Back in January we ploughed up 3 acres of the old arable plot on Ramsey. The plan was to plant a variety of crops to serve various conservation needs. Many of you will know that we keep sheep on the island to help us manage our grass height to a level suitable for chough to access invertebrate prey that live in the upper soils. In harsh winters we bring on additional feed for the sheep (it’s a lot easier than moving them on and off all the time!) but this brings inherent biosecurity risks. Although we have stringent quarantine measures in place there is still a chance that an unwanted rat or mouse could be accidentally transported to the island in the feed. To counter this we decided to try growing our own sheep feed and at the same time plant some additional crops that will benefit seed eating birds too.
Ploughing back in January - the area had not been ploughed for many years so it was tough going at times!
This week Derek and I set to the task of sowing 3 acres worth of kale, rape and turnips (for the sheep), a wild bird mix containing triticale, barely, raddish, quinoa, mustard and millet and a strip of barely and Pembrokeshire black oats to create some winter stubble for chough (they will readily feed on seed in tough winters).
We fitted a seed spreader (thanks to local farmer Tom Spittle for the loan) to the quad that was powered off the bike’s 12v starter battery. I went up and down (many times!) while Derek followed behind on our 60 year old Massey Ferguson tractor first chain harrowing and then rolling the soil. We were at it for 9 hours on day one and then finished the job off the following morning.
Loading the seed into the hopper
Derek on the tractor
Below is a deliberately very short video of the process in action (I appreciate that watching someone else driving up and down in straight lines is not particularly interesting!)
The next day we set about erecting two electric fences – one to keep the rabbits out and the other for the red deer! Rabbit numbers are low at the moment but we all know what they can be like when it comes to reproduction so it pays to take precautions (pity the rabbits don’t adopt that policy!) Keeping red deer out might be more of an issue but a single strand of sheep wire at waist height has worked in the past. They usually inspect any new fence before jumping it so hopefully a wet nose on an electrified fence will make them think twice!
GM, Lizzie and Antonia testing the electric fence!
With such a big area to fence it is always a challenge to make sure there are no breaks or long vegetation touching the bottom which will earth it so it was a relief to see the tester reading maximum voltage all the way round first time.
Now we just need the rain.... but preferably at night only! If this works it will provide safe, secure winter sheep feed and some valuable additional habitat in what can be a tough period for the birds that winter out here. Wish us luck!
The new arable plot as seen from the top of Carn Llundain (the brown square in the middle of the photo)