Welcome to the summer PASTORAL newsletter.
First of all, we would like to thank you for your continued participation ; it is invaluable for us to have the opportunity to work with you as we shape PASTORAL. This newsletter brings together the project activity for July and August of 2022. During this period we distributed the first data sets to participants, held further field labs and Innovative Farmers 10th Birthday celebrations attending by the Duke of Cornwall.
Thanks to everyone that’s shared their feedback on the initial data we shared with participants. From the feedback we understand that kg DM ha is important along with average cover per field; providing these calculations is now on our developmental path. There have also been a number of conversations regarding carbon potential, you have fed back that both, information and evidencing would be of benefit . We would love to hear from any of you if you have received data but have yet to share your thoughts with us.
Gloucestershire field lab.
The third and final field lab of the summer series took place at Oxleaze Farm on the 8th July. Thanks to our host, Will Mann for inviting us to the farm. Most of the discussion at this field lab focused on beef farming.
4 of the 5 attendees are participating in the project and the workshop provided an opportunity to discuss recently received maps of green leaf area The participants shared with us that the green leaf area maps provided confidence and reassurance for what they are seeing in the field. It was noted that there was the opportunity to use these maps as a means of see changes over time with different sward mixes/grazing. There was a particular interest in using the data to establish and evidence longer term trends.
There was a shared reluctance to undertake rising plate metering to calculate sward mass. As a method it was reported to be time-consuming, expensive and offered limited confidence – other than in rye grass . It was hoped that remote data collection would be more accurate. The Participants were also given a demo of the new field equipment we will be using as part of our calibration work.
The Duke of Cornwall joins Birthday Celebrations.
The Duke of Cornwall joined 150 people in Cornwall on the 19th of July as they celebrated a “remarkable” 10 years of farmer-led research with the Innovative Farmers network. The event was hosted by Matt and Pip Smith at Trefranck Farm in Launceston , Matt and Pip are participants in the PASTORAL project.
His Royal Highness saw demonstrations of the field labs that are pioneering sustainable practices for farming. Environment Systems, Director Steve Keyworth had an opportunity to introduce him to PASTORAL.
Addressing the event, His Royal Highness said he was “very proud” to have been able to support Innovative Farmers and that the event was a “wonderful opportunity” to see so many people doing “remarkable things all over the country”.
He said: “It’s been fascinating to see the results of these field labs”, he added: “I’ve always felt that nature herself has so many of the answers and that if we read the book of nature carefully enough, we discover that she’s created this astonishing, miraculous really, waste free circularity. And that’s what I hope we can all build on, because technology can’t provide all the answers, the combination of the two, precision technology and so on, and these extraordinary lessons we’ve learnt from nature can be hugely beneficial and very powerful.”
Field visits in the South West of the UK.
We have visited 7 farms across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, a mix of beef and dairy farms. We measured the green leaf area in the sward to compare to green leaf area from satellite images and also measure the sward height with a rising plate meter and by accurately recording the position we can compare this to the satellite data.
Our travels across the South West reinforced the impact of the drought conditions across the UK. The image below from satellite Sentinel 3 taken in August shows the extent of these conditions.
