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The launch of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment is on 5^th November. The aim of the campaign is to promote voluntary management of farmland to 're-capture' set-aside benefits from a relatively small area of well located and positively managed land. It unites the key industry organisations - NFU, CLA, LEAF, FWAG, AIC, AICC, CAAV and GWCT- who are working in partnership with Defra and its agencies, Natural England and the Environment Agency, and the RSPB in order to deliver advice to farmers on how they might best retain and increase the environmental benefits provided by their farmland in a targeted and agronomically sensible way.

 The campaign concentrates on three main themes

• 1) Farmland Birds
• 2) Farm Wildlife
• 3) Resource Protection

 Given that RSPB has signed up to the Campaign our attention has turned to how our farm is delivering these objectives on our 169 hectares of arable farmland.

 Farmland birds

 a) Seed food

 This is provided by a combination of 50% of the requirement made up by over-wintered stubbles and 50% by wild bird seed mixtures.

 Overwintered stubbles

As the preceding wheat crop was sprayed with pre-harvest desiccant, the value of the stubble for seed-eating birds is only half of the value of ELS over-wintered stubbles, so we would need the equivalent of 10 ha (rather than 5 ha) per 100 ha of arable farmland to provide the full seed food requirement through stubbles. In addition, we have an additional 35 ha of stubbles created through broadcasting our oilseed rape. Our research on broadcast oilseed rape has demonstrated that although this is a valuable food resource in early winter it becomes less effective as the season progresses and the rape develops, so this is not included as part of our seed food provision.

 Wild Seed Mixtures 

1.7ha of wild seed mixtures around the farm providing seed food this winter to make up half of our seed food requirement. We have found spring-sown mixtures yield very poorly, so have tried autumn-sown mixtures, which means we also have crops established this autumn to provide sufficient seed food for next winter.

 b) Insect food

 We have in excess of the required 1 ha of insect-rich habitat per 100 ha of arable farmland, made up of wildflower margins and pollen and nectar mixtures.

 Wildflower margins

3km (1.8 hectares) of 6m flower rich grass margins. Some of these margins have been included within our ELS application whilst the remainder is part of the research trials.

Pollen and Nectar mixtures 

Three different pollen and nectar mixtures covering 0.6ha have been sown as part of the ELS application.

 c) In-field nesting habitat

Skylark Plots

One hundred plots will be sprayed out once the wheat emerges. This is an option RSPB first developed at Hope Farm and is proven to boost nesting opportunities for skylarks. This is well in excess of the 34 plots we would need to comply with the farmland bird package (20 plots per 100 ha of arable farmland).

 2. Farmland wildlife

 In addition to the benefits arising from the provision for farmland birds and buffering of watercourses, we also have approximately 6 ha of very low input grassland, which we are maintaining through ELS for the grassland plants and insects.

3. Resource protection

Grass margins alongside temporary and permanent watercourses

6m grass margins have been placed alongside the fields adjacent to the stream to reduce nutrient and soil run-off as well as providing valuable wildlife habitat. Margins were established by sowing a mixture of course grasses, were cut several times in the first year to aid establishment. The margins are now managed following Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) rules.

 Winter Cover Crops

Following completion of the final autumn cultivations the fallow land left for spring beans was broadcast with mustard in mid October. A winter cover crop is included to prevent soil erosion and reduce nitrate leaching

 Further information

 For further information about the Campaign visit  www. cfeonline.co.uk;

agri-environmental options case studies on http://www.farmwildlife.info/case/default.asp 

Economics of wildlife-friendly farming  http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/farming/advice/economics/index.asp

The 2009 bird analysis was completed a week ago and the results have exceeded our initial expectations. This year’s figures are incredible with record territory counts of yellowhammer(39), skylark(44), grey partridge(5), whitethroat (48) and starling (19) recorded. The most startling increase though has to be linnet which rose from 18 pairs last year to 33 this. The overall Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index has now risen by 177% from our baseline year in 2000 (see graph below). The index is a collective population trend using the same 19 species as the UK government national indicator. At Hope Farm, we have been able to demonstrate that increasing farmland birds does not necessarily have to be at the expense of producing food or maintaining profits.  Creating seed and insect rich habitats as well as providing safe nest sites help to provide the three vital ingredients that farmland birds need to thrive. Whilst most species increased in number, there were a few disappointments most notably yellow wagtail where only a single pair was recorded. Corn Buntings are also an enigma, nesting on all our neighbouring farms but not ours; proof there is still work to be done. We have just started working on a paper analysing how the farmland birds have responded to our management. More detailed information about the survey results with will be placed on the website within the next month.

