coppice cutter

aka "Professor pants down". He's the scrawny faced little slime ball who didn't even obey his own restrictions. Do the mainstream media think we've all forgotten such things. Just another example of the "rules are only for the plebs" attitude so prevalent throughout the whole thing.

I know this is commonly put forward as an essential component of wildflower success but I don't know that it's a simple as that. I may be a low input farmer, but I'm still a farmer. I wouldn't be putting up with having ground that was impoverished and unproductive. I can grow good crops of grass to make hay and feed stock, if that wasn't happening I'd be doing something about it and if that ultimately required a degree of non-organic input then that's what would be. There's an awful lot goes on in soil at microbial level that is not understood. But unfortunately in-depth research costs money and the people who normally pay for such are the same people who benefit most from intensification. They are not going to pay for research which ultimately leads to them selling less product. There is actually much more attention paid to soil structure and the importance of keeping it healthy and vibrant in the sports turf industry, but again it is with a particular end result and wouldn't always be that easily applied to an agricultural setting unfortunately. They do however recognise the harm caused by soil compaction for example, something that farming has never taken at all seriously and less so now than ever.

No need to apologise, it's a fair point. I'm no supporter of modern farming practices, Gareth has even had a go or two at me for my continuous farmer bashing in his eyes. I'd say a lot of intensively managed grass swards are indeed pretty "sterile" environments which causes problems. Recently a neighbour had a wee dig at me (they think I'm a bit crazy) about how my hay crop had so few docks in it, no doubt hinting that it must have been sprayed with something. I told him there's docks dotted through it everywhere (which there is), but in my case the grass outgrows the docks and smothers them whereas in intensively managed grass the nitrogen feeds the docks and they smother the grass instead. "But how have you such a good crop of grass without nitrogen then?" was what came next. I just shrugged my shoulders and said that I don't really understand how it works either but it just seems to. And I've never had, and I never will have, yellow-rattle about the place. Unless it appears of it's own accord that is!

Further to this, there is some good info out there with regards to the establishment of wildflower/natural areas, the pitfalls and failures. But it tends to be increasingly swamped by the "quick fix" approach of wildlife groups and gardening organisations as it becomes more to the fore with our 're-wilding' (🤨) agenda. It's a bit deep in places but I've gotten some useful information in the past from the "Lowland Grassland Management Handbook". I downloaded it and printed it as I found it more suitable for browsing that way, but then I'm old and still like a physical book. Well worth a look in whatever format! Lowland Grassland Management Handbook (Second edition) - GRASSLAND PUBLICATIONS.NATURALENGLAND.ORG.UK The handbook covers topics such as grazing, mowing, scrub management, grassland creation, weed control and...

I'm guessing that should be OK, in the short term anyway. Seems to be that most problems arise when yellow rattle has been sown in an area directly beside managed grassland without even a ditch or dyke as a physical boundary and then creeps over. The whole yellow rattle 'thing' is something I'm not that comfortable with as it's generally used in an attempt to make wild flowers viable in an area where they aren't, another human inspired "quick fix" if you like. Six or seven years after I stopped using chemical fertiliser, a little white flower started appearing on hay ground. After a bit of hunting for info I eventually figured out that it was Cardamine Pratensis, otherwise known as Cuckoo Flower or Mayflower. All the usually places will tell you what you have to do to establish it, moist loam, a bit of sun but some shade, wetlands, river banks, etc, etc. But I now have it all over the place, everywhere that isn't being grazed at flowering time, indeed it's probably there too only the sheep eat it. I haven't sown it, I haven't tried to establish it, most of my ground is very free draining, but it was plainly there in the seed bank going back many decades despite ploughing and cultivation, and as soon as the soil was given the opportunity to return to a more natural balance, this was a result of that process. So I'd tend to lean more towards Paul's advice, skip the yellow rattle, and give it time instead.

Wouldn't get too worked up about it, like most things politicians say, he most likely has no intention of doing it.

Honda have announced their official return to F1, prompted they say by the future introduction of new rules to allow more of the recovered kinetic energy to be used as a power source, and the use of synthetic fuels. Both of which they also say have great potential in future production vehicles.

Also bear in mind that yellow-rattle is highly invasive and if you let it stray over a boundary in to neighbouring managed grassland you will have an extremely irate neighbouring farmer to deal with.

Yep, that'll work. Spent yesterday afternoon clearing out the lambing shed and had a couple of weeks worth of fresh grass clippings from the lawns, around the fruit trees etc, which given the couple of weeks of extreme growth there has been was a lot. Mixed it all up going on the dung heap and the nitrogen in the grass clippings will help break down the straw and hay from the lambing shed. Might even be usable by this autumn.

Problem is that before long that'll be a big gooey stinking mess and will remain so probably until next spring or that.

This pretty much says it all. If you don't want stock on it, a cut of hay mid to late June or early July will take the steam out of it and you can just mow and leave the cuttings the rest of the year which will build it up enough to do the same the following year. Be very odd if there wasn't a farmer about who'd take you up on the offer of the grass for hay.

Poor Gordon, surely a historical sex abuse claim would be inevitable, .....................if he weren't a puppet!

Didn't I say "so be it". Now feel free to f**k off!

OK, additionally, remarkable lack of coverage on the ground. Furthermore, I don't do anti-social media. If the main difference in my perception of events is because that's how things are covered nowadays and I'm simply old and out of touch because of that then so be it.

Exactly this. Just because it isn't what we've been told for decades that WW3 would be, we're not recognising the war in Ukraine for what it's turning in to. Again, the remarkable lack of coverage isn't helping.

I think we are already in WW3 except that (so far!) it's being fought in one country. Furthermore, the lack of media coverage compared to any other major conflicts over the past decades seems to be shielding us from the reality of what must be happening over there.

Yes I saw that, but I'd have thought the BBC of all organisations would have been determined to use the appropriate modern, diverse, all-inclusive terminology, that they use for every other transgender related article (and there are many!) that they publish.

Interesting terminology from the BBC. Even though the person in question is unashamedly "transgender" and in the process of "transitioning", the article describes them as a man "dressed as a woman" and consistently refers to the person as "he". All of which, I have come to understand from reading various BBC articles, in this day and age is seriously transphobic. I wonder what the difference is in this case???

This seems to paint a rather different picture.

Plainly a saw aimed at the "occasional" user.

Indeed there's plenty to the contrary!

I was going to say that that is a joke. But actually the consistent decline in quality of information from the Met Office has gotten to the stage that it has caused so many losses and so much distress amongst those who previously relied on it that it is no longer at all funny.

Meanwhile, in "la la" land, Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time WWW.BBC.CO.UK Wind power overtakes gas for the first time in the UK during first three months of year.

UK bashing is becoming a bit of a thing on some forums. If some people are to be believed then the UK is the only place in the entire world with any problems and everywhere else is just f**kin' heavenly!