Agricology Blog

On 12 February I attended the annual BASE-UK conference in Newcastle. The day was filled with a range of inspiring and informative talks that covered topics including living mulches, on-farm research, strip till in horticulture and building on-farm resilience.

Oper8 is a three year EU horizon project bringing together farmers, researchers and academics to share alternative weed control solutions.

The aim was to hold a practical event demonstrating techniques to restore soil health and sharing knowledge and experience between local farmers and farm managers working at a range of scales in the catchment.

Matt Smee reports back from attending an event intended to help make steps towards a practical incarnation of RASE’s 2022 report 'Farm of the Future: Journey to Net Zero.'

Vicky Bowskill gives insights into the dynamics between healthy meadows and hay making, explaining her research looking at how hay yield and a range of dietary minerals change during the growing season in mixed species floodplain meadows.

In this month's Agricology vlog, Richard Smith talks to us about scanning 1,200 Lleyn sheep at Daylesford Organic Farm with Bob Tofield.

Roller crimper method to kill off cover crops, and direct drilling into the mulch, and the impacts on weeds and soil health.

Richard Smith of Daylesford Organic Farms talks about grass leys and how they put them into stubble, and undersowing grass leys into cereal crops

In 2019, AHDB Farmbench invited farmers to benchmark one or more of their organic cereal and oilseed enterprises with the AHDB Farmbench tool and join a group of other organic farmers for a chance to compare outcomes and discuss results.

In September’s vlog (filmed in August), Richard Smith - Farm Manager for Daylesford Organic - talks us through preparing a field to put it back in to grass. He explains that they grew a crop of winter oats following a red clover rye grass ley that was in for 3 years in the field. It worked really well, yielding about 2 ¾ tonnes to the acre, and was harvested about 10 days ago.

For many rural communities, hedgerows are a defining feature of their local landscape, as well as a vital resource for biodiversity. But despite their importance, many UK hedgerows are in decline and on the brink of being lost.