Thanks for watching. That's really helpful to know. The sound quality overall isn't great sadly. It was raining when we started so I had to film it all on a GoPro, using only the sound captured by the GoPro microphone. This picked up all the wind and road noise as well as the intended voices making the sound quality overall a real compromise. The music is there to mask, or more accurately distract, from the unwanted background noises but it is interesting to know that makes it harder for the hearing impaired to watch. Thanks for your feedback. Really grateful you are watching 🙂.
And trying to go to the Forest stage first, means that any change in climate between planting and maturation which could take years if not a decade or more depending on the species, would possibly introduce seasonal weather variations of an unusual nature. Imagine how the young trees would suffer if the region had a very dry and hot and prolonged Summer, or even a highly variable Winter of a week or two of extreme cold followed by short term Spring-like interruptions of Winter as one can see in a dynamically changing climate. Better to allow nature to evolve again to the current soil and weather with the simpler (meadow) grasses, sedges, and shrubs that grow faster to maturity and in aggregate offer a mix of species to contend with the weather variability.
I would say that with that number of orchids, it's quite a special flower meadow in the context of highland Perthshire, so you should graze it. At least that bit. I wouldn't have it grazed at the end of each season, but I would get it grazed by perhaps 5 cattle (17 acres right?) at the end of spring (late March into April, before the flowers are up for perhaps 3 weeks) and at the end of summer (September, for the whole month). I have a similar meadow, with similar species, though a bit more acidic, on which my father used to graze about 40 sheep for three weeks in April and three weeks in September, it did well as a flower meadow during that regime, but hit it's peak for the two years after I removed all the sheep (four years ago) and since has been getting a bit dominated by the grass and wee trees, including lots and lots of creeping willow, which the cows seem to mostly ignore. I'm thinking I might get my cows to graze it for two weeks in March/April and then borrow the neighbour's sheep (he's stopped worming them) for a final week of grazing in April. I want the sheep to knock the tree regen back. We should compare notes, particularly if you take another path. I have struggled with the thinking around this, but I see my meadow, and yours as quite important locally. If there were loads of similar meadows around, then it wouldn't be as important, and I would let trees take it over. However that's what is happening on almost all of the rest of my farm, so I'll be keeping the flowers if I can. I agree with Ellie about sheep being selective grazers and cattle being less so, but I want the sheep to selectively take out the saplings on my meadow.
It definitely needs some more thought. The orchids are incredible. Would love to discuss this more with you at some point. We didn't really get our act together this year for grazing and I don't want to let it go any more in 2024, unless letting it do its own thing is an active decision of course. Thanks for watching.
w If you get less you give them less space per day/half day - if you get more you might only need to borrow them for a day - literally run a herd over it.
Please excuse the belated comment - due to only becoming recently aware of your ambitions. The dilemma of maximising biodiversity contra allowing an unhindered natural climax vegetation to develop is I suspect one that arises from the relative limitations of the acreage involved. Meadow land vegetation contains species that are threatened in their own right but when viewed from the point that meadows are "only" an interlude stage unless actively maintained, a question then arises - How spacially prevalent were temperate grass dominant areas within the unhindered local landscapes? Long term objective for the property hopefully will guide your future decision(s).
I commend the efforts of land owners and ecological associations that buy land for repurposing in the effort of bringing 5% of the current English agricultural land back to pre-industrial agriculture forest and peat systems. I would hope that in the coming 30 years, a subsequent 3-5% (per year) of similar land is repurposed across Central England and Scotland. Unfortunately, other regions of the world are still pursuing an industrial agriculture program. If the regions that were converted to Cattle in the Amazon Basin and to Palm Oil Plantations in various Indonesian islands (Sumatra) at a similar pace, then these combined efforts would begin to act as natural carbon sinks and counteract the fossil fuel consumption that is still prevalent in US transportation and Chinese energy production. Also European energy generation needs to accelerate in capacity by 3-5% per year to provide efficient energy (most hopefully in the Renewable nuclear, solar, wind) in order to stop the EU subsidies on energy.
Rent-a-Bison from your local "petting farm"? Something that would agitate the soil a bit with their hooves while producing the fertilizer to support soil bacteria. One think I remember hearing is that the soil ecosystem changes with the types of plant species. Grassy and herbaceous meadows seem to have a bacterial type soil microbiology, while the deciduous tree forests seem to have a fungal type of soil microbiology. The two are not complimentary to one another.
You're mostly right but there's a few wee points if I may be so pernickety. Bacterial soil will lead to fungal soil as vegetative succession plays out. The plants are the orchestrators, they exude food from their roots for the micro-organisms they want, early successional plant species feed the bacteria in the soil, but as plants get woody-er they exude food for fungal species. The two can be complimentary depending on context, but once the soil has become more fungal, it's not as suited to grasses or many flowers. When looking to manage for wildflowers you don't want manure fertiliser, you want poor soil (in nutrient terms). Some of our best wildflower areas are places where its mostly just sand with a little bit of organic matter, and lots of different species are just able to eek out an existence. This gives lots of species diversity. Once the soil gets richer certain plants start to dominate and then you loose the diversity.
Blessed are the ecologists for they shall inherit the earth :)
lovely thank you for the videoo
Let nature run WILD and enjoy .
Thank you..........you too :-)
Very jealous of the orchids
Wish you'd kill the background music. For the hearing impaired it's incredibly irritating. Otherwise great - really interesting.