Species included within the index are corn bunting, goldfinch, greenfinch, grey partridge, jackdaw, kestrel, lapwing, linnet, reed bunting, rook, skylark, starling, stock dove, tree sparrow, turtle dove, yellowhammer, yellow wagtail, whitethroat and wood pigeon.

Starlings

19 pairs of starlings used nestboxes this year with 21 breeding attempts monitored in total.  The average number of  young produced was higher than 2008 but lower than 2006 and 2007. We have colour-ringed 56 young with a unique combination of rings which will help us investigate how far the starlings travel to collect food. This forms part of a study at the farm to identify if sheep grazing can be adapted to enhance invertebrate abundance whilst at the same time improving access for feeding starling

Harvest

Harvest is now completed the spring beans were combined on Friday. Although I have yet to have had figures back from the contractor the reports are the that the yields are exceptionally disappointing. The quad tractors are now cultivating ahead of sowing the wheat but we are unlikely to sow until we get some rain.

Wheat Harvest

A couple of day's frantic activity is coming to the end. It took all of seven hours for the contractor to harvest the wheat on Monday. With two combines, it is over before you know it. I was beginning to get frustrated waiting for the moisture levels of the grain to reduce but our patience has paid off because we were able to put it straight into the stores without the need to dry. Yields not surprisingly down on last years record but better than originally expected. Overall, the weather around harvest has been kinder this year than last.

The two fields we have allocated to sow with oilseed rape next year were broadcast with the seed prior to wheat harvest. This method provides large savings in establishment  costs as the only "cultivation" required is two passes of a cambridge roll. We have found that for us this is the most reliable and cheapest way to establish the crop. By broadcasting, we also provide more over-winter stubble, which has the potential to be a good source of grain and  weed seeds.  The contractor has already started cultivations in preparation for next year's wheat crops. The spring beans should be harvested within two weeks weather permitting.

Birds 

The two barn owl chicks fledged at the start of the month are still regularly seen around the barns. The breeding season for most species has ended but there are still a few yellowhammer, blackbird, stock dove and swallow with chicks. We are in the process of analyzing 2009 breeding season following our annual breeding season monitoring which started in April and finished at the end of June. Overall, it looks to have been a good year. Results will be on the website within the next couple of weeks. 

First Breeding Barn Owls

A great story to start this post and a first for the farm. We have added barn owls to the list of birds that have breed at the farm. This makes it the third species of owl to breed at the site after Little and Tawny. I took a group out at dusk last week and it was magically to see the adults hunting so effectively across the fields. They are seen regularly, at dawn and dusk, around our field margins, pasture and our beetle bank hunting voles to feed the chicks. The chicks should fledge any day now. You can see more on this story along with some video of the chicks being ringed by following the link. http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-222543

Harvest starts

Last week the contractor harvested the oilseed rape. The weather had been frustrating with showers making it difficult to predict when we would be able to combine. The yields look significantly better than the last few year, I am relieved to say, the first field averaged 3.9t/ha a significant improvement on last year pathetic 1.5t.  Hopefully the ground will dry enough for the tractors to start preparation for next years crops, the fields that were in oilseed rape will be sown with winter wheat probably at the end of September or start of October. We are anticipating that the wheat should be cut in about two weeks and the spring beans in a month weather permitting.

Bat surveys

Last week 30 staff and volunteers undertook a bat survey as part of programme of our on-going non-avian biodiversity monitoring. Twenty five individuals from two species, common pipistelle and Daubenton’s were recorded.  This year we have surveyed a wide range of taxa including plants, butterflies, moths and other insect groups. The results from these surveys are eagerly anticipated as it gives us a valuable opportunity to examine how our management has affected their numbers and diversity since our baseline years in 2000 and 2001.

