Johnnie Balfour, Balbirnie Home Farms 3/3
How do you monitor it?
We take pictures and as an AHDB strategic cereal farm for Scotland, we’ve done some monitoring as part of that including baseline surveys last year.
We have some insect surveys being done, and we’re part of GWCT looking at partridges and counting them as a key stone species for our ecosystem. Most of the monitoring we do is based on observation, more biodiversity means more growth, and more growth means keeping cattle in there for longer.
Monitoring by observation
What lessons have you learnt and would like to share with others?
Just do it! Go make a mistake and learn from it! And at whatever point you’re on the spectrum, there is always an improvement you can make.
Ours is to stop using fungicides. We don’t use insecticides already and last year we only used fungicide for one crop. It’s one to many perhaps but it is at least about moving in the right direction.
Hedgerows on Balbirnie Home Farms
