your convenience.
 
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Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
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2016 ForageMax Grass Mixture Catalogues

Grass seed for all purposes

DLF strives to be the preferred grass seed partner for farmers dealing with dairy or beef cattle, sheep and horses. Our ambition is to deliver solutions for all situations where grass and clover grass is the best choice from a nutritional and economic point of view.

Our constant focus on the needs of the end-user filters back into our breeding and product development, where new and better solutions are created with the aim of providing your livestock production a high degree of self-sufficiency for the benefit of the total farm economy.

PDF's attached.
 

Attachments

  • ForageMax 2016 Brochure.pdf
    5.7 MB · Views: 10
  • ForageMax 2016 Brochure - NORTH.pdf
    5.3 MB · Views: 6

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
My 2016 "Your Countryside" catalogue is now available forming a practical guide to game cover, environmental, green manure (cover crops) and forage seeds. If you would like a hard copy please PM your name and address and one will be posted to you.

A copy in PDF format is attached.
 

Attachments

  • Farm Equip Your Countryside 2016.pdf
    8 MB · Views: 11

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
Six steps for sward success after wet, mild winter February 16

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Barenbrug forage grass experts release top tips for getting fields back to full fitness

Winter 2015/16 has seen record temperatures and rainfall across the UK, and the unseasonably mild and wet weather has had a dramatic effect on pastures. To help farmers get flooded fields back to full fitness, and tackle grass that has grown all winter, Barenbrug UK has produced a list of top tips for getting swards back in shape.

This winter heavy storms have repeatedly battered the UK. The North West has been hit hard by large scale flooding with huge swathes of farmland waterlogged off and on since November. As a result, soil in many places has become compacted by the weight of the water lying on it. Valuable nutrients will also have been lost to leaching.

In other drier parts of the UK the weather has created different challenges. The mild temperatures experienced pre-Christmas meant that grass continued to grow. With no dormant period, swards have become very open. Low winter light levels also mean that any grass growth was weak – leaving plants fragile and susceptible to disease.

Mhairi Dawson, Research & Development Manager (Forage) at Barenbrug UK, said: “Weather wise, it’s been a very strange winter. One way or another our fields have had everything thrown at them. December was the warmest since records began in 1910 but also the wettest of any calendar month on record*. As a result, there is a question mark hanging over the productivity of a large percentage of pastures. Our advice to farmers across the UK is to tackle any problems head on – now ideally or as soon as conditions allow. For many farmers compaction is going to be the big challenge. For others, the priority will be applying nutrients to fields fast to strengthen existing grasses and enable tillering to fill in gaps. This will also prevent the ingression of poor, very low yielding grass weeds like annual meadow grass.”

Barenbrug's six steps to help farmers achieve sward success this spring are:

Step one: Get a grasp on your grass: As soon as conditions allow complete a visual assessment of your field/s. Those that need most attention will be easy to spot. If pastures look an unhealthy shade of yellowy green, that’s a clear indicator of stress. Patchy areas of growth are also a definite sign of compaction and poor soil structure.

Step two: Dig deep for a solution: The best way to assess the extent of any damage is to dig a pit to around 30cm or to the depth of any pan. Take a close look at the soil structure. If the grass roots aren’t penetrating below 10cm then you are dealing with a clear case of compaction. Another sign is the water content of the soil. If the soil is bone dry from 7-15cms down then you have compaction.

Step three: Correct any compaction: Until you have addressed compaction there is little point doing anything else. Compaction can drastically affect the growth rate and rooting structure of newly sown grasses – reducing productivity by 10-20%. It can also prevent the uptake of nutrients; restrict drainage; and ultimately cut down on the number of working days you’ll get from a field. To correct compaction down to six to eight inches use a sward lifter to aerate the soil. For compaction of just one to two inches, a sward slitter will suffice.

Step four: Assess acidity: Once any compaction has been dealt with, think about tackling any pH, phosphate and potash problems. Soil pH can have a massive impact on grassland success and high levels of water, like we’ve seen this winter, can drastically affect pH. To optimise nutrient use, as well as grass growth and quality, the target pH should be 6, increasing to 6.5 for grass and clover mixtures. Just a small decline in target pH to 5.5 can reduce grass yields by 35 to 40%: the more acidic the soil, the greater the chance of lock up – which makes vital nutrients unavailable to plants.

Step five: Know your nutrients: Getting a handle on soil phosphate (P) and potash (K) status is critical. P is primarily associated with energy transfer within plants and is crucial at the establishment phase for root development. K plays an important role in water regulation within plants. The P and K needed by crops can be supplied by reserves in the soil or – after a prolonged wet period – through the addition of bagged fertilisers and livestock manures. Achieving a target soil index of 2 for P and K is the aim.