Birds

With the breeding season well under way, 2009 has started positively. The migrants started arriving in the middle of April with early sightings of wheatears, swallows, whitethroats and lesser whitethroats augmenting the regular skylark, yellowhammer and linnet songs. The early nesting birds such as song thrush and starling are now feeding their young.

We have 18 boxes of starling chicks this year, and from the office window, I can see that the parents are being kept extremely busy bringing earthworms and leatherjackets. This dry period has been challenging for this ground probing species with the birds travelling further to find food. We have individually colour ringed 48 chicks, which we will monitor very closely over the next few weeks.

Hope Farm Regular Donor Open Days

We had a busy weekend hosting 170 of our regular donors. It is encouraging to see how enthusiastic they are about the project. I firmly believe that the Hope Farm project continues to produce some amazing results, strengthening the RSPB’s ability to demonstrate that commercial farming can go hand in hand with increasing farmland bird numbers.

The members who visited were shown some of the areas we manage to provide the 'Big three' – a safe nesting site, and plentiful supplies of insects and seed feed. These habitats include skylark plots, pollen and nectar mixtures, wild bird cover and grass margins. In addition, they examined some of the latest research for species such as yellow wagtails and starlings, and learnt about techniques for improving the way we manage grass margins and our water features. Find out how you can become a regular donor.

Crops 

We are desperate for rain. In East Anglia, we had under half the average rainfall in April and the start of May there has been no improvement. The spring beans, which were planted at the end of March, have struggled in this dry spell and there are incredibly large cracks appearing in the fields.

On a more positive note, the oilseed rape, which has been in full flower for the last few weeks, looks to be the best crop we have grown for years. Broadcasting the crop, this year has paid dividends, as most of the drilled crops in the locality looked poor this autumn. The wheat will receive a second fungicide later this week primarily to control the yellow rust within the crop.

Cropping

The beautiful snowy weather at the start of February has now thawed leaving the fields extremely wet and muddy. Undoubtedly this will delay our farming operations this spring and it will require several weeks of dry weather before we are able to sow our spring beans. We have managed to complete the planned hedge cutting during February. We aim to cut our hedges predominately on a three-year rotation to provide a variety of hedge heights and widths.

Trimming on a three-year rotation rather than annually boosts the berry crops available for wintering birds and populations of insects. Other work planned for spring will include re-establishing some of our wild bird cover and pollen and nectar mixtures once the weather improves.

The wheat and oilseed rape established well and the weather has not affected them. Broadcasting the oilseed rape, rather than using minimum tillage has paid dividend this winter with the crops significantly more advanced than the majority of the minimum tilled crops in the surrounding area. Our only headache is keeping the large flocks of woodpigeons off the crop.

Farmland Bird Index

There has been a lot of discussion in the farming press about the small decline in the Hope Farm farmland bird index. It is of course disappointing that the numbers did not continue to rise, however what has been ignored by farming groups is since the RSPB purchased the site, the farmland bird population has doubled against a backdrop of national declines.

The RSPB is proud of the results achieved at Hope Farm where we have been able to show that measures to increase bird numbers do not have to be at the expense of either yield or profitability. This has been largely achieved by using a simple mix of options within Entry Level Scheme to provide the “Big three” – nesting habitat, summer and winter food.

To find out about providing the big three for farmland birds, visit: www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/farming/advice/

Bird highlights

The February winter bird count recorded good numbers of 151 skylarks, 30 linnets and 21 grey partridges. The linnets were observed feeding on spilt charlock seed from last year's harvest. The most unusual bird recorded on the count was a woodcock. We also recorded three bramblings, feeding with a flock of chaffinches, on seed put out during the snow.

