New approaches to wildlife management

In chapter 4 of Farming with the Environment I presented the results of our research into the very wide range of wildlife associated with the farmed environment at Loddington. But nationally and globally, the abundance and species diversity of wildlife has declined over the past decades. In chapter 5 I describe the steps we have taken to reverse this decline through the development of practical evidence based habitat creation and management.

It’s hard to imagine that, when the Allerton Project started thirty years ago, it was common practice to spay out vegetation in hedge bases. Today, farmers are encouraged and economically supported to create and manage perennial grass margins around their fields to deliver a number of environmental benefits. Research at the Allerton Project was instrumental in that shift in mindset and agri-environmental policy.

We investigated arable weeds in field edges, habitat use by nesting birds, and the abundance of beneficial invertebrate predators of crop pests such as aphids. Beetle banks, low grassy banks through fields, were developed by the GWCT in the late 1980s as a means of getting these beneficial invertebrates further out into the cropped area, and we continued the development of these at Loddington in the 1990s.

We explored the potential of numerous flowering plants as a foraging resource for pollinating insects such as bumblebees and solitary bees, improving our understanding of how both naturally occurring plant species, and species that could be sown to create new habitat contributed to the conservation of these beneficial insects.

Now widely adopted winter bird food crops were developed at the Allerton Project in the 1990s under contract to the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF). We looked at the use of a range of seed-bearing crops by birds in winter, and as a result were able to design seed mixtures to meet the winter food requirements of bird communities on individual farms. These were so successful that seed food became depleted by January and we provided the evidence base for provision of supplementary seed through the second half of the winter, now also a Stewardship option.

In terms of existing farmland habitats, we researched the birds and invertebrate communities associated with hedges and the influence of hedgerow structure on nesting success of birds. We also explored options for improving ditches for wildlife, prolonging the period in which they held water into the summer to the benefit of aquatic invertebrates and several bird species. Land and water management to benefit aquatic wildlife in ditches, streams and ponds is covered in more detail in Chapter 6.