Whole farm into SFI hedgerows

[paul&mandy]

I'm helping someone measure all the fields. There is about 130 fields to measure hedges. I'll be the 1 cutting and managing what and how it's cut.
We have decided incremental trimming probably suites best so a light trim every year leaving 4inches every yr. Some might go every other yr.
1. When do you decide how your cutting them? Some might be 2 or 3 yrs especially if it turns wet and gets missed.
2. Roadsides hedges we could cut incremental but leaving top and inside extra 4inches finished cut not such and issue. I've if it against a path. Can we do that or has it got to be all sides and top.
3. What defines a hedge, can along a wood as an example that's sided up mainly blackthorn be included as a full hedge management even though we can't get inside but obviously be left uncut top and inside.
It's all a bit vague...

 

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

I am just looking at page 37 of the guidance. We tried 3 yearly cutting once before but it is so hard on the hedge, brutal. Takes a year or more to get over the punishment!
The 2 yearly cutting option looked good until I read that the cutting has to be in January and February only. Well this is wet Cumbria and the best time to cut is usually 1 September!
Ok it can be frosty in late winter but the contractors tend to run off to spread slurry on dairy farms if the ground conditions allow. Do I really want to risk it?
I don’t know whether I want to be micro managed in the care of miles of nice hedges I created.
Is there further guidance on what incremental cutting would involve?

 

[paul&mandy]

I am just looking at page 37 of the guidance. We tried 3 yearly cutting once before but it is so hard on the hedge, brutal. Takes a year or more to get over the punishment!
The 2 yearly cutting option looked good until I read that the cutting has to be in January and February only. Well this is wet Cumbria and the best time to cut is usually 1 September!
Ok it can be frosty in late winter but the contractors tend to run off to spread slurry on dairy farms if the ground conditions allow. Do I really want to risk it?
I don’t know whether I want to be micro managed in the care of miles of nice hedges I created.
Is there further guidance on what incremental cutting would involve?

Not really but says leave on 4inches every year. So by end of agreement your left with a hedge I guess 1ft bigger in all directions...
We might be in Surrey and Sussex but seriously heavy clay and it never seems to freeze down here so 1st Jan be no good traveling and doing it every 3yrs just ruines the hedge, hedge cutter and the tractor it's on. Just mad why we can't do bi annual from 1st September.

 

[Alias]

A lot of hedge measurements have appeared on our RPA field maps. I don’t know when they appeared because I haven’t logged in for a while, but I’ve never noticed them before. I assumed that these would be the measurements that would be accepted if we were to go into one of these schemes.
The problem is that there are a lot of mistakes. If a hedge goes under a big tree, it is shown as no hedge. A line of tyres round the silo is down as a hedge, and a wall with a few brambles on is down as a hedge. I assume that it is now up to us to rectify the mistakes

 

[Hindsight]

A lot of hedge measurements have appeared on our RPA field maps. I don’t know when they appeared because I haven’t logged in for a while, but I’ve never noticed them before. I assumed that these would be the measurements that would be accepted if we were to go into one of these schemes.
The problem is that there are a lot of mistakes. If a hedge goes under a big tree, it is shown as no hedge. A line of tyres round the silo is down as a hedge, and a wall with a few brambles on is down as a hedge. I assume that it is now up to us to rectify the mistakes

Don't worry and don't pay any notice of the hedges on the RPA Rural Land Register. Most are incorrect. And there is no requirement to correct the maps on the Rural Land Register. For SFI you enter lengths of hedge that you have - no need to correct the maps, unless you want to.

 

[paul&mandy]

Don't worry and don't pay any notice of the hedges on the RPA Rural Land Register. Most are incorrect. And there is no requirement to correct the maps on the Rural Land Register. For SFI you enter lengths of hedge that you have - no need to correct the maps, unless you want to.

Yes all the maps we have show incorrect hedges. There is a form to correct them.
What actual form does all these hedges go onto? Can see a sizable bill from agent, if it's a case of a lot of manual input then he just checks over and submits.

