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 →
Improvements in species diversity at Herefordshire Meadows restoration sites.
Analysis of monitoring datasets 2019-2023 Over the last 5 years Herefordshire Meadows has been encouraging and assisting landowners to monitor the progress of their meadow restoration projects, via yearly botanical surveys, beginning with a baseline survey pre-restoration. The simple Rapid Assessment Monitoring method is used, where species are recoded at regular stops whilst walking a zig-zag route through the restoration… Read more →
Updated Meadow Monitoring survey sheets for 2024!
For 2024 we have introduced a slightly amended Rapid Monitoring recording sheet which we hope will assist the new tranche of meadow makers coming in under the Kingspan and other projects, as well as helping previous restoration site owners carrying out their annual monitoring surveys. Download the pdf survey sheet HERE or the Excel file HERE and visit our Survey… Read more →
Click HERE to visit our Big Give campaign page and double your money! Thank you for making a donation! Read more →
Donate to Herefordshire Meadows this April and double your money!
We are excited to announce that Herefordshire Meadows has been selected to participate in the Big Give – Green Match Fund 2024 campaign, meaning that for one week starting at midday on Thursday 18th April, any donations received by Herefordshire Meadows through our Big Give campaign page will be matched by the Green Match Fund! If you have ever considered… Read more →