Rant about hedge cutting in October

[Curly green finger's]

Hi I want to have a rant about councils farmers contractors cutting hedges now ....
MY BEES and other pollinators want them left until November....
It boils me up to see them being cut Now ..... go and cut something else like your hair or nose hair or your grass and leave the hedges alone.
Thanks for reading comment if you like.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hi I want to have a rant about councils farmers contractors cutting hedges now ....
MY BEES and other pollinators want them left until November....
It boils me up to see them being cut Now ..... go and cut something else like your hair or nose hair or your grass and leave the hedges alone.
Thanks for reading comment if you like.

There are a few landowners here that would cut their hedges earlier if it was legal
As far as wildlife goes the best time is February but by then the field margins are so waterlogged the cutters have trouble.
I actually wonder why they bother to cut them at all. All of them have stock fencing each side anyway.
Our neighbouring farmer has always cut our hedges which abut his fields. These hedges have been planted each side of a double bank so are sort of double. We’ve asked him to leave them alone for the last two years and they have been a snowstorm of Hawthorn blossom in the spring, a blaze of dark red berries at the end of summer and a riot of Fieldfares and Redwings in winter.

 

[For want of a better word]

Hi I want to have a rant about councils farmers contractors cutting hedges now ....
MY BEES and other pollinators want them left until November....
It boils me up to see them being cut Now ..... go and cut something else like your hair or nose hair or your grass and leave the hedges alone.
Thanks for reading comment if you like.

Then there was a scheme to get young offenders to clear out all of the hard wood cuttings and have them processed into wood chip for fuel... thus removing vital nutrients from the hedgerows!
After making myself very unpopular with the Tamar Valley ANOB and other local growing schemes.... on better advice from an Environmental Science expert... the whole idea was dropped like a hot potato.

Some had a go at me for "whistle blowing" on sharing honey processing and extracting being run under a similar " Local" initiative.... hear tell that they now at a minimum wash out the extractor and stack full and empty supers in a different room!!!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Last week I was at the Malvern Autumn Show in the lovely Gloucestershire countryside. I watched a large machine gobble up an entire field of Maize and shred it into an accompanying succession of trailers in no time at all. I’d never actually seen anything like it. Biofuel I guess. Pretty bad for the soil I would guess.
You can see I’m a Townie

 

[Curly green finger's]

I agree with you dani let them grow and if they grow to big , get this farmer to come and do some hedge- laying .
Pm me if anyone is interested?.
And that's not a ploy either.
Instead of hedge cutting we need to do more hedge laying not much is done in these parts anymore .
When I was at college we use to have competitions against other colleges I dowt they do it anymore, this was twenty years ago.


@ cheers - keep making your self unpopular with these folk I'm in the same situation with the commoners on the hill , who think it's apt to over graze and not burn the gorse .... all out just to make money .
There's one good thing though I've two swarms on the common in boxes and I'm not moving them to the field .
Locals seem very pleased there there and the commoners are happy for me to leave them . Shhhh.........hmmm... maybe more before the winter's out ??.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Last week I was at the Malvern Autumn Show in the lovely Gloucestershire countryside. I watched a large machine gobble up an entire field of Maize and shred it into an accompanying succession of trailers in no time at all. I’d never actually seen anything like it. Biofuel I guess. Pretty bad for the soil I would guess.
You can see I’m a Townie

You mean there's town's over in Ceredigion ?

 

[theeggman]

Last week I was at the Malvern Autumn Show in the lovely Gloucestershire countryside. I watched a large machine gobble up an entire field of Maize and shred it into an accompanying succession of trailers in no time at all. I’d never actually seen anything like it. Biofuel I guess. Pretty bad for the soil I would guess.
You can see I’m a Townie

Probably for silage.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Probably for silage.

More than likely .

 

[Erichalfbee]

Probably for silage.

Ah yes
It was green
See told you I was a Townie

 

[Jimmy]

Probably for silage.

Here in the Vale of Evesham there's a huge acreage of maize grown for a anaerobic digester plant. Lots of land taken out of food production and they seem to grow maize in the same field year after year with no problems. The last couple of years there are some fields that have winter rye harvested green by the middle of May followed by a maize crop harvested in the autumn, both for the AD plant.

 

[For want of a better word]

Here in the Vale of Evesham there's a huge acreage of maize grown for a anaerobic digester plant. Lots of land taken out of food production and they seem to grow maize in the same field year after year with no problems. The last couple of years there are some fields that have winter rye harvested green by the middle of May followed by a maize crop harvested in the autumn, both for the AD plant.

