So I’m sharing some of our experiences this year. We only take a hay crop off part of 2 ( out of 6) paddocks – 1 upland sloping, 1 valley bottom wet, which we need for our small flock of Tor Ddu sheep. We do this semi manually, by cutting with a walk behind BCS Powerscythe, turning mainly now with a mini Molon turner which fits onto the BCS power unit, which also rows the hay up. Although under some conditions manual turning works better. The hay is then raked and manually stuffed into Big Bags and dragged off the fields and stored loose in small hay sheds. (We’ve found it stores better out of the bags). The manual effort involved in this means, as old fogies, we can never cut more than a small amount in 1 day, since we have to be prepared to make hay in 48 hours, which has been the default maximum time between showers for many recent summers until this summer of 2018.<\/p>\n Well, interestingly these first cut areas behaved as though they’d had a Chelsea chop ( in gardening parlance). Because the annual Yellow Rattle was beheaded before any seed was set, it regrew, flowered and set seed after the main crop in the centre of the field had finished – a great extra resource for nectar seeking insects… . Although the masses of Sweet Vernal grass, which is our primary grass species in the upper meadow, had flowered in the early cut sections, it hadn’t set seed. This grass species hasn’t produced much of a second flush of flowers. Instead the later flowering grasses (including ? Common Bent – I’m not a grass expert!) have now produced seed heads. Even more surprising was that in one area subjected to an early cut, a single Heath Spotted Orchid hybrid, survived, flowered and set seed, in spite of such an early assault… How do other areas of this meadow look now? Some small sections with the majority of the increasing orchid count … The main section of this field cut in late June, (above middle left), and on an East facing slope have almost no grass regrowth at all<\/strong>. But there’s still greenery in this section – the Ribwort Plantain… … all with deeper root systems looked slightly stunted but still green. The sorrel is just beginning to recover too, in this late cut area… At some point we’ll need to wean our lambs onto this field, so even with our low stocking density we do need some aftermath grazing! Shifting these meadows towards greater diversity, and cutting early (at least some sections) will definitely have helped both overall productivity\u00a0in the very dry conditions of 2018. In addition it may have really helped all the invertebrate life which would been more impacted with conventional removal of all the crop at one time.<\/p>\n Obviously, however, this piece meal approach won’t easily work with larger machinery or with a contractor, but for any with smaller areas, say less than 2 acres, it could be an option to consider.<\/p>\n With the above backdrop I was interested by the recently established trial on increasing diversity in pasture swards by the University of Reading. The Diverse Forages<\/strong><\/em> project\u00a0 began in 2017. By using standardised plots using increasing numbers of species in the seed mixes for newly sown pasture (6,12,17 species), it has a number of targets and measurements:<\/p>\n \u2022 Biomass yield, forage quality, botanical composition, and soil properties in a long-term replicated trial plot study at multiple sites<\/p>\n \u2022 A comparison of pasture resilience under waterlogged and drought conditions assessed using trial plots<\/p>\n \u2022 On-farm case studies from ten demonstration farms in South and South West England<\/p>\n \u2022 A two-year evaluation of forage nutritional value, including measurements of digestibility, nitrogen use efficiency, methane emission mitigation potential, and growth rate of grazing cattle<\/p>\n \u2022 A modelling exercise to determine economic and environmental impacts of the mixtures at farm-scale.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can read a review of a discussion workshop of its first year’s results by clicking here.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n This review includes<\/p>\n \u00a0“Results from the\u00a0<\/em>EU Cost study showed that\u00a098% of the mixed swards tested outperformed\u00a0<\/em>the yield of the average component species<\/em> and\u00a0 “The SmartGrass\u00a0<\/em>project indicated reduced requirement for<\/em>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/185.53.59.222\/~carmsmeadows\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/p1330140.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>After experimenting for 5 years, this year we decided to start cutting the peripheral field margins on our upper hay meadow, which always grow lusher and quicker than the central areas of this field, first.<\/a> This began on May 21st. Stock had been kept out from early February. The crop was very light, but conditions were good for haymaking, though some overheated and needed manually re-turning (below) once the typical unanticipated showers had been and gone…<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>In the end we’d got all of our designated hay areas in both fields finished by the last week in June. Way too early for wildflower seed set?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>We’ve just had a Bumblebee survey conducted by Clare Flynn form Bumblebee Conservation, and she was delighted by the number of bumbles here, finding 7 species, including the Cuckoo bumblebee Bombus vestalis which probably use both our meadows and garden for foraging. Clare in the uncut section of our lower wet hay meadow below …<\/a>It’s persuaded me to sign up to do a regular Bumblebee monitoring walk on our land to monitor these insects long term. Click here for the BeeWalk project. Bombus vestalis below…<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> The later flowering Greater Bird’s foot trefoil, has also recovered and is just now producing some flowers and greenery in areas near to the hedges…<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>(83 this year, up from just 1 flower, 4 years ago) are still uncut and straw like in appearance….<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Dandelions and Fox and Cubs …<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>….whilst in the earlier cut sections the closely related Sheep’s Sorrel has flowered and set seed…<\/a><\/p>\n
\nsown in monoculture,” <\/em><\/p>\n
\nworming lambs fed on multi-species pasture.”<\/em><\/p>\n