Step six: Lay new leys: Once soil structure has been addressed, new leys can be drilled into place or overseeding can occur. If the aim is to get grass producing quickly then it’s best to overseed with a mix of fast growing vigorous tetraploid ryegrass species. These will start delivering results after six to eight weeks of establishment – improving ground cover and giving a real spring boost to yield and quality. But remember, overseeding is only a short-term solution. For longer-term results on problem pastures it is advisable to replace the grass with a more suitable ley come the autumn.

Concluding Mhairi said: “As a general rule of thumb – whatever the weather – farmers should soil sample every three to four years and build slurry and fertiliser applications into an annual nutrient management plan. They should also make sure they apply maintenance phosphate for silage cuts at soil P index 2. Failure to apply maintenance P dressings on a three-cut silage system can reduce yield by 10% at soil index 2. Typically a three-cut system will require 80kg P2O5 /kg split over the three cuts.”

For further advice on field renovation or on varieties and mixtures suited to different farming systems and parts of the UK, please contact: [email protected] or go to www.barenbrug.co.uk. You can also request a copy of the Barenbrug Good Grass Guide – a handy, pocket-size booklet designed to help UK farmers index the quality of their fields and take remedial action to improve pasture productivity and yields.


Find out more about our range of forage grass mixtures


Download a copy of our Good Grass Guide
 

Attachments

  • BarForage_Eng&Wales 2016.pdf
    7.6 MB · Views: 8

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
Mixture composed of Ethiopian mustard, oilseed radish and white mustard, mainly to reduce soil borne fungi. Sowing rate is 15kg/ha in early spring or summer, 1-2 cm deep. Biofumigatie in summer and incorporation in autumn. Can reduce PCN populations by over 40%.
  • 50% Brassica carinata
  • 10% Sinapis alba
  • 40% Raphanus sativus

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Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
Terranova Oilseed (forage) Radish frost tolerant down to -8oC. Highly effective control of beet cyst and root knot nematodes. Terranova is also resistant to club root. Terranova is very leafy at the early stages of growth and is easily incorporated for maximum nematode control and is club root resistant. It has unique resistance to (sub-) tropical root-knot nematodes M. incognita and M. javanica. Terranova flowers very late.

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Terranova is resistant to:

  • Heterodera schachtii (BCN) Nematode Resistant Level 1
  • Heterodera betea (BCN)
  • Meloidogyne chitwoodi and M. fallax (RKN)
  • Meloidogyne incognita and javanica (RKN)
  • Para trichodorus allius (stubby root nematode)
Terranova is non-host to:

  • Globodera rostochiensis and G. Pallida (potato cyst nematode PCN)
  • Heterodera avenae (cereal cyst nematode)
  • Heterodera goettingiana (pea cyst nematode)
  • Meloidogyne naasi (cereal root knot nematode RKN)
  • Ditylenchus dipsaci (bulb nematode)
  • Ditylenchus destructor potato tuber nematode)
  • Tobacco rattle virus (TRV)
 
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Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
Barenbrug launch two new perennial ryegrasses for 2016.

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Being at the forefront of grass technology is something we're passionate about here at Barenbrug. And 2016 is no different we the launch of these two latest perennial ryegrass, bred, developed and produced here in the UK for UK farmers.

FINTONA INTERMEDIATE PERENNIAL RYEGRASS (TET)
Heading date: 19 May

FINTONA is recommended throughout the UK, in England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is the highest yielding Intermediate Tetraploid on the Scotland and England & Wales recommended list. This variety was produced by crossing two unrelated AFBI varieties, aiming to combine the high quality of DUNLUCE with the early spring growth and leaf-spot resistance of MALONE. FINTONA has particularly high spring growth and will suit farms where early grazing is possible prior to the first silage cut.

Why we rate FINTONA: It delivers an early spring bite for livestock and then delivers a silage cut in the 3rd week of May - an outstanding variety with excellent parentage.

MOIRA INTERMEDIATE PERENNIAL RYEGRASS (DIP)
Heading date: 23 May

MOIRA is recommended throughout the UK, in England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This variety is from new genetic background, unrelated to all existing AFBI varieties. It was bred as a SPELGA replacement, providing the early bite grazing with big yields. It is the highest yielding Intermediate diploid on the Scotland recommended list.