This once green and pleasant valley is now covered in solar farms.... and the next and the next and the next.... will be turned over to Brownfield sites once the cells have reached the end of their short life... reflective silicon desert!

Yeghes da

 

[Jimmy]

This once green and pleasant valley is now covered in solar farms....
Yeghes da

One of my apiaries is on a farm with solar panels. The grass between the panels is rich with dandelions in the spring and clover in the summer. Better than another field of winter wheat IMHO.

 

[Erichalfbee]

This once green and pleasant valley is now covered in solar farms.... and the next and the next and the next.... will be turned over to Brownfield sites once the cells have reached the end of their short life... reflective silicon desert!

Yeghes da

What’s the life of a solar panel?
Can it just not be replaced?

 

[Woodland bees]

Hi I want to have a rant about councils farmers contractors cutting hedges now ....

Move to Devon and the councils don't cut hedges, even if it blocks the road.

I'm not a fan of the flailing of hedges at this time of year but as an owner of a roadside hedge the roadside gets cut when the local, private, contractor is passing. It was done a month or so ago as he spends the next few months cutting in the area. If it's not cut then the road becomes almost impassable.

I also gather farmers would rather cut them straight after a crops as that's when the field is accessible. Later on and they trample crops, in Feb the ground will be too wet. Makes sense.

Having said that, the hedges bordering my fields are being left to grow out and are never cut (much to the chagrin of the 'real' local farmers). Our hedges are still full of berries and even bramble flowers with bees on today.

 

[enrico]

We have three milk farms here. None of the cows are in fields. All kept in barns. All the fields are maize for silage. All the excretement is then sprayed on the fields at this time of the year we have up to fifty tractors an hour passing with massive loads of cut maize and then have tankers of crap. The fields are empty of animals. The farmers reckon it reduces tb having them inside. The noise and pollution from the tractors is terrible! They are contracted to do the work so should be driven under strict drivers regs but these are ignored. Sad day really but there we go. We the consumer drive this hipocrasy!
E

 

[Dodge]

The solar farms I have seen appear to be galvanised steel frames into what I imagine are small concrete post holes. Hardly brownfield I guess. Remove panels and steel, dig the concrete bases out with a digger the. It's pretty much untouched field.

 

[For want of a better word]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...lean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/


Dandelions..... Round up will soon sort out those useless weeds... and as for grass...spray spray spray!

More concrete poured for solar farm's infrastructure than 10 fast reactor power stations methinks!!

 

[Curly green finger's]

Move to Devon and the councils don't cut hedges, even if it blocks the road.

I'm not a fan of the flailing of hedges at this time of year but as an owner of a roadside hedge the roadside gets cut when the local, private, contractor is passing. It was done a month or so ago as he spends the next few months cutting in the area. If it's not cut then the road becomes almost impassable.

I also gather farmers would rather cut them straight after a crops as that's when the field is accessible. Later on and they trample crops, in Feb the ground will be too wet. Makes sense.

Having said that, the hedges bordering my fields are being left to grow out and are never cut (much to the chagrin of the 'real' local farmers). Our hedges are still full of berries and even bramble flowers with bees on today.

I found this interesting

http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/cms/cms_content/files/489_hedges_and_the_law_updated_april_2015.pdf

Devon is nice but I think I'd rather live in the deepest darkest parts of wales , must be the Welsh in me .
You west country folk are too eccentric for my liking no offence!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I found this interesting

http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/cms/cms_content/files/489_hedges_and_the_law_updated_april_2015.pdf

Devon is nice but I think I'd rather live in the deepest darkest parts of wales , must be the Welsh in me .
You west country folk are too eccentric for my liking no offence!

Must be different laws here in Ceredigion. My neighbour up the hill removed a 100 metre stand of mature Hawthorne with his new digger June before last then put a stock fence up where it used to be.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Must be different laws here in Ceredigion. My neighbour up the hill removed a 100 metre stand of mature Hawthorne with his new digger June before last then put a stock fence up where it used to be.

Im not sure of the laws in Wales dani , was that illegal ??..
2015 a big potato farmer in the golden valley nr vowchurch got a friend of mine to take out a hedge row in between two fields at night .
He ended up in court with a fine of 200.000 pounds the hedge was protected .
How do some folk get away with it ??
I know ours at home are part and parcel of a stewardship scheme as is some of the 350acres farm mainly the glibes ( olchon valley).