 

[Badshot]

It's not a difficult task measuring things, but you do need some on ground knowledge of where they are

 

[paul&mandy]

It's not a difficult task measuring things, but you do need some on ground knowledge of where they are

I was going to use Google measure then double check some with a wheel to make sure it's about right.
I've cut all these hedges for over 25yrs, I know it probably better than anyone else...

 

[B'o'B]

The SFI T&Cs and required management mean hedges won’t be included in my SFI agreement. The record keeping alone make it a nonstarter for me.

 

[Badshot]

The SFI T&Cs and required management mean hedges won’t be included in my SFI agreement. The record keeping alone make it a nonstarter for me.

Same here, the hassle involved for the pittance of a payment is an insult.

 

[paul&mandy]

Th

Same here, the hassle involved for the pittance of a payment is an insult.

This farm probably has over 15 miles hedges a lot with trees in to claim the full amount. Yes personally I wouldn't bother either and just put some extra game covers in. I mean wild bird feed to make up the hedges payments.

 

[egbert]

To save me looking....

Is there anything to grow a hedge on for 5-10 years, then lay it in the proper fashion?

 

[Tubbylew]

To save me looking....

Is there anything to grow a hedge on for 5-10 years, then lay it in the proper fashion?

Not beyond the capital grants as far as I'm aware.

 

[Hindsight]

To save me looking....

Is there anything to grow a hedge on for 5-10 years, then lay it in the proper fashion?

Why don't you read the SFI guidelines rather than rely on comments on here! Genuine question - is easy to read.

SFI actions for hedgerows

Find out about the SFI actions for hedgerows, what land is eligible for each action, and what you need to do to get paid.

www.gov.uk

Quote from the guidance

• managing them in a coppicing or laying rotation, which may mean they’re left uncut for the duration of your 3-year SFI agreement

Not beyond the capital grants as far as I'm aware.

See above.

 

[egbert]

Why don't you read the SFI guidelines rather than rely on comments on here! Genuine question - is easy to read.

SFI actions for hedgerows

Find out about the SFI actions for hedgerows, what land is eligible for each action, and what you need to do to get paid.

www.gov.uk

Quote from the guidance

• managing them in a coppicing or laying rotation, which may mean they’re left uncut for the duration of your 3-year SFI agreement

See above.

Because I'm already working 3 jobs, and find their schemes too stoopidly complex, wrong headed, and poorly designed.
So far, everything we've looked at hasn't rewarded us enough to be worth exploring. (We've got huge wildlife assets on the main farm...but there's only been incentives to add to them...not reward for having them.
From what we've explored so far, it'd be better to burn/drain/dig up the whole lot, and then enter the scheme.

Let's try this'un then....
2100 words later.....well that was as clear as mud.

So the SFI is only for 3 years (eh?), and they'd pay me to leave hedges uncut for the duration on the promise I'd lay them later? Cool.

And is it right they'll allow me to average the number of hedgerow trees, and pay me £10 a tree (per year?)....even if they're quite dead? Even cooler!

And they'll pay me 20p/meter to write a few words about my hedges, cos I like hedges? I take it I can write one description, and simply paste and copy for each field?
This gets better and better!
(actually, for the few hundred quid it seems to involve, I wouldn't have them on the place)

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a straight forward way of encouraging me to rotationally grow and lay properly w4nked hedges on one of my Eastern estates-a former dairy farm I bought backalong- banking them up as needed.
Which is a shame, as I'd be up for that, and it'd leave them in much better fettle.


All I can say is 'Beam me up Scottie, there's no intelligent life down here'.

 

[organicguy]

Not really but says leave on 4inches every year. So by end of agreement your left with a hedge I guess 1ft bigger in all directions...
We might be in Surrey and Sussex but seriously heavy clay and it never seems to freeze down here so 1st Jan be no good traveling and doing it every 3yrs just ruines the hedge, hedge cutter and the tractor it's on. Just mad why we can't do bi annual from 1st September.