Wheat yields reach new highs

As we head into Christmas, it is time to reflect on a busy end of the year. Harvest, which now seems along time ago, went relatively smoothly.  The wheat and spring beans were harvested on the 31st August with better than expected results. Our winter wheat averaged 11.6t/ha the RSPB’s best ever and 36% higher than last year. Yields for the spring beans were a respectable 3.4t/ha whilst the oilseed rape, which had not recovered from the early winter woodpigeon damage, reached only a disappointing 2.0t/ha. We were extremely fortunate that we escaped the worst of the wet weather when the contractor combined the crops, as the crops only required small amounts of drying to meet the minimum storage requirements.
This years cropping (to be harvested in 2009) consists of 82 ha of winter wheat, 32 ha of oilseed rape and 37 ha of spring beans. The wheat was sown remarkably quickly after harvest on the 17th September. Between harvest and sowing, the contractor had completed several cultivations with discs and tines to provide a good quality seed bed for the wheat. As in previous years, the oilseed rape was broadcast into the standing wheat prior to the wheat harvest. Our decision to continue with this method this year followed the conclusion of the oilseed rape trail, which is described below. The germination was especially good because the damp soil conditions resulting in a uniform oilseed rape. Wet weather has delayed the last of the spraying and it now looks as though this will not happen until next year. Hopefully it will stop raining at somepoint so we are able to get the spraying upto date.

Benefits of broadcast oilseed rape:

You may remember that over the last two years we have been establishing our oilseed rape using two methods, broadcasting and the more traditional non-inversion tillage. Our original decision to broadcast was made on a commercial basis four years ago because it provided large savings in establishment costs compared with traditional methods. By broadcasting, we provide more over-winter stubbles, which have the potential to be a good source of grain and weed seeds. However, we did not have any information on which method farmland birds preferred. To resolve this question, we established a trial to compare bird use of oilseed rape grown by the two methods. We have just completed the analysis, which indicate that there is no significant difference between methods, although the birds numbers on the broadcast rape were consistently higher on the broadcast compared with the non-inversion tillage. The possible reasons for this are that the oilseed rape rapidly grows up to prevent access to the seed within the stubble or that birds do not use it once the rape has grown up due to the predation risk. Given the conclusions we have decided to base our choice on method of establishment on agronomic and economic considerations, as for birds, there was no clear and consistent evidence that suggests one technique is more beneficial than the other. Therefore, we decided to continue broadcasting the seed as this method provided superior financial margins allowing us easier control of blackgrass our biggest grass weed problem. The full results of these trials can be seen on the Farm wildlife website http://www.farmwildlife.info/case/default.asp.

Birds

Analysis of the maps was completed and as predicted in the last entry they did show a mixed year. The results show that 2008 Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index to be the second highest only very slightly down from last years record. Woodpigeon, yellow wagtail, linnet and reed bunting all held the highest number of territories since recording began in 2000. Yellowhammer, grey partridge and greenfinch numbers were stable whilst skylark and whitethroats numbers fell.  This is still a very positive story against the backdrop of the national decline of the farmland bird index.
We have now started our winter fieldwork, our first count in November was promising as we recorded over 280 yellowhammer plus 20 snipe and a woodcock. We will provide further updates in the next addition.

Harvest starts

It has a busy time over the last few weeks. Harvesting started on 28/7/08 with oilseed rape obliterated within a four hour period by the contractor’s two new combines. Yields, estimated from the combines, show that the broadcast rape outperformed the minimum tilled rape however because of heavy wood pigeon damage neither are particularly impressive. Light cultivations started the following day on the fields harvested. We are waiting patiently for the wheat to be harvested, hopefully within the next two weeks as long as the showery weather stops. The spring beans will be harvested at the start of September if everything goes according to plan.  Elsewhere on the farm, the contractor has cut a number of the grass margins and pollen and nectar mixtures to aid establishment.

Birds

The researchers are currently studying the recently completed bird maps from this years breeding season to calculate how many pairs of each species were present on the farm. These maps are produced following intensive monitoring from April through to the start of July. Early indications suggest that there have been some winners and losers compared with last years figures but we will have to wait another month to see the final figures and see how this effects the Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index which has risen by 89% since 2000. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of yellow wagtails using the farm this year and we had a number of fledged chicks flying around the fields.

Farm Wildlife Margin Event held at the farm

A Farm Wildlife  event was organised for farmers, advisers, and ecologists focusing on Arable Field Margin management on 1 July.  The idea was to bring together these groups to discuss the ecology and practical management of field margins, and ensure that the best wildlife habitats can be delivered through existing funding mechanisms.  This was one of a series of events, which are unique in bringing farmers and ecologists together, in the hope of improving the understanding of how habitats help wildlife and the practical issues of getting the management right.
 
