Blog

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