Herbal ley

Four farmers are investigating whether creating a bespoke herbal ley mix can help reduce flooding in their catchment.

In this Innovative Farmers Field lab the group want to test whether incorporating a higher percentage of deeper rooting species into their herbal leys can improve water infiltration and storage capacity of their soil.

The Wyre Rivers Trust will coordinate the project and the Field Lab will compliment Brock and Calder Landscape Recovery (BCLR) project led by Wyre Rivers Trust and its partners.

Most Natural Flood Management schemes tend to focus on field margins and water courses, for example encouraging riparian tree planting and creating bunds or scrapes.  There is limited focus on field scale management such as manipulating herbal ley species composition for reducing flooding, probably because there is very limited research on the topic.

However some evidence suggests that manipulating species composition to include a greater proportion of deeper rooting species can alter and increase soil-hydrological functions, thereby allowing more water to infiltrate the soil and increase water storage capacity. 

Each farmer will trial three herbal ley treatments:

  1. Control; existing grassland,
  2. Standard herbal ley seed mix,
  3. Enhanced herbal ley seed mix.  

The enhanced herbal ley mix will contain a higher percentage of deeper rooting species in the hope that this will improve water infiltration and storage capacity in their soil. This may alter the way we think about natural flood management on farms.

It is hoped that farmers will also see other benefits from the bespoke mixes, including improvements to their productivity through better drought resilience, and potentially extending the grazing season.

For more information and updates on the trial have a look at the Innovative Farmers Website 

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