Farming with the Environment: Thirty Years of Allerton Project Research

235 Pages·16.463 MB·English

by  Chris Stoate

Farming with the Environment
This book examines, discusses and shares over 30 years’ worth of research
from the Allerton Project, a research and demonstration farm in the UK
which has been carrying out applied interdisciplinary research to explore
and explain the need to adapt the management of farmland for environmen-
tal protection and to provide public benefits.
Designed to provide guidance, feedback and recommendations to farm-
ers, practitioners and policymakers, the Game & Wildlife Conservation
Trust’s Allerton Project is an exceptionally well-documented case study of
lowland agricultural land management which has the purpose of meeting
multiple objectives. This book draws on the wealth of knowledge built over
the past 30 years and unveils and clarifies the complexity of a number of
topical debates about current land and wildlife management at a range of
spatial scales, explores the underlying historical context and provides some
important pointers to future directions of travel. Topics include soil health
and management, farmland ecology, development of management prac-
tices to enhance biodiversity, natural flood management, water quality and
aquatic ecology. Most importantly, the book demonstrates how the find-
ings from this project relate to agricultural and conservation policy more
broadly as well as how they are applicable to similar projects throughout
Europe.
This book will be of great interest to professionals working in agricultural
land management and conservation, as well as researchers and students of
agri-environmental studies and agricultural policy.
Chris Stoate is an agro-ecologist specialising in identifying synergies be-
tween agricultural and environmental objectives within lowland farming
systems at a range of scales. He is Head of Research at the Allerton Project
research and demonstration farm and has worked for the project since it was
established by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust in 1992. Chris is an
Honorary Professor with the University of Nottingham and a farmer in his
own right, and has worked in southern Europe and West Africa as well as
in the UK.
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Farming with the Environment
Thirty Years of Allerton Project Research
Chris Stoate
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
books/series/ECEFA/
Farming with the Environment
Thirty Years of Allerton
Project Research
Chris Stoate
Cover image: The Allerton Project research and demonstration farm
at Loddington
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Chris Stoate
The right of Chris Stoate to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-74900-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-74897-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16013-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160137
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of illustrations vii
List of boxes xiii
Preface xv
1 Introduction 1
2 The long view 10
3 Soil: the life support system 36
4 Wildlife and our food 56
5 Developing new approaches to wildlife management 80
6 Reflections on water 106
7 Understanding and accepting complexity 135
8 The view from the farm 166
9 A way forward 191
Index 213

Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Map of Europe showing the distribution of areas that
share the same conditions for crop establishment as the
Allerton Project farm at Loddington, Leicestershire 3
1.2 Map of the Allerton Project farm at Loddington showing
the distribution of arable crops, grassland and
woodland in 2017 5
1.3 Overall arable food production (1992–2021) using wheat as
a proxy for all crops 6
2.1 Key historical sites at Loddington and distribution of
ridge and furrow evidence of medieval cultivation 12
2.2 Electrical conductivity map of School Field, showing light
soils (yellow) in the upper, western end and clay (black) in
the lower eastern end 17
2.3 Historical population change for the parish of Tilton on
the Hill and Halstead 20
2.4 Hay making in the neighbouring parish of Leighfield in
the 1930s 20
2.5 Ploughing in the local parish of Great Easton in the
early 1940s 24
3.1 Biomass of macro-invertebrates, excluding earthworms,
in relation to land use 38
3.2 Carbon dioxide flux in relation to land use 39
3.3 Late winter cover crop and weed biomass 41
3.4 Soil organic matter and water infiltration rates for
14 local fields 45
3.5 Carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for CO and N O in
2 2
relation to compaction alleviation treatments and control plots 47
3.6 Parasitic wasp emergence into emergence traps by trapping
periods from March to May 2020 48
3.7 Gasmet gas analyser in experimental plots, with emergence
traps in the background 49
viii Illustrations
3.8 Water infiltration rates for four Festuloilums and one
Cocksfoot cultivar in relation to standard ryegrass/clover
plots (control) 51
4.1 Relative abundance of invertebrates in arable crops at
Loddington (1992–2019) for (a) ground beetles, (b) rove
beetles, (c) ladybirds and (d) hoverflies 61
4.2 Frequency of occurrence of pollen grains found
on solitary bees 62
4.3 Hawthorn fruit set for flowers that were hand pollinated,
open (naturally) pollinated, and flowers from which insects
were excluded 63
4.4 Wild bees recorded per transect at Loddington and in the
surrounding landscape of the Eye Brook catchment 64
4.5 Changes in the relative abundance of brown rustic and
flounced rustic, 1995–2019 66
4.6 Relative abundance of various invertebrate taxa in the
diet of pheasant chicks and nestlings of yellowhammer,
dunnock and whitethroat 69
4.7 Relative abundance of Lepidoptera and Symphyta larvae
in arable crops, 1992–2019 69
4.8 Pheasant chick survival rate in relation to breeding hen
pheasant density 70
4.9 Areas of arable and pasture within the foraging range of
successful and failed song thrush nests 72
4.10 Example of the nocturnal use of a hedgerow by bat species
present at Loddington 75
5.1 A 6-metre grass margin serving as a buffer strip at the base
of an arable slope 81
5.2 Beetle bank across a sloping arable field at Loddington 84
5.3 Earthworm abundance along a transect from a grass
margin into an arable field 85
5.4 Width of herbaceous vegetation in field margins with and
without whitethroat and yellowhammer breeding territories 86
5.5 Flower-rich margin along the edge of a young
woodland plantation 89
5.6 Flowering hawthorn hedge with associated tall herbaceous
vegetation including flowering red campion Silene dioica 91
5.7 Wild bird seed crop along a field margin at Loddington 94
5.8 Changes in abundance of white millet seed in experimental
plots and numbers of yellowhammers recorded using the
same plots 95
5.9 Late winter (February/March) abundance of hopper-using
songbird species in relation to the abundance of the same
species in the following breeding season 96
5.10 Songbird feed hopper 99
Illustrations ix
5.11 Relative use of bunded and control sections of ditches by
birds throughout the year 101
5.12 Bunded ditch at Loddington 101
6.1 Brown trout density at Eye Brook sampling sites from the
headwaters (1) to the base of the catchment (10) for young
fish (0), one-year-old fish (1+), and older fish (>1+) 107
6.2 Concentrations of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP),
particulate phosphorus (PP) and total phosphorus (TP)
upstream and downstream of a septic tank discharge into
a small stream at Loddington 111
6.3 Sediment trap created for research showing deep receiving
pool in the foreground and shallower pool colonised by
common reed Phragmites australis at discharge point in
the background 114
6.4 Sediment trapped in ponds on sand, silt and clay soils in
2010/2011 114
6.5 Water Friendly Farming study area showing the two
Eye Brook and Stonton Brook headwater ‘treatment’
catchments of the Welland and the ‘control’ Barkby Brook
catchment of the Soar headwaters 115
6.6 Phosphate concentrations at the base of four agricultural
tributaries in the Eye Brook headwater, and at the base of
the headwater study catchment 118
6.7 Percentage changes in phosphorus concentrations in
water in response to modelled land-use change scenarios 119
6.8 Percentage changes in suspended sediment concentrations
in water in response to modelled land-use change scenarios 120
6.9 Aquatic plant species richness in ponds, ditches and
streams across the Water Friendly Farming
study area 124
6.10 Aquatic plant species richness in small water bodies,
2010–2018, with new species associated with the creation
of clean water ponds in 2013 represented in orange 124
6.11 Clean water pond in the Stonton headwater catchment 125
6.12 Plant species richness before and after fencing of a
headwater stream in 2011 127
6.13 Modelled reduction in the base of catchment peak flow
associated with permeable dams for a range of annual
exceedance probabilities 129
6.14a Location of permeable timber dam in relation to
winter base flow 130
6.14b Keying timber into the bank to avoid erosion 130
6.15 Newly constructed permeable timber dam showing the use
of larch tree trunks and gap between the base of the dam
and the winter base flow 131