Thanks for watching. That's really helpful to know. The sound quality overall isn't great sadly. It was raining when we started so I had to film it all on a GoPro, using only the sound captured by the GoPro microphone. This picked up all the wind and road noise as well as the intended voices making the sound quality overall a real compromise. The music is there to mask, or more accurately distract, from the unwanted background noises but it is interesting to know that makes it harder for the hearing impaired to watch. Thanks for your feedback. Really grateful you are watching 🙂.
@@lettochfilms thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive response. It was very much appreciated.
And trying to go to the Forest stage first, means that any change in climate between planting and maturation which could take years if not a decade or more depending on the species, would possibly introduce seasonal weather variations of an unusual nature. Imagine how the young trees would suffer if the region had a very dry and hot and prolonged Summer, or even a highly variable Winter of a week or two of extreme cold followed by short term Spring-like interruptions of Winter as one can see in a dynamically changing climate.
Better to allow nature to evolve again to the current soil and weather with the simpler (meadow) grasses, sedges, and shrubs that grow faster to maturity and in aggregate offer a mix of species to contend with the weather variability.
💯💯💯
I would say that with that number of orchids, it's quite a special flower meadow in the context of highland Perthshire, so you should graze it. At least that bit. I wouldn't have it grazed at the end of each season, but I would get it grazed by perhaps 5 cattle (17 acres right?) at the end of spring (late March into April, before the flowers are up for perhaps 3 weeks) and at the end of summer (September, for the whole month).
I have a similar meadow, with similar species, though a bit more acidic, on which my father used to graze about 40 sheep for three weeks in April and three weeks in September, it did well as a flower meadow during that regime, but hit it's peak for the two years after I removed all the sheep (four years ago) and since has been getting a bit dominated by the grass and wee trees, including lots and lots of creeping willow, which the cows seem to mostly ignore.
I'm thinking I might get my cows to graze it for two weeks in March/April and then borrow the neighbour's sheep (he's stopped worming them) for a final week of grazing in April. I want the sheep to knock the tree regen back.
We should compare notes, particularly if you take another path.
I have struggled with the thinking around this, but I see my meadow, and yours as quite important locally. If there were loads of similar meadows around, then it wouldn't be as important, and I would let trees take it over. However that's what is happening on almost all of the rest of my farm, so I'll be keeping the flowers if I can.
I agree with Ellie about sheep being selective grazers and cattle being less so, but I want the sheep to selectively take out the saplings on my meadow.
It definitely needs some more thought. The orchids are incredible. Would love to discuss this more with you at some point. We didn't really get our act together this year for grazing and I don't want to let it go any more in 2024, unless letting it do its own thing is an active decision of course. Thanks for watching.
w If you get less you give them less space per day/half day - if you get more you might only need to borrow them for a day - literally run a herd over it.
Please excuse the belated comment - due to only becoming recently aware of your ambitions. The dilemma of maximising biodiversity contra allowing an unhindered natural climax vegetation to develop is I suspect one that arises from the relative limitations of the acreage involved. Meadow land vegetation contains species that are threatened in their own right but when viewed from the point that meadows are "only" an interlude stage unless actively maintained, a question then arises - How spacially prevalent were temperate grass dominant areas within the unhindered local landscapes? Long term objective for the property hopefully will guide your future decision(s).
I commend the efforts of land owners and ecological associations that buy land for repurposing in the effort of bringing 5% of the current English agricultural land back to pre-industrial agriculture forest and peat systems. I would hope that in the coming 30 years, a subsequent 3-5% (per year) of similar land is repurposed across Central England and Scotland.
Unfortunately, other regions of the world are still pursuing an industrial agriculture program. If the regions that were converted to Cattle in the Amazon Basin and to Palm Oil Plantations in various Indonesian islands (Sumatra) at a similar pace, then these combined efforts would begin to act as natural carbon sinks and counteract the fossil fuel consumption that is still prevalent in US transportation and Chinese energy production.
Also European energy generation needs to accelerate in capacity by 3-5% per year to provide efficient energy (most hopefully in the Renewable nuclear, solar, wind) in order to stop the EU subsidies on energy.
Rent-a-Bison from your local "petting farm"? Something that would agitate the soil a bit with their hooves while producing the fertilizer to support soil bacteria.
One think I remember hearing is that the soil ecosystem changes with the types of plant species. Grassy and herbaceous meadows seem to have a bacterial type soil microbiology, while the deciduous tree forests seem to have a fungal type of soil microbiology. The two are not complimentary to one another.
You're mostly right but there's a few wee points if I may be so pernickety.
Bacterial soil will lead to fungal soil as vegetative succession plays out. The plants are the orchestrators, they exude food from their roots for the micro-organisms they want, early successional plant species feed the bacteria in the soil, but as plants get woody-er they exude food for fungal species.
The two can be complimentary depending on context, but once the soil has become more fungal, it's not as suited to grasses or many flowers.
When looking to manage for wildflowers you don't want manure fertiliser, you want poor soil (in nutrient terms). Some of our best wildflower areas are places where its mostly just sand with a little bit of organic matter, and lots of different species are just able to eek out an existence. This gives lots of species diversity. Once the soil gets richer certain plants start to dominate and then you loose the diversity.
Do y’all need help this summer?
Could we see the land rather than the people!