All Things That Start With ‘B’

Painted Lady Butterfly & White-tailed Bumblebee
enjoy one of our free nectar sources given by a Thistle!

As I sit in my office all I can think of that begins with ‘B’ is ‘Brrrr’!  Yes, the snow has been on the ground now for a week and it is starting to get a bit boring! On nights of minus six and wind chill of even more, the best place has got to be in front of a log fire that’s kicking out loads of heat, either down the pub with a beer, or at home dreaming of warmer times to come.  I did have one evening flicking through the TV channels and came across a programme on BBC2 called ‘Bees, Butterflies and Blooms’ it was the first of a 3 part series, this really got me thinking about our farm and everyone’s approach to wild flowers and all things beginning with ‘B’!

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0152fty/Bees_Butterflies_and_Blooms_Villages_Farms_and_Countryside )

Bees, Bugs, Butterflies, Blooms and…...Breakfast ingredients? This last ‘B’ is an interesting one as without all the ‘B’s’ listed in front of it we would not have half the food to choose from on our supermarket shelves. The importance of flying pollinators is so misunderstood that we have to start thinking about how we can really give them a helping hand and look after them. It has been stated that every third mouthful of food we eat every day has been created by pollination, by one of our B’s or a B further afield in another country!

Honey Bee enjoying early nectar from a Goat Willow

Widely discussed is the plight of the Honey Bee as the Varroa Mite attacks hives but there are hundreds and hundreds of other pollinators that are in decline and need a helping hand. Different from the Honey bee is the humble Bumblebee, which is another that has been having a really hard time of it. We see them scavenging far and wide over lawns, shrubs and flowering plants but do we know the full life cycle so we can help? To know the ins and outs of a life cycle of all the insects would be pretty impossible but we need to understand and take an interest to help preserve them.

Yes, we as farmers have to stand up and say we need to do more. We have been pushed to become more efficient, make cheaper food and deliver huge amounts of grain to satisfy the demands of government, the general public and the growing world population. All this has been done, we are producing more and more food and we strive to keep the cost down so that food prices don’t become too high but all this cannot happen without something giving. Unfortunately, over the past 50 years, wildlife has suffered but we are working hard to reverse this decline in our country’s biodiversity and a happy medium can be found while maintaining high quality, high yielding crops, as well as benefitting our precious wildlife.  This is something that we on our farm are really passionate about and we know many other farmers are as well, but some have not yet grasped the concept that ‘wall to wall, production, production, production of wheat’ is not the ‘Buzz’ term in Agriculture any more. The ‘Buzz’ in the countryside is returning in the forms of insects. Farmers are starting to do their bit but anyone and everyone can get involved. We all have our part to play, on any scale, small or large.   

One of our areas of Pollen & Nectar Mix

This is the time of year that Patrick and I start to think about our work in the spring with regards to our environmental stewardship. The spring is the time when we plant our giant growing bird tables in the form of Wild Seed Mixes and our larders for insects in the form of Pollen and Nectar producing plants in blocks, which we establish around the farm. All these areas are grown as a crop to make sure that they deliver huge amounts of food for farmland birds, insects and everything that makes our farm its home.

We plant a huge range of plants that all either produce viable seed in the winter or bloom brightly in the summer for long periods, producing huge amounts of sweet sugary nectar for our insects. Things like Phacelia, Mustard, Sunflowers, Clover, Vetches are all found in our mixes and when they are in full bloom the surface is literally moving with insect life: Bumblebees, Solitary Bees, Honey bees, Butterflies, Hover flies, Aphids and then Predatory bugs following along behind.

So what can everyone do on their own patch? As you sit in front of the fire thinking of warm spring days, planning your allotment or vegetable patch or your new flowering border in the garden, spare a thought for the insects that move all the pollen around the countryside. Give them an area in your garden that is purely for them, bursting with flowers delivering loads of nectar, so that they keep doing what they do best!