Why we rate MOIRA: It delivers an early spring bite for livestock and then delivers big yielding silage cut in the 3rd week of May - an outstanding variety with excellent parentage.
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
More info on the new varieties;

Two new agriculture perennial ryegrass varieties launched by Barenbrug January 16
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Moira and Fintona developed in partnership with AFBI and DARD.
Two new high yielding perennial ryegrass varieties will be available to UK farmers this spring thanks to a long-term partnership between Barenbrug, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in Northern Ireland.

Fintona is a new intermediate tetraploid perennial produced from a cross between Malone and Dunluce – two existing intermediate tetraploid varieties. A valuable grass for farms that want to maximise silage yield on a two-cut system, Fintona combines favourable attributes of both parents and sets a new standard in forage production for intermediate tetraploid perennials in UK and Republic of Ireland Recommended List trials.

Results show that Fintona has a better total silage yield than other AFBI varieties that are already performing well in grazing and silage mixtures. (See supporting diagram, which shows Fintona has improved 1st and 2nd cut silage yields over Dunluce (listed 2005), Malone (2006) and Seagoe (2011)).

Moira is an intermediate diploid perennial ryegrass that provides excellent spring growth. Trials show that Moira delivers total silage yields that are 8% higher than Spelga, the variety it was bred as a direct replacement for. The parentage of Moira includes Dutch grass genetics, acquired through Barenbrug breeding stations, which are located worldwide.

Moira and Fintona have taken almost 15 years to develop as part of a specialist grass-breeding programme at AFBI Loughgall in County Armagh. The ten-acre site – where Barenbrug has been a commercial partner since the 1990s – was established in the 1950s to produce grass varieties optimised for the UK farming sector.

The selection procedures used by AFBI in breeding Moira and Fintona were developed in close cooperation with grass experts from Barenbrug’s international network of breeding stations. This allowed access to novel breeding materials with favourable attributes such as high spring growth, disease resistance and winter hardiness. To support the trials at Loughgall, the selection and evaluation process was carried out at Barenbrug sites in England, France and the Netherlands, where disease and winter damage is usually more extreme than in Northern Ireland. This data was invaluable in identifying the best parental stocks.

Mhairi Dawson, R&D Manager for Barenbrug UK, said: “Grass is one of the most important on-farm crops. So it’s important that varieties are bred carefully to maximise productivity in the places where they’ll ultimately be grown. That’s the purpose of our work at Loughgall, where we are helping to bring new varieties to market to will meet the needs of UK farmers. From start to finish the process of developing a new grass variety is incredibly long and represents a significant investment by all parties involved. Offering excellent performance throughout the United Kingdom, we anticipate strong commercial demand for Moira and Fintona and are delighted to bring them to market in partnership with AFBI.”

Over the years, work undertaken at Loughgall by AFBI with partners such as Barenbrug has had a huge impact on the productivity of UK grassland. Analysis of data from trials conducted at AFBI, and maintained under the same management over 30 years, has shown a gradual increase in production equivalent to about 0.4% per annum. That means varieties, such as Moira and Fintona, which are being commercialised now, are at least 24% higher yielding than the best available varieties six decades ago.

The launch of Moira and Fintona follows the successful commercialisation of Clanrye, Seagoe and Glenariff, which have been established on hundreds of UK farms and have created excellent swards. AFBI has further new varieties in the pipeline, which are being multiplied by Barenbrug UK at present. These include new intermediate tetraploids Ramore and Caledon as well as a new late diploid, Glenarm. At an earlier stage of development are Glasker, Carland and Gosford.
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
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Barenbrug's Grass into Gold programme, launched in 2015, is a unique research project which sees their agricultural team working in close cooperation with farmers nationwide to explore how proactive grassland management can significantly improve yields and profitability.

Throughout the year, participating farmers will work closely with Barenbrug’s grass cultivation research experts to discover how to use and manage fields and pastures more efficiently, leading to a significant uplift in the profitability of their farm business.

Our Grass into Gold programme is being supported by Dow Agrosciences and below you can read one of the successful grass into gold case studies to inspire your own grassland development.
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Braemar Farm in Castlerock, County Londonderry, has been in the Pollock family for three generations and is a successful enterprise managed today by husband and wife team Ian and Ruth. Ian is in charge of the 220-acre farm and its 120-strong herd of Holstein cows.

The cattle produce around 8,000 litres of milk a year – some of which goes to Ballyrashane Creamery, the oldest dairy in Northern Ireland. The rest heads straight to the Pollock’s award-winning artisan ice cream business, which Ruth runs from a purpose-built unit on site.

