Convert land to biodiversity and nature sanctuary?

n1st

I don't have the patience and I'm keeping the small piece of farming going, I am getting a few thousand trees and hedgerows this year via the dept of agriculture.

In 20 years all of those schemes will have dried up and I'll be too old. Nature can take over then

Shoog

A good strategy to accelerate species diversity is to find someone with a species rich meadow and buy in a hay cut from them, mow your own meadow and spread the donnar hay on the ground before clearing it in a few days.

Species recruitment by natural progression is painfully slow, something like 1 species per decade so anything you can do to accelerate it is beneficial. Species diversity in the plant mix is the foundation on which animal diversity grows.

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725912#Comment_121725912

That's a great idea.

My sward is actually improving. I've not added anything in 4 years now. I can see more species coming through.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121725958#Comment_121725958

Do you still lightly graze it? It's important to keep grazing and/or taking hay. Scrub is far less an important habitat than species rich grassland.

The problem with woodland as a focus is that it takes hundreds of years to be a species rich habitat.

Ponds are great as species find them and move in very rapidly, this is because naturally they are a very transitory habitat.

n1st

Yes it's grazed. no sheep. Trying to keep the growth thick at all times. Regenerative farming this year it's supposed to help.

They also say that the biodiversity lives around the fringes, I'm trying to thicken up the hedgerows and leave grass long.

Yes trees will be slow. I hope to leave a few hundred oak trees behind me

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121726005#Comment_121726005

Would love to visit, sounds like a great project. We were based in Boyle but now in Carrick.

Sheep can be great grazers especially on limestone where they keep the sward tight. Cows have the advantage that they break up the surface by a bit of poaching and simply grazing. This opens up opportunities for species to come in on the broken ground.

Yellow rattle on dry ground and lousewort on wet will weaken the grass and open up opportunities for less vigorous species. Irish wildflowers.ie is the only source of truly native wildflower seed for active seeding.

n1st

You're welcome anytime. It's early days. It looks like any farm in Connaught now.

https://www.ballyglassthatchedcottage.com/

roosterman71

Any worries with the future transfer of the land to a successor (if you have one)? Would they be stung with much higher tax? IS the planted land to be classed as non agri in the future?

n1st

Not necessarily

The gift tax limits are the way to do it, 350k limit now. This doesn't require farming.

Who knows what's in store.

Water John

Another way to use donor meadow hay that's cut late is, to feed it to outwintered stock. Roll out the bale and the cattle will shake and eat the hay. Then they'll set it by walking the seeds into the ground.