Discover the benefits of introducing herbal leys into your rotation with this one day course, led by Cotswold Seeds, and leave feeling confident in your abilities to plan and manage your own system.
Tue 11 Mar - 9:45 - 16:30
FarmED, Honeydale Farm, Station Rd, Chipping Norton OX7 6BJ, UK
Interested in how herbal leys feature in SFI options? Explore the many benefits to forage, livestock health, soil fertility and resilience of introducing low-input herbal leys into your rotations. This one day course, brought to you by the FarmED team and Cotswold Seeds, will give you the confidence to introduce and manage herbal leys in your own system.
This course is designed for arable and livestock farmers and growers who are interested in working with herbal leys but want to learn more about how to start integrating these seed mixtures into their current operations.
About the Event
Newman Turner, one of the great advocates of herbal leys, described these mixes as his ‘fertiliser merchant, food manufacturer and vet all in one’.
With increasingly volatile weather patterns and growing demand to reduce chemical inputs to farmland, there's never been a better time to consider establishing herbal leys in your operation.
Herbal Leys can be incorporated into arable, livestock or horticultural operations. These complex seed mixtures of grasses, legumes and herbs can include a mixture of up to 17 species and the benefits are as diverse as the species they contain, from building soil fertility and improving water resilience to fostering better animal health and boosting biodiversity.
But where do you start?
This workshop aims to answer this question by providing an opportunity to:
- Observe a herbal ley system in action in our eight-year arable rotation.
- Learn about the costs involved and other management considerations when transitioning to herbal leys.
- Have your questions answered about establishing and managing herbal leys by experts and practitioners.
- Learn about the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) options.
By the end of the course, you can expect to be able to:
- Appreciate the benefits of herbal leys in terms of soil, environment and animal health, resource conservation, and biodiversity enhancement.
- Be able to plan a herbal ley system that is appropriate for your farming operation.
- Be able to manage a herbal ley system, from establishment to grazing and termination
Tickets include refreshments and a seasonal lunch from the FarmED Kitchen.
This is a full-day course running from 10 am to 4.30 pm.
Testimonials
"I want to encourage more farmers to sow herbal leys." - Attendee, 2023
"[I was] very happy to find out more about the logistics and practicalities of herbal leys and farmer perspectives." - Attendee, 2023
"I feel better able to advise farmers" - Attendee, 2023
"I learnt the importance of selecting the correct seed mix for a herbal ley to suit the ground and purpose for which it is going to be used rather than just buying an off-the-shelf mix." - Attendee, 2022
Info & Booking