At this event, the main messages were:
 ·a diversity of habitats within the field margins will help the  greatest range of biodiversity - strips of rough grass margins,  wildflower margins, pollen and nectar strips, wild bird cover  strips, and cultivated uncropped margins will broaden the  opportunities for wildlife to thrive on an arable farm;
 ·management in the first year of establishing perennial margins  should focus on weed control to minimise the need for  management in future years;
 ·management should be avoided during the nesting season  (April-August) - if management is required during this period  (eg for weed control in the first year of establishment, or to  prolong flowering season of pollen and nectar mixtures), then  it is best to cut regularly to keep the sward too short to  attract nesting birds or leverets;
 ·grasses tend to out compete wildflowers in perennial margins,  and management is needed to suppress the grasses in order to  maintain the wildflowers – scarification worked well in trials  at Hope Farm, but is not currently allowed under funding  schemes;
 ·scrub is a valuable habitat for wildlife that is currently  discouraged by the regulations for keeping land in 'Good  Agricultural and Environmental Condition' - the group vowed to  lobby for changes to regulations to enable more flexible  management of margins.

Visit :  http://www.farmwildlife.info/  to find out more about this event, look at other farming case studies or to join in the discussion forum.

Birds
The migrants are back. After a slow start, due to cold weather, numbers of whitethroat, yellow wagtail and swallow recorded are now close to last year’s numbers. Highlights so far are the two lapwing displaying and six yellow wagtails on one of our spring bean fields.
Twelve of the fifteen occupied starling boxes have now hatched and the adults are now frantically hunting for leatherjackets and grubs in our pastures to feed the young. As part of our research we have colour ringed and measured all the starling chicks. Colour ringing allows us to monitor the fate of individually marked birds throughout the remainder of the year.

Crops
All the fertiliser and pesticide applications to the crops are upto date. The wheat and spring beans are looking in good condition and we are hopeful that they will produce decent yields at the end of the season. The oilseed rape is poorer not helped by heavy pigeon grazing in March and April.

Yellow Wagtail trial.
In this trial, centred on our set-aside, we are testing alternative management measures to create suitable late-season nesting habitat by manipulation of cereal stubbles. The stubble manipulations include using a contact herbicide, scarifying the soil and sowing a low rate of barley. This trial was initiated following RSPB Research demonstrating that whilst Yellow Wagtails early season nesting attempts were frequently made in winter cereal fields late season nesting became far more difficult as the crop becomes too tall and dense. We will be monitoring how the various manipulations affect the vegetation structure of the stubbles.

Future Open Days.

We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

April’s here it must mean the start of summer monitoring
It is always an exciting time looking forward to seeing the results of another breeding season. The research team started the summer monitoring at the start of April.  This consists of recording all birds seen and heard from a minimum of ten whole farm surveys. From these we are then able to assess the number of territories for each species. Activity started slowly due to the cold weather with the starlings, robins, yellowhammer and linnets several weeks than last year. The skylarks have also been delayed with their first nesting attempts. Lapwing are again displaying regularly over one of the spring bean fields, there can be no doubt that this charismatic bird has benefited from our decision to sow a spring crop.

As well as the bird monitoring and nest finding we will continue to record the moths, butterflies, bees on the farm as well as monitoring the vegetation within our research margins and skylark plots.

Cropping

From a cropping perspective, we look to be ahead of schedule with the spring beans planted a month earlier this year than last. The dry but frosty weather allowed us to sow our only spring crop in early March. Snow and rain followed towards the end of the month slowing subsequent growth in all the crops but by mid April all the crops had recovered. The oilseed rape and winter wheat responded quickly to the fertiliser applied and do not look too bad.
 
Insect rich habitat

The contractor has sown a number of new pollen and nectar mixtures, in early April, as part of our agri-environment scheme agreement. These will provide flowering plants including phacelia, red clover, birds foot trefoil throughout spring and summer to supply food for insects such as butterflies and bumblebees.  In addition, we have just established the farmyard demonstration plots with a cornfield annual mix including the colourful corn chamomile, corn marigold, corncockle and field poppy. This will create a colourful area close to the house and provide an insect-rich habitat.

