As the name implies, the Crimper Roller offers a way of terminating cover crops with no till; by avoiding the need for spraying, mowing and ploughing, it’s a much cheaper and faster method. It relies on having a bulky cover crop which is then crushed, the flattened plants forming a mulch on top of the soil which keeps weeds at bay and also allows new seeds to come through. Ingenious!

This weekend marked our first attempt at controlling our winter cover crop of rye and vetch. The trick is to find the ‘Goldilocks Moment’ when the plants are just right to terminate, in other words when they are old enough to remain flat once rolled, but not too old to seed. 

We have rolled one trial strip in our cover crop to start with but as we suspected, we were a little too early and some of the plants may recover. We will be repeating the process weekly until we have determined the correct stage to terminate, so tune in next Monday to find out what happens!

Following our participation in last year’s Thames Water Blitz, organised by Wild Oxfordshire and Earthwatch, we again tested the water at Honeydale.

The tests determine levels of nitrate and phosphate and a range of samples were taken across the ponds, dams, stream and spring that comprise the new flood alleviation waterworks on the farm.

The nitrogen levels were high and the phosphate low, which is what is to be expected based on last year’s results. But we are fixing our own nitrogen with sainfoin, green manures and grass leys so will be monitoring levels closely now and we are confident that our new farming system will not be adding to the problem, and is a method that should, over time, help to reduce water soluble nitrogen in rivers.

Mob-Grazing Moving On

Now the electric fencing is all in place, we are moving the sheep, thirty ewes and sixty lambs, every day. It’s only taking about twenty minutes a time. After two weeks the sheep now know what to do, and and as soon as the fence moves and they can see their way open to lush ungrazed herbal ley, they walk on through, follow each other just like...sheep!

Mob grazing moving on

One maintenance job we have to complete every two weeks is mowing under the fences with the Allen Scythe to make sure the grass does not grow too tall to touch the wire and earth it.

We’re also addressing the issue of bringing drinking water to the different areas as the sheep are moved. We’ve installed a bowser with a 1000 litre capacity which is pumped full from the spring and we are awaiting delivery of plastic tubing which will be run in a loop around the field with branch lines into each area. All we’ll have to do then is move the small empty trough each day, and in the future when different fields are given over to pasture in the rotation, we can simply move the water pipe to the new areas. 

The Sheep have been enjoying grazing the Sheep’s Parsley in the Herbal Ley

We plough the fields and scatter….

Our arable fields were planted with Summer Quick Fix green manure which we over-wintered and ploughed a couple of weeks ago and have now power harrowed, rolled and planted with cereals; spring wheat, spring oats and spring barley. After sowing the spring wheat we’ve sown our standard mix of yellow trefoil and white clover under it as an intercrop. This will act as a soil improver and to be grazed after the wheat has been harvested.

Ploughing in Summer Quick Fix Green Manure in Arable Field Summer

Sam drilling spring barley next to sainfoin

Ring rolling after power harrow before drilling

Rolling intercrop with flat roller

Watering sheep

Rye/Vetch - Sown last Autumn

Allen Sythe

For the first four of these years, the land will be given over to leys, so our first job this spring with the ley (a fertility building herbal ley) has been to fence the eight acre field for mob (cell) grazing.

The benefits of mob grazing are that it prevents livestock repeatedly seeking a favourite spot and severely trampling the soil as well as concentrating manure, to get high levels of manure returned to the soil across the field.



We also find that when grazing diverse swards, if allowed to choose, livestock will continually preferentially graze the most delicate, tasty species. If these species are not allowed a break to regrow, they may be grazed out of the sward, lowering the overall diversity. This is the opposite intention for our diverse fertility building ley.

We’ve chosen electric fencing which is a cheaper, more effective, and very versatile way of containing livestock in any shape or size area. It is designed as a psychological barrier which sheep and cattle fear to cross, rather than a purely physical one. Portable electric fencing gear also allows for subdivision of pastures, mimicking wild migration patterns where predators keep herds bunched together and migrating as a group. 

We are using a semi permanent outside fence with portable electric fencing to make strips inside for maximum flexibility. The benefit of using a portable electric fence inside a permanent electric fence grid is that the portable wires allow you to change the size of the paddocks over the course of the grazing season as the grass growth speeds up, slows down, or becomes dormant.

Considerations when planning an electric fencing grid include taking into account the variation in conductivity in different portable wire products. In order to contain cattle you need to maintain at least 2,000 volts on the fence, but because of their wool insulation, sheep need 2,500 volts to be deterred from crossing. Since most polywire and polytape fall below 1,000 volts in less than 500 yards, steel wire is the best option, capable of carrying current much farther, with only a 2,000 to 2,500 volt drop per 1,000 yards of fence line.

It’s also important to make sure that plants are not touching the wire, otherwise the electricity will go to earth rather than to the animal, so we used our flail mower to mow a strip a couple of metres wide prior to staking.



We underestimated the time it took to fence the 800m perimeter of the field and divide it into four strips, one for each year. It ended up being a two man job lasting a whole day. We also had a hitch with the energizer. I’d not used one before and given it was a solar powered fence, I didn’t realise that it also needed a battery for the solar energy to charge.

However once we’d sorted that out, it was hugely satisfying to bring thirty ewes and sixty lambs from Nigel and Ed Adam’s farm and watch them emerge from the livestock trailer and begin grazing the lush ley. We shall be moving them onto different areas each day so watch this space for progress updates.

Black Poplars have a striking shape and colour and were a common sight during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when soldiers of the Great War would have been growing up. The Black Poplars were utilised for timber for thousands of years, prized for their soft, white, shock absorbing wood. Commonly used for the handles of tools, axles of carts and even the butts of rifles, these trees were a common feature of Gloucestershire’s farmed landscape. They then fell out of favour in the 1850’s when more productive hybrids became available. This, coupled with the drainage of wetland areas, has caused dramatic population declines with the result that the black poplar is now Britain’s most threatened native timber tree.

These rare trees are now largely absent from our landscape and unknown to younger generations. This is why Gloucestershire FWAG feels this project is a fitting tribute to the soldiers that fell in the Great War, one which will serve as a long-term reminder for generations to come and reinstate a feature of our historic landscape.

The project is planting Black Poplar in pairs to help preserve the UK’s genetic stock; the trees can be grown from cuttings very easily in the same way as willows; by simply placing a stick in the ground it will most likely grow. However, growing them from seed is far more difficult. Firstly, both male and female trees are needed and the fertilised seed needs to fall on bare, wet ground and lay undisturbed until the following June when it will hopefully germinate. Due to these difficulties, for hundreds of years black poplars were simply cloned (planted from cuttings), with the result that the UK population has very limited genetic diversity. On top of this male trees were favoured because the females produce a large quantity of fluffy seed which was seen as a nuisance! This has left us with very few female trees and even fewer genetically individual female trees.


Fully grown Black Polar (image courtesy of FWAGSW)

To ensure the trees planted by this project are as genetically diverse as possible, the project is working closely with the UK Black Poplar Clone Bank, as well as with Liz and Bob Taylor of Gloucestershire's Park Farm Nurseries, who have kindly donated 100 trees.