On Wednesday evening, Herefordshire Meadows hosted a joint event with Pasture for Life, delving into the myriad benefits of diverse swards in productive farming systems. The event was held at Upper Pengethley Farm, kindly hosted by the Partridge family. Previously a mixed farm, the 260 acre parcel has made the change from arable to herbal leys, permanent pasture, and native… Read more →
National Meadows Day walk on 6th July
On National Meadows Day on 6th July, the rain passed SW Herefordshire just in time for us to have a great view from Urishay across the Golden Valley on our visit to Tom and Catherine Oliver at Urishay Court. Thanks to them for hosting us and to neighbouring farmer, David Morgan, who joined us to talk about the challenges of… Read more →
PHI Survey and Plant ID Training day 12th June 2024
On Wednesday 12th June landowners, meadow makers and volunteers attended a training day with Herefordshire Meadows, to learn how to identify key meadow plants and carry out a grassland survey. Training took place on the fantastic Meadows at Hurstans, Soller’s Hope – where owner Fiona Fyshe manages species-rich grassland that was enhanced with seed from Joan’s Hill Farm, as part… Read more →
Evening Meadow Walk at Bythan
On Monday 24th June, the weather finally delivered for our first evening meadow walk of the year. The event was kindly hosted by Hilary Hillier at Bythan, Avenbury, who has been restoring grassland for 20 years using a variety of methods including green hay, local provenance seed and plug planting with great success. One of the fields visited during the… Read more →
Farm Walk with Herefordshire IAgSA
On June 13th, Meadows Adviser Rory Johnson led a farm walk with the Herefordshire branch of the IAgSA at Upper Pengethley Farm near Peterstow. The walk included a visit to some hay meadows which were enhanced in 2023 as part of Herefordshire Meadow’s Botanica project using seed from Joan’s Hill Meadow, the county coronation meadow. After going through the restoration… Read more →
2024 Plant ID Training Day at Croft Castle
On Monday 10th June meadow owners from across Herefordshire attended a Plant Identification training day at Croft Castle. The day was led by Vice County Botanical Recorder and Herefordshire Meadows Trustee Stuart Hedley, who introduced the group to the Rapid Plant Monitoring Method, a simple technique for monitoring changes in grassland over time. The session was aimed at equipping meadow… Read more →
Talk to Cradley WI
On Thursday 6th June Meadows Adviser, Rory Johnson gave a talk to a packed house in the old village hall for the annual Cradley WI open meeting. After giving an overview of who Herefordshire Meadows are and some of the things the charity gets up to, Rory then went on to explore how meadows have been an integral part of… Read more →
Research Evidence Gaps on Meadow Diversity and Grazing Strategy exposed
Jo Riggall’s Grassland Gap talk in February highlighted that grassland is often the poor relation compared with peatland and woodland and this is clearly the case when we look at research evidence about the role of diverse, deep rooted, well rested swards and the ecosystem services they provide in addition to food production. With Environment Agency funding hosted by Herefordshire… Read more →
Wyescapes; Food, Nature, Water
The Wyescapes project launched on 8th May with its inaugural meeting held on the banks of the Wye in Hereford. The project brings together 40 land holdings covering more than 4000 hectares of land along the river corridor, spanning the county of Herefordshire from north to south. The farmers and land managers are working to identify actions and changes they… Read more →
Meadow Making in the Malvern Hills
We are very excited to announce that we will be working with the Malvern Hills National Landscape this summer and autumn to support thirteen different grassland managers across the National Landscape with grassland surveying, soil sampling and grassland restoration works. In total we plan to carry out botanical surveys at 11 sites and will create just under 15ha of new,… Read more →