A Red-tailed Bumblebee

Planning a Bumble Bee buffet does take some thought. They emerge with the warming early rays of spring from their underground layers looking for that first sugar fix around March and keep buzzing all the way through till the cold weather and lack of food forces them back to the safety of their hole. They are a fascinating and unappreciated work force that we as farmers, gardeners and lovers of sweet jam-filled cakes need to know more about. In the office we have a book that I would recommend if you want to know anything about the Humble Bumble, A ‘Field guide to the Bumblebee’ written by Mike Edwards and Martin Jenner is packed full of info and is well worth the £5 to £9 price tag. Natural England also has some great online resources that give some great tips to increase wildlife in your garden, they can be found at http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/advice/wildlifegardening/booklets.aspx .  Do also involve any children in your family in getting to know what they can do to help.  Let them design Bug Hotels – the more weird and wonderful, the better!  They can be made without cost from recycled materials, are fun to make for all ages and mean our insect workforce will have somewhere to hide and rest during next winter.  http://apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/uploads/documents/making_a_bug_hotel_770.pdf

A change in mind-set needs to be adopted; farmers need to respect and protect wildlife by changing practice; our obsession with keeping every part of our lawns and village greens mown needs to be broken to allow our natural wild flowers to burst back into existence; and the culture of expecting all year round, cheap, out of season food needs to be considered, especially because so much fresh produce is wasted by consumers because it is turns to mush in the bottom of our fridges. Have a thought for the Honey or Bumblebee that pollinated the tomato flower as you throw out the squidgy one left in the fridge, or the leathery apple left in the fruit bowl!              BWB       

The Kverneland Plough

Name:  6 Furrow Kverneland Plough

Operator: Nick Light

Visual Description: A fully mounted bit of equipment that attaches to the back of the tractor. It has a long beam extending away from the tractor, which has 12 (6 on the top and 6 on the bottom) moulded furrows which are large curved bits of metal held by a metal leg. There is a land wheel at the back which is used when in transport on the road, as well as in work. The plough is pulled through the surface of the field and the moulded metal breaks and rolls over the soil, totally inverting it so anything on the surface is buried below the surface left behind.

The Mould board
and smaller Skimmer
on the beam

Size: The length of the beam is about 12m but the beam is offset at an angle from the tractor, so that each of the 6 furrows pulled in the ground during work actually turns over the exactly the same amount of soil as its neighbour, therefore the working width is about 7ft wide. It has two rows of 6 furrows top and bottom to increase work rates because at the end of a pull up the field the tractor turns the plough over which reverses the plough 180 degrees and the furrows keep turning the soil in the same direction as the operation moves across the field. The furrow depth is set by the operator, depending on the soil conditions and the amount of unwanted, post harvest material that is left on the surface.   

Work rate: Ploughing is traditionally very slow but as the size of tractors has increased, the ploughs have followed suit with extra furrows being added, making them larger and larger. Some of the largest ploughs now have 20+ furrows but you need a huge tractor and a huge area to turn around in – and a huge area for it to cover each year. Our plough pulled by our Fendt 820 will cover on average 12-15ha a day depending on headlands and field size. 

Controls: The art is in setting the plough up correctly. Once this is done and the beam is level, the furrows are all level and being pulled at the correct depth, there is not much to alter or which can be altered from the seat of the tractor. The skimmers are a set of mini furrows that just scrap the soil surface before the main furrow, helping to turn over the stubble, so that it is buried deep down in the bottom of the main furrow following it. The trusted spanner is the chief way that this item is controlled or adjusted. Only one hydraulic spool valve is used to rotate the plough over to keep all the soil being moved in one direction. 

Cost: The costs for this machine are varied. We have the main outlay of about £15,000 for a new 6 furrow model but the real costs are in the wearing parts. Wearing parts are all the parts of any machine that are in contact with the soil as it is pulled through the ground. There is a lot of friction caused and this makes the metal wear away as the pressure builds up. The plough has been designed with replaceable points, shins and mould boards so that you have to replace minimal amounts of parts but the high pressure parts get replaced more frequently. Diesel and time are high costs as well; the fuel usage is expensive as you are moving all the soil on the field to a depth of 8-10inches, so the engine of the tractor burns a lot of diesel in this process. It is also a slow process, due to the speed you can pull and the width of the machine. The old saying of ‘the shallower you move the soil, the quicker and cheaper it is,’ comes to mind!

