Hedgerow and tree health
It was a foggy day in the vale, when around fifteen members of the Severn Vale Guardians, as well as local ecologists, gathered under the lofty ceiling of Standish’s beautiful 700-year-old village hall. We warmed ourselves with coffees and plate sized pastries, discussing the upcoming festive season, and the successes, and challenges we all faced over the course of the farming year. After some good catching up, we sat down to listen to Simeon Day, FWAG SW’s regional Hedgerow and agroforestry expert, who talked through a lot of the theory we would be covering throughout the day. Simeons fantastic presentation covered everything from the hedgerow life cycle, to how we can begin to spot signs of ill health in our veteran trees. Particularly useful to farmers was Simeons discussion on the “Adams scale” a brilliant way of categorising hedgerows into different structures, which can offer clues as to how they should then be managed. These range from new planted hedges to “Over-trimmed hedges”, and others which are “Dense and well managed”. This was then tied into SFI, and how to carry out the action CHRW1: Assess and record hedgerow condition, which offers funding for farmers who walk their hedgerows and really take a look at how they can be better managed for wildlife. In addition, ash die back was a topic of great interest to our farmers, and Simeon also covered the legal obligations for farmers who have dead or dying trees on their land, including those that are adjacent to footpaths or other areas of high foot traffic. For those seeking to explore this further, information is available on the Linking Environment And Farming (LEAF) website and series of informative YouTube videos.
After some theory, we were ready to get our wellies on and pile in our pickups to John and Jenny Percival, who farm just down the road at Horsemarling Farm. John and Jenny are council tenants, and their unique business structure, providing direct sales to local people through a milk “vending machine” sets them apart. However, more relevant to the day, Horsemarling is home to some truly venerable old trees, both standing sentinel in the pasture, amongst the herd of dairy shorthorns, as well as within the line of the hedgerows that criss-cross the land. This offered Simeon the chance to point out various habitat features on the old trees, such as nest holes for birds, as well as knots and broken limbs, favoured by bats as daytime roosts. The presence of ivy on trees also sparked some interesting conversation, as despite the “strangling” look of the plants, Ivy is almost completely neutral to the tree’s health, and in fact it can significantly enhance the value for wildlife, offering late season pollinators their blossom and providing species like thrushes and blackcaps with nutritious berries.
Part of our practical approach to these events led us to carry out our own hedgerow assessments, where we decided which category a hedgerow might fit into, and the management that would likely be appropriate. The group correctly noticed the overgrown and straggly nature of one hedge and decided that this would be best to coppice or lay, thus restarting the hedgerow cycle.
However, it is important to have a mosaic of hedges on the farm, and straggly hedges deliver different benefits to ones that have more recently been “rejuvenated”. One of the main takeaways from our discussion was the idea of “incremental cutting” whereby the hedge is in effect only tickled and cut off shorter than it was the previous year. By not cutting back to the same point each year, we can ensure there is plenty of the second-year growth needed to produce blossom and therefore berries. This also prevents the formation of scar tissue that can split and allow infection to get into the plants, eventually causing stems to die.
Next, accompanied by one of Horsemarling’s very inquisitive young cows, we all gathered round a particularly old willow, which is a common sight in the wet Severn Vale, and pollarding of these trees is a winter job many farmers still undertake.
Undergoing this process can be difficult with very old trees, and this gave us a fantastic opportunity to go over some of the complicated policy to do with protected species, and the need to properly assess the trees before work is undertaken. Conducting roost surveys with a local ecologist is essential when pollarding ancient willows, as bats often nest in rot holes or under bark. Simeon also covered funding streams for this work, which offered some of our farmers the chance to raise their concerns on the financial burden they can be left with after carrying out conservation work.