Welshfred

What a tool...

Btw what have you planted, just out of interest? I'm currently tending some pure sweet chestnut and some in a mix with oak over about 2 acres, planted between 2012 and 2023. Most of the 2012s are very well established but it's been hard on a bad bracken patch where I neglected the early cleaning and have had to do successive waves of beating up...

That will depend on the "weed" regrowth. If there's bramble or bracken you'll need to clean around them once or twice each summer for two to three years or until they are clear of the undergrowth. Then you can also spot any losses and beat up accordingly. On one of my summer rounds this year I put red ties on the canes of any dead ones to spot them easily for replacing. Although as I go round doing this with the low winter vegetation I'm finding some I missed amongst the 7 foot high summer bracken forest. I'm tempted to use the red ties on all of them at planting stage next time.

Elm? Is it suckering?

But which Lime? Small leaved, large leaved, other?

A common sense approach to immigration? It’s clear Britain can’t survive without immigration. Now Labour must convince voters | Simon Jenkins | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Yet more evidence shows that we will only rely on it more as time goes on. It’s time to debate it without toxic rhetoric, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

It's actually more of a silage desert round here. Hence all the nitrate rich slurry being sprayed about ( in an already slightly more controlled manner...) I appreciate your sentiment though and yes in some areas I think regenerative agriculture is proving effective economically as well as for soils, carbon, biodiversity. All still v fragmented on a national scale though.

Interesting. Welsh gov have designated all of Wales a nitrate vulnerable zone. Farmers will have to account for all the N spread on the land with extra regs relating to application before rain and storage. It should already be fully implemented but kickback from the farmers has delayed it again and again.

And dimmed again- Farms' Natural Resources Wales sheep dip disposal ban for rivers WWW.BBC.CO.UK Welsh farmers banned from disposing of waste sheep dip on their land over river pollution fears It batters my head they've been spraying it everywhere all this time. A long overdue change although I don't know how long it will take to fully implement. Or how long it will take for all the residual chemicals to leach out of the ground. FFS again. Good news on the neonics though, grab it where you can I suppose...

Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against ‘unduly harsh’ sentences | Environment | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Protesters will gather outside court of appeal in support of activists, who say judges defied decades of precedent It'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Personally I believe those prepared to sacrifice their freedom to push awareness of the climate/biodiversity crises are some of the heroes of our time. All those convicted were prepared to go to prison but the lengths of the sentences were surprising and unprecedented given not just the human rights issues but also the horrendous state of UK prison overcrowding/ costs to taxpayer of imprisonment.

‘Sputnik moment’: $1tn wiped off US stocks after Chinese firm unveils AI chatbot | DeepSeek | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Trump calls emergence of DeepSeek a ‘wake-up call’ amid doubts about sustainability of western artificial intelligence boom You've got to laugh... All that imaginary money - gone.....

FFS

That'll be down to avian flu. Think RFK can handle that?

Shame

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