There is a reason. Hedge plants mainly fruit on 2nd year growth. If you cut in September before the birds have eaten the seeds you would as well cut annually. Public money for public goods!

 

[neilo]

There is a reason. Hedge plants mainly fruit on 2nd year growth. If you cut in September before the birds have eaten the seeds you would as well cut annually. Public money for public goods!

Great, on chalk Downland in Dorset maybe, but you simply can’t travel to trim hedges in Jan or Feb in most of the country, unless we get an unusually dry period or a hard frost for several weeks.

The quad is making a mess here, let alone a tractor & hedgecutter.

 

[Hampton]

I'm helping someone measure all the fields. There is about 130 fields to measure hedges. I'll be the 1 cutting and managing what and how it's cut.
We have decided incremental trimming probably suites best so a light trim every year leaving 4inches every yr. Some might go every other yr.
1. When do you decide how your cutting them? Some might be 2 or 3 yrs especially if it turns wet and gets missed.
2. Roadsides hedges we could cut incremental but leaving top and inside extra 4inches finished cut not such and issue. I've if it against a path. Can we do that or has it got to be all sides and top.
3. What defines a hedge, can along a wood as an example that's sided up mainly blackthorn be included as a full hedge management even though we can't get inside but obviously be left uncut top and inside.
It's all a bit vague...

If you go on your field maps, it has all the metres that the RPA define as a hedge

 

[neilo]

Why don't you read the SFI guidelines rather than rely on comments on here! Genuine question - is easy to read.

SFI actions for hedgerows

Find out about the SFI actions for hedgerows, what land is eligible for each action, and what you need to do to get paid.

www.gov.uk

Quote from the guidance

• managing them in a coppicing or laying rotation, which may mean they’re left uncut for the duration of your 3-year SFI agreement

See above.

Thank you for posting that up, it has inspired me (being a nosey bugger) to have a look through a lot of the SFI options available to you.

FFS, why are you lot complaining? I’d be receiving more on SFI than the £65/ac I currently receive (we still get full BPS, for now). I’m just hoping the new Welsh scheme comes up with similar funding levels!
£40/ac for just having some clover in my grass leys (already there), £250/ac for growing a few herbal leys (already doing), £10 a tree for all those growing in a hedge line, £6/100m for writing a hedgerow report and adding a ‘reviewed’ date annually, crappy unproductive bits can earn £250/ac as legume fallow, £300/ac for winter bird seed mixes or £240//ac for chucking some rough grass in dodgy corners. On top of that, all the soil testing and vet planning I do anyway will be effectively paid for.

You lot really don’t know you’re born. I could farm pretty much as I do now, and draw a much better sub than I do now, if only the border was sat a mile further West.

Sorry, off on a tangent again, but hey.

 

[Devil's advocate]

Thank you for posting that up, it has inspired me (being a nosey bugger) to have a look through a lot of the SFI options available to you.

FFS, why are you lot complaining? I’d be receiving more on SFI than the £65/ac I currently receive (we still get full BPS, for now). I’m just hoping the new Welsh scheme comes up with similar funding levels!
£40/ac for just having some clover in my grass leys (already there), £250/ac for growing a few herbal leys (already doing), £10 a tree for all those growing in a hedge line, £6/100m for writing a hedgerow report and adding a ‘reviewed’ date annually, crappy unproductive bits can earn £250/ac as legume fallow, £300/ac for winter bird seed mixes or £240//ac for chucking some rough grass in dodgy corners. On top of that, all the soil testing and vet planning I do anyway will be effectively paid for.

You lot really don’t know you’re born. I could farm pretty much as I do now, and draw a much better sub than I do now, if only the border was sat a mile further West.

Sorry, off on a tangent again, but hey.

@Wood field

I agree Neil, but remember the difference between acres & hectares