Wildlife Report - Dec 2006

Langmead Farms continue to improve the bio-diversity on all our farms especially on the 900 acres of organically farmed land. All the farms will now have 6 metre field margin, which will act as a wildlife corridor, which means that we will have at least 12kms of additional managed habitat. Each year 400 metres of new hedgerow is planted and improved management of the hedges and copses is ongoing.

Carbon Impact is minimized by utilizing a machine which subsoils, discs and rolls in one

Recently constructed beetle banks will give more diversity and where they are planted across fields, they are designed to prevent erosion, particularly at Petworth. Therefore, the outlook is very positive for the development of all wildlife and the wild plants on our farms.

Birds

Wood pigeons are a major pest on our salad crops, we employ three fulltime wardens in an attempt to protect the crops and the damage done by wood pigeons is estimated at 5 percent of the total crop where no affective protection is employed. We are aware that the bangers do cause disturbance in the country side and make every effort to minimize this, with this in mind on one of our farms we are experimenting with specially trained hawks that will be flown over the crops and if this proves successful the plan is to extend this further over more of the farms. Brent Geese arrived early October. They appear to have had a poor breeding season as the numbers of young birds in the flocks is below average however initially they came onto the wheat in quite large numbers particularly at Home Farm, Selsey. 

Organic compost spread over fields

After keeping them on the move for a while they have now gone to feed on the harbours and local grass fields.

Organic Fertiliser

We continue to produce and put large quantities of organic fertiliser on our organic farms however disappointingly new regulations are making it difficult to apply this to non organic farmland. 

Land Management

organic harvest

With climate change becoming more obvious and a particularly wet three months following the draught of 2006 we are reviewing our planting and land management techniques to minimise damage to the soil and we hope these new techniques can be adopted as best practise for the future. 

Access

Langmead Farms maintains at least 3.8 kms of footpaths on our farms, some of which are also bridleways, and we encourage all country lovers to use these footpaths whenever possible.  As we are growing edible crops, we request that all dogs be kept on a lead.  Your co-operation is appreciated.