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Ian said: “For Ballyrashane Creamery, and our own ice cream business, it’s essential that our milk comes from pasture-grazed cows – it really enhances the flavour of the end product. Luckily we are located in one of the best dairy areas of Ireland with our cows grazing 30-acres of fields overlooking the sea towards Scotland. We’ve also got 190 acres that we use to produce silage – achieving around 3,000 bales last year. Through Grass into Gold we want to deliver an increase in first cut silage yields, and improve our grass D-value and sward density. Basically, we want healthier, better performing swards to enable more ground to be re-seeded in the future.”

Traditionally the Pollocks have re-seeded every eight to nine years. However, the results of the last reseeding – three years ago – were disappointing. The Pollocks therefore wanted Barenbrug to recommend a different seed mixture and provide advice on sowing and maintenance.

David Linton, Regional Manager for Barenbrug in Northern Ireland, said: “I first visited Ian and Ruth in late April and we walked some of the swards Ian wanted to rejuvenate. The swards, while only three or four years old, were severely depleted and Ian felt their production just wasn’t up to scratch. Ian’s cows are not turned out early in spring so maximising first cut potential is essential to ensure he has enough quality forage to see him through winter. He felt his existing swards were too slow in spring and producing more silage in the second cut than the first – so we needed a solution that would maximise output early on in the growing season.”

Ian and Ruth were nervous about ploughing their fields in case it took them out of production for too long. As the fields were level and in good condition, it was agreed that Ian would burn off the existing sward and stitch new seeds into the ground using a specialist seed drill.

David recommended a mixture that would give maximum production but be easy to manage. Barenbrug’s Combi mixture was picked. This gives top quality grass when it is most needed, with maximum production throughout the year, but extra emphasis on the first cut. Ian sowed the Combi mixture in early June and growth so far looks very good.

David continued: “Combi is a popular choice for many farmers across Northern Ireland as it is one of the highest producing mixtures from a perennial ryegrass sward. Two years ago Ian moved from making clamp silage to bales. Using Combi, he now feels he can cut when necessary – getting the best quality silage from his swards, without having to wait for all his fields to be ready at one time. This takes the pressure off when it comes to waiting for contractors, who can get delayed other farms.”
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
"Comb" grass mixture; Flexible, extensive, long-term ley suited to cutting and grazing.

The concept

Its blend of the best intermediate and late heading ryegrasses is designed to produce a very high yielding, flexible, dense, palatable, long-term, top class cutting mixture which will also produce quality grazing.

The high proportion of tetraploid varieties ensure better drought resistance and higher water soluble carbohydrate content.

THE REASONS
  • Includes new variety MOIRA which delivers excellent early grazing yield (104% of control varieties) and total yield mean of 104%.
  • The high proportion of tetraploid varieties ensures better drought resistance and higher water soluble carbohydrate content.
  • DUNCE delivers large total cut yields (105% of control varieties)
  • GLENARIFF delivers exceptional late grazing growth (late summer at 106% and autumn 110% of control varieties respectively).
  • Uses all Herbage Varieties Guide recommended varieties.

14kg per acre. Sowing: 1,761 seeds/m²

In the bag
4Kg Dundrum - Late Perennial Ryegrass (TET)
3Kg Dunluce - Intermediate Perennial Ryegrass (TET)
2Kg Moira - Intermediate Perennial Ryegrass (DIP)
2Kg Glenariff - Intermediate perennial Ryegrass (DIP)
2Kg Copeland - Intermediate Perennial Ryegrass (DIP)
1Kg Ensign - White clover blend

Features
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Ley is mainly for cutting with some grazing
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Long term / Permanent
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Silage
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Sheep
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Dairy
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Beef

http://www.barenbrug.co.uk/Forage-Combi-Eng.asp?menu_id=5
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Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
Would you use 30 year animal genetics?

Improve your grassland

With 65% of utilisable agricultural land in the UK being grassland and nearly 57% being permanent pasture it’s easy to understand why Barenbrug are passionate about improving the condition of this crop across the UK.

Nowadays old genetics don’t make the cut. It’s the same with grass.

The problem is that many farmers stick with the same grass seed varieties and mixtures year after year – even if they aren’t getting the best results.

Few farmers would rely on genetics from the past for livestock breeding, so why do the same with grass?

Barenbrug are grass breeders and their grasses have shown an average improvement of 0.5% yield per annum over the last 20 years - highlighting why they are always constantly improving and developing grass seed for all our benefit.


Ready to discuss your grass requirements? - Then get in Touch
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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

  • 1,287
  • 1
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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