Garden gets a makeover

We spent the winter improving the garden with the advice from the team leading the Homes for wildlife Project. www.rspb.org.uk/hfw. For those that do not know Homes for Wildlife is designed to provide positive practical steps, for any sized garden, to help some of our most familiar garden wildlife species. A new pond was created alongside a hibernaculum, we replanted several beds and will be adding extra tubs and planters this summer. I am looking forward to see if this has any impact on our small House Sparrow population.

Future Open Days.

We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Winter bird monitoring.
We monitor wintering birds on the whole farm and divide the records into field or boundary categories. The whole farm counts are completed on a monthly basis from October through to February. These counts have shown that birds at Hope Farm are not only flourishing in the breeding season. A look at some individual species reveals some very interesting trends. The mean counts of Yellowhammers rose to 111 this winter from 1 in 2000/01, reed bunting 25.3 from 2.3 and skylark 120.6 compared with 18.3 in 2000/01. This shows some of the real progress that has been made since we purchased the farm.
Other sightings over the winter period included counts of 150 fieldfares, 150 linnets, 100 starlings, 4 buzzards and several barn owls. I hope that figures crossed, this year we will be able to add Barn Owl as a breeding bird.

Demonstration Plots
Although a quiet time from a cropping perspective, we have still had a busy period on farm. The contractors started work at the start of the New Year on a project centred primarily within the farmyard and neighbouring grass field that will allow the site to expand its demonstration value by adding a series of plots. These will display options already within agri-environment schemes but not already demonstrated on the farm, important policy areas such as crops grown for biofuels or bioenergy as well as our latest research.

Alternative method of establishing skylark plots
During trials on Hope Farm and on a wider basis in the SAFFIE project, skylark plots in winter wheat fields have been shown to extend the breeding season for skylarks and to increase the number of chicks successfully leaving the nest. Due to this success they have been included in Environmental Stewardship, Entry Level Scheme (ELS), although the uptake has been poor to date.
Until now, plots in ELS agreements were established as undrilled areas during the sowing phase. However, a number of farmers have indicated that this presents them with significant problems. To reflect their concerns we are currently trialling an alternative strategy of spraying some of the plots out using glyphosate. 25% of the plots will be undrilled (already established), as in previous years. The other 75% will be sprayed out during winter 2007/08 with 25% in December, 25% in January and 25% in February. The vegetation in each plot will be monitored during the summer months to assess which month provides a similar structure to the undrilled plots.

Future Open Days.
We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Harvest results
A slow harvest finished at the start of September when the spring beans were finally harvested with results from all crops disappointing. Wheat yields (variety Robigus) were down 17% from last year’s 10.4t/ha to 8.64t/ha. This was in line with the national trend. Spring beans (variety Syncro) averaged 2.56t/ha down from 3.1t/ha last year. There were large variations between the fields. At one end of the spectrum 1.23t/ha on the “lapwing field” whilst the highest yields were 3.92t/ha. The oilseed rape averaged 2.4t/ha with overall the minimum tilled fields, or part fields performing slightly better than the broadcast ones. However, this is not the whole story as the overall gross margin for the broadcast are likely to be higher. Although the yields were disappointing the overall profitability of the farm will be at it’s highest due to the high wheat pices. This year we sold the majority of the wheat at over £150 per tonne compared to £70 last year.

This years cropping
Crops for this year include 78.91 ha winter wheat (Oakley), 43.15 ha oilseed rape (expert) and 31.35 ha spring beans (Syncro). We will be maintaining our set-aside for this coming harvest at approximately 14hectares because of agreed long-term research commitments. The 14 hectares comprises the 6 hectares of non-rotational set-aside in wildbird cover, 6 metre margins and 8 hectares of rotational set-aside which is being used for the yellow wagtail trial. 

Winter bird numbers
The first whole farm count of the 2007/08 winter took place in October. Despite some significant changes on the ground, i.e. no long term set-aside, the counts were very high. The total count was 1329 birds, the second highest count recorded, of 41 species (joint highest species richness). However, when 'game' birds such as pheasant and red-legged partridge, and woodpigeon are excluded it is the highest count recorded - 1002 birds. More proof that we are doing something right here. Highlights were: 153 yellowhammers (highest count), 102 skylarks, 70 redwing (highest count) and 53 robins (highest count). One stonechat and three corn buntings were recorded. Skylark numbers have continued to rise since the October count with 170 recorded on the broadcast oilseed rape fields alone in the last few days. Another whole farm count will be completed shortly.