Jobs it does on the farm:  So what does it actually do and why has it been the farmer’s traditional implement to use straight after harvest for generations? It does two things really well. Firstly, it buries all the old stubble waste material left after harvest. This is what we call ‘trash’: unwanted plant material left by the combine. If left, it will allow pests like aphids and slugs to survive, which will attack the new crop to be grown. It also becomes damp and difficult to work in wet winters, of which we have not had one for a while but we are due one! So, by burying it, we turn over new soil which is easier to work in preparing a seed bed. Also, mixed in this plant material there maybe some weed seeds shed throughout the previous year. Grass weeds like Black Grass can shed 100 seeds from each of its 8-9 heads, so you could have 900 small unwanted seeds from each plant. Some may germinate before the plough turns them over, so will die covered in the depth of soil but if they have not germinated they get buried. The seed then sits deep down in the soil and will not have a chance to germinate, lying dormant, but as they do, the soil moisture starts to rot them and kills them before they ever have a chance to be brought up to the light by subsequent cultivations. Research shows that 60% of seed buried by the plough does not survive, so if 10% germinates before ploughing and another 60% dies in the soil we are starting to manage our 900 seeds quite well, as we only have 30% left. This is why it has been used for generations. It was the only cultural control for farmers against weeds before the development of agri chemicals such as our vast array of herbicides. So secondly, we use the plough for that reason today, giving us a cultural natural kill on unwanted weed seed. Because of new machinery, like the SL400 Cultivator, we do not have to keep turning the soil over each year and so the killing or rotting of seed is extended to two, three or even four years, reducing the pressure of needed success from herbicides. Some farmers love, and some farmers have discarded, the plough; we like a flexible approach between the plough and minimal soil movement techniques, so we are not relying on one system too much, in what might turn out to be the wrong year. 

A Day of Calibrations

Last Monday, our two main applicators of expensive oil-based chemical and nutrient products came under the spot light. Our Sands Sprayer had its National Sprayer Testing Scheme MOT and our Amazone Fertiliser Spreader was tested for its efficiency when applying granular products.

These two important exercises happen each year for the sprayer, under government recommendation, and every other year for the fertiliser spreader, which is for our peace of mind and for the odd crop inspector that comes on the farm. The machines have to be kept in top working order to pass both the tests and we have to keep the records of the tests, otherwise our farm would not pass our Crop Assurance Scheme which is the standard of crop production that we must maintain in order to sell our grain to all the different food markets in the country that are open to us. (More information can be found at the CMi website www.nsf-cmi.com)

The Sprayer test is really important, as it is a full MOT such as your car goes through. Everything is tested from road worthiness and safety to the water carrying components and the application parts of the sprayer. The trained tester has a 50 point test which he works through on arrival at the farm. He inspects the ins and outs of the sprayer but the really important part is the calibration of how much and how accurately the sprayer applies the chemical/water mix onto the crop. The tester fills the sprayer with water and runs the motor to do pressure tests on the pump, checking that it is running at the correct 3bar. He then checks a few other places along the water line to make sure the pressure is constant. If it is not constant then he will investigate the reasons: possibly dirt in the pipes or a blocked filter. However, our pressure tests were all constant.

He then does jug tests on a set number of nozzles along the sprayer boom. Our boom is 24m wide and has a spray nozzle every half metre and there are 3 types of nozzles attached to the boom for different applications. He runs the sprayer and holds a jug under a single nozzle for a minute. He then measures how much water comes out and records the amount. The amounts should be what the manufacture of the nozzle states should be delivered from that type of nozzle, at a set pressure. If the amount is not what is stated, then the nozzle is either blocked or has become worn. A nozzle is made of plastic normally, so with water and chemical particles being pushed through each of them, they do wear and the size of hole increases and therefore more chemical/water is applied to the field, which is not what we want.

