Agricultural Operations
We have just started the agricultural operations necessary to establish the bird food crops for next winter. These include topping the existing crop, cultivation, spraying and spring sowing of the new crop. Over the years we have kept the use of herbicides to an absolute minimum, and certainly don’t use them annually as would occur on most farms, but the nature of the soils on the reserve, and because we are trying to grow similar types of crop year after year without a break crop, means that there is an inevitable build up of persistent grasses that affect the establishment of the bird food crop and reduce its yield and it is these grasses that we are trying to control. We grow the bird food crops under the terms of a Stewardship Agreement which funds most of the management on the reserve.
Water Levels
Over the winter, the water level in Venus Pool has been allowed to rise naturally as could be expected at this time of the year. This helps sustain the reed bed and controls the development of vegetation on the islands which would make them unsuitable for nesting waders. Over the next few weeks the water levels will be lowered gradually to a level that exposes the islands, but maintains water within the reed bed for other breeding birds. It will be lowered further in the autumn following the breeding season before the cycle is repeated next winter.
Graham Walker
Conservation Committee, SOS