Communications
The farm has had some good exposure over the last few months, featuring on Countryfile and Farming Today. We have also had a short piece in Farmers Weekly featuring our results from this year. Darren Moorcroft gave an excellent presentation about the farm at the RSPB AGM and Chris Bailey has given six local members group talks around the country.

Future Open Days.
We will be opening the farm for a number of open days next year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:

Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Harvest
It has been a frustrating couple of weeks with heavy showers hindering the start of the wheat harvest. The oilseed rape was harvested three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the seed had a high moisture content resulting in additional drying costs. Yields were approximately 2.5t/ha. Post harvest cultivations started immediately after the oilseed rape harvest in preparation for the sowing of the wheat in September. We expect the spring beans to be harvested in September although the yields are likely to be poor.

Birds
On a more positive note, 2007 has been the best so far for birds. The final bird numbers have been calculated following the summers surveying. Stars this year were the Yellowhammer. Numbers reached a new high with 36 territories recorded compared to 14 when we first surveyed the farm in 2000. The population has risen steadily over recent years, helped by our sympathetic management of hedgerows, increased winter food through wild bird cover and two year set-aside and summer food through provision of pollen and nectar mixtures. Overall, the Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index (FBI) is up by 88 % at the end of the 2007. This is a measurement of the collective population trend of the 19 bird species that are most dependant on farmland in the UK. Species that contribute to the FBI include the corn bunting, goldfinch, grey partridge, jackdaw, kestrel, lapwing, linnet, reed bunting, rook, skylark, starling, stock dove, tree sparrow, turtle dove, yellowhammer, yellow wagtail, whitethroat and woodpigeon.

Set-aside
It has been an interesting trying to assess what effect the proposed 0% Set-aside requirement for next year will have on the farms management and subsequent effects on bird populations. At Hope Farm we will be keeping about 6% out of production in 2008 irrespective of the EU decision because of our long-term research commitments so any announcement will later this month result in few changes for the next year.

Summer 2007
The weather over the past few months has continued to be extremely changeable with very dry periods in mid April dispersed with wet periods in March and May.The wheat crop advanced quickly during early spring and if the weather improves it looks as though we will have a very early harvest. Brown rust has been a particular problem within the crop. This is a concern considering that the variety we grow (Robigus) has a high resistance rating to the disease. The oilseed rape fields have now finished flowering. The area damaged by slugs at the bottom of one of the fields never recovered despite further seed being broadcast in the bare areas in October. The spring beans were finally sown about a month later than last year on the 6th April because of excessively wet start to March. Germination and growth has been good so far but the leaves are now beginning to show the familiar notching from pea and bean weevils.

We have just re-sown a hectare block of set-aside with a mixture of winter triticale, barley and linseed. This is the same block that last winter held over 400 Linnets, 100 Yellowhammer and 12 Corn bunting. The ELS grass margins were sown in April around a couple of fields. Early germination was poor due to the dry weather, but following the heavy rain in May, they are beginning to recover. We will be looking to cut the margins as soon as possible to control the high numbers of annual weeds but currently the ground is too wet and the grass too vulnerable. Fusilade was applied to the SAFFIE margins in May, to remove the course grasses whilst leaving the finer ones. This is in preparation for the start of the grass margin trial next spring.

At the start of March, we planted 5 new apple trees in the orchard. The varieties chosen were St. Everard and Barnack Beauty, both desert; Green Harvey a dual use apple and Morley's Seedling and Cottenham Seedling, both culinary. These are all old Cambridgeshire varieties selected from the East of England Apples and Orchards Project.

Bird numbers
With seven of the breeding bird surveys complete, it is looking a promising year. For the second year running, we have recorded lapwing. Three birds have been seen regularly on one of the spring beans fields. Unfortunately, we have yet to confirm breeding. Skylark territories from the seven surveys, are estimated at 26, grey partridge 3, yellow wagtail 2 and starling 13 but final figures are likely to be higher once we have completed the survey season by the end of June. Starling success this year has been mixed with several broods failing at both egg and chick stage. We will be able to give a full update later in the year.