GLAS thread

Birdnuts

TPF2012 wrote: »

What measures and what environmental impacts did Reps bring about? Or was it seen as a good scheme purely from a financial viewpoint.

Very mixed - the likes of bird boxes and sand heaps did FA for declining farmland species. The Hedgerow planting was good but overall it was very poor value for money in terms of halting the decline of farmland biodiversity. In contrast the likes of the EU Burren and Hen Harrier schemes have been very succesfull as they were properly targetted and results based.

Water John

As Birdnuts says there are sections that worked well. The Bride Valley Scheme too is one that is a success story. Not sure was that part of a pilot or what Scheme it came in under.
So there are models, knowledge and experts out there. Some of it is a question of, how radical one wants to go?

ganmo

Were the commanage plans of any use?

Birdnuts

ganmo wrote: »

Were the commanage plans of any use?

That was mixed too - the main problem again was DAFM attempting to shoe-horn measures that didn't take account of local variations in terms of habitat needs etc.

Birdnuts

Water John wrote: »

As Birdnuts says there are sections that worked well. The Bride Valley Scheme too is one that is a success story. Not sure was that part of a pilot or what Scheme it came in under.
So there are models, knowledge and experts out there. Some of it is a question of, how radical one wants to go?

Yeah - heard good things about the Bride Project, needs to be urgently rolled out across all Dairy regions within any new national GLAS etc scheme!!

ruwithme

Personally i prefer glas than the reps. Liming for example wasn't mentioned in glas so no burden for that in unsuitable years for applying it.

hedge trimming is another. In reps some hedges could be touched this year and others next year.

Yes the difference in money was significant. so in my opinion if we could get a reps akin to glas with a not a whole farm approach.

I do fear though that any new reps will have low emissions slurry spreading as mandatory upon joining . i just don't want to have to invest in that, grant and all as there may be??i haven't alot to spread annually and like to be able to do it myself.

ganmo

ganmo wrote: »

Were the commanage plans of any use?

No, not here at least. A numbers & calendar load of twaddle.

The standard of our >>>Department of Agriculture approved<<< planner was shocking. Some of what he encouraged farmers to do on the information night I attended in plain language was out & out illegal. There was no farmer engagement, they drew up a plan and if you didn't like it you had the option of dropping €5k income by not signing up. Accidentally I met the lad assessing one of my commonages, two that evening. He hadn't one hour of daylight left and he hadn't left the car at that stage. He was intent on assessing it from the tarmac. Customer service was non existant once you paid. Dept. designed the scheme so the farmer carried the burden, yet had little to no say. GLAS is by a long measure the worst scheme I've been involved with. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have left the €25k after me.

MayoAreMagic

ganmo wrote: »

Were the commanage plans of any use?

They worked off the ludicrous idea that the stock of anyone not in glas was not counted. So the stocking figures were not relevant to the commonage itself at all. For it to fall at such a basic hurdle is hard to fathom. Because of that, some guys got shafted in the stocking rates, with the result of that being very high true stocking rates on commonages.
That was totally haphazard and basically a how to guide to overgrazing. It showed a real lack of understanding of commonage, and then a total lack of interest in it once this issue was raised.

I hear them mentioning a new reps but I have zero faith in it. They know farmers preferred reps, so they will just rehash glas a bit and call it reps.
What I think should actually happen is each measure should be detailed, with observations of the where the shortcomings of each are. The better ones acknowledged, improved and kept on, with new measures, similar in stlye to the ones that worked introduced. Then, area specific ideas could be introduced also, in conjunction with the local knowledge of the farmers, thereby improving known local issues and giving farmers a but of input, while making good use of their expertise in the process.

Hard Knocks

Looking at GLAS from across the hedge
Plans for the THM & LIPP were an issue for lots, It’s a pity they couldn’t be changed at beginning of year
WBC was hit & miss

Lady Haywire

The coppicing actually worked quite well here. I was only rejigging the fence around it yesterday & it's thickened up into a great hedge now. I think we did the max we could of that though, definitely be one we'd do again if it's an option in the new one.
Only had a few bits in LIPP, would probably have put more into that & not put all meadows in THM if I could go back 5yrs. We normally only topped all at the same time anyway so we were as well to get paid for it :pac:

Last meadows being cut here today, normally 22 each year in one field below my house, be interesting to see if same again with the lack of rain mid growth.

Would love to see a tailored plan for each farm that signs up but jaaaaysus the cost of doing that would be too much. Every farm is different so we'd all have aspects that will work better than others. I know blanket schemes are trying to catch all but as said above, sometimes it's impossible to farm it by the calendar dates given.

Hard Knocks

Lady Haywire wrote: »

The coppicing actually worked quite well here. I was only rejigging the fence around it yesterday & it's thickened up into a great hedge now. I think we did the max we could of that though, definitely be one we'd do again if it's an option in the new one.
Only had a few bits in LIPP, would probably have put more into that & not put all meadows in THM if I could go back 5yrs. We normally only topped all at the same time anyway so we were as well to get paid for it :pac:

Last meadows being cut here today, normally 22 each year in one field below my house, be interesting to see if same again with the lack of rain mid growth.

Would love to see a tailored plan for each farm that signs up but jaaaaysus the cost of doing that would be too much. Every farm is different so we'd all have aspects that will work better than others. I know blanket schemes are trying to catch all but as said above, sometimes it's impossible to farm it by the calendar dates given.

How many plans were done from behind the office desk?

MIKEKC

TPF2012 wrote: »

What measures and what environmental impacts did Reps bring about? Or was it seen as a good scheme purely from a financial viewpoint.

Purely from financial viewpoint. When scheme was finished a lot of farmers removed the habitats that were created as part of the schemep

MIKEKC

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

They worked off the ludicrous idea that the stock of anyone not in glas was not counted. So the stocking figures were not relevant to the commonage itself at all. For it to fall at such a basic hurdle is hard to fathom. Because of that, some guys got shafted in the stocking rates, with the result of that being very high true stocking rates on commonages.
That was totally haphazard and basically a how to guide to overgrazing. It showed a real lack of understanding of commonage, and then a total lack of interest in it once this issue was raised.

I hear them mentioning a new reps but I have zero faith in it. They know farmers preferred reps, so they will just rehash glas a bit and call it reps.
What I think should actually happen is each measure should be detailed, with observations of the where the shortcomings of each are. The better ones acknowledged, improved and kept on, with new measures, similar in stlye to the ones that worked intruced. Then, area specific ideas could be introduced also, in conjunction with the local knowledge of the farmers, thereby improving known local issues and giving farmers a but of input, while making good use of their expertise in the process.

Whether the stock of others were counted or not made no difference because most of the farmers never stocked the commonage but still got paid .unfortunately others pulled out of the scheme because of the stocking rate therefore losing out on payments while those that took the chance on not being inspected got paid

MayoAreMagic

MIKEKC wrote: »