Our sprayer passed with flying colours. We only had a precautionary note that one set of nozzles was starting to wear but Nick our sprayer operator was already aware of this and was going to ask if we could replace them.

The Spreader test is a pattern test for us, the farmers. Uniform nutrient application is vitally important as we need to have the small granules of fertiliser applied evenly over the whole field otherwise we will have uneven crop growth. Also, if over-application occurs, it can mean that high levels of fertiliser can leach into the watercourses causing algae blooms that have a knock-on effect on wildlife and drinking water quality. It’s also not very economical for us to buy all this expensive fertiliser and not know where it is all going. We have to be so accurate now because all granules that miss the target area on the field are wasted pound coins!

The test involves a quick check of the spreader and the PTO speed, so that all is in working order. Then a bag of fertiliser is put into the hopper and the spreader is ready for the test. The tester places a tray on the ground every metre for the whole 24m and the next 6m each side. These trays have baffles in them, so when the granules hit a tray they do not bounce out. The spreader is driven through at full operating speed and rate and the trays catch the fertiliser. Then the trays are poured into a set of tubes which are all fixed together. The results indicate the distribution of the fertiliser over the full width. What we want to see is a flat level across the whole width. This will mean that the pattern is uniform over the whole area, which is good for us. If one side was higher or lower then the machine is not set up right or the discs spinning the granules out are worn. As you can see from our pattern, it is very uniform and so we are confident that all our expensive plant food is covering the fields evenly whenever we are out applying the Nitrogen, Potassium or Potash. 

These calibrations are good exercises for us farmers as it reaffirms that we are applying everything as accurately as possible, so that our natural environment is protected from bad practice and badly looked after machinery. 87% of all Sprayers in the Country are tested yearly and many more Spreaders are tested privately by farmers, as they want to know where the money is ending up. The two tests cost us a total of £380 which is nothing considering we spend over £180,000 a year on oil based nutrients and agrichemicals!! BWB

Supplement feeding and the new camera.

During the winter we supplement our areas of Wild Bird Seed Mix with wheat sweepings and the cracked wheat which is cleaned out during the seed preparation process. We try to keep a regular supply of food out through the whole winter especially during the hungry gap which is from the end of January through until early March when the natural food stocks are exhausted and before spring starts. The main beneficiaries of this food are the game birds and ground feeding passerines such as Yellowhammers, Chaffinches, Dunnocks etc but with the new camera I thought it would be interesting to see what else is using these areas.

Roe deer

 Muntjac

Brown Hare

Grey Squirrel

and some pheasants.



Total species count for the weekends photos - Pheasants, Roe Deer, Muntjac, Moorhen, Pigeon, Rabbit, Mouse, Squirrels and Hares.



A new toy from Father Christmas

I was fortunate enough to be given a remote outdoor camera for christmas (from Brian) so hopefully and time goes on we can build up a more thorough picture of more of the wildlife that is about on the farm. On day 1 I put it up in the Dutch Barn just to see how it worked and was rewarded with the picture below. I will share what I find as I find it... PJB.

Flat caps and Tweed, tweeting away!

Having been away at the Oxford Farming Conference last week I was catching up with the multimedia world: Twitter was red hot during the Conference, reaching number five in the Trends list, which either shows the delegates were bored or the power of tweeting has hit a new market. My favourite tweet I read was: ‘#ofc12 can’t believe it has hit no.5. Can’t imagine farmers in flat caps and tweed, tweeting away in Oxford’. But just for the record there was not much tweed, no flat caps but plenty of hot air spoken about topics that will direct our industry in the next year.

We attended last year and then, with the uncertainly of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform slowly showing its head, we heard how it might change our business in the long run after 2013. This year, Patrick and I were again kindly sponsored by DHL AgriFoods and we listened to how the CAP reform would change our business, a year on - and we are still in limbo as to how it will affect our family business. There have been leaked EU documents, rumours of conditions and no one really knows. We are waiting for the EU to spell out what they want and see how our Government chooses to implement the aims of the EU Commission.

We hope the rumours are true that production subsidies will be removed and the emphasis will be put on rewarding farmers that deliver the three pronged fork of increased production efficiency, increased farmland biodiversity and increased resource protection.  However we don’t want this three pronged fork to be turned into the devil’s trident, where the government uses it to restrict farmers who want to do more and allow the farmers who are not delivering to wriggle out with no harm or change by not fully utilising the good work that has been started under the Environmental Stewardship Schemes. We have tried and tested these schemes over the past six years. Ok, they are not perfect, but all the elements are there ready to deliver if farmers are given better value for money and given constructive direction in how to manage these new habitats correctly. Our yields are up, our biodiversity is most definitely up and our soil and water are in great condition due to being protected from any harmful over-use of inputs. We are delivering already, we want to do more but we are apprehensive about how our government is going to take this challenge forward. Time will tell!

Many people enjoy BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ on a Sunday evening. I enjoy it but feel that they should do more for our farming industry as a whole. We have met Adam Henson and he is doing a great job of introducing the general public to the ups and downs of life as a livestock farmer, with the whole TB epidemic that grips our countryside. I watched this week’s program on Sky+ and really enjoyed the special John Craven Investigates with his interview of our Prime Minister David Cameron (catch it on iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019h9lz/Countryfile_08_01_2012/). This was interesting after all we had heard at Oxford. The second part is next week and we will see if the messages given by the PM will mirror the Agriculture Minister, Jim Paice’s and Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for DEFRA’s, speeches at Oxford. They have set their stall out but will they - and when will they - deliver all that is promised? The farming industry waits with baited breath and, by the sounds of it, tweeting fingers at the ready! 

The other thing discussed at Oxford was by Patrick and me, setting a New Year’s Resolution of, each week, one of us writing a post for this Blog! Hopefully it will happen!  Time again will tell!       BWB  

Goldcrest

Regulus regulus

The Goldcrest is the smallest European songbird and is a member of the Warbler family. It is a fairly widespread species, closely associated with coniferous forest.
Goldcrests has olive green upperparts and pale buff underparts. The whitish ring around the eye and the black-edged orange-yellow crown are very distinctive. The male's crown has a small patch of red in the yellow. Juvenile birds lack the colourful crown marking.

Size

9cm

Weight

4.5 - 7g

Habitat

Woodlands, particularly conifer trees. Also visit gardens with trees.

Nest

Made of moss and lichen and held together with spiders webs. Lined with feathers and hair, the nest is slung underneath foliage near the end of a branch. Growing Spuce and fir trees in your garden may encourage them to nest once the trees reach 2m (7ft).

Eggs

2 clutches of 7 - 10 brown-spotted, white or buff eggs in May - July.

Food

Peanut Cake, insects and grated cheese.

Voice

A high, thin warbling song; a high 'zee-zee-zee' call which is used in pairs and flocks to keep in contact.

Characteristics

This tiny bird behaves rather like a tit, searching amongst foliage for insects and spiders. In winter Goldcrests join with flocks of tits and other woodland species. The Goldcrest is sometimes confused with the similar Firecrest which is slightly smaller, has brighter plumage and a dark eye-stripe under a white "eyebrow".

BTO Statistics

Goldcrest populations have suffered declines recently, hence its inclusion on the Amber List.

Breeding

Goldcrests form monogamous pairs and nest-building is undertaken by both male and female birds. They build their nests in Cypress, larch and other conifers, and also in ivy and gorse. The female usually lays the second clutch before the first have fledged leaving their care to the male. Having 2 large broods each year allows the Goldcrest to sustain population figures despite huge losses in cold winters

Feeding

The Goldcrest eats many kinds of spiders and insects, especially flies, aphids, and beetles and their lavae, but they occasionally also take larger types of insects, such as adult moths. Goldcrest rarely visit garden feeding stations, but in extreme cold weather they may take Peanut Cake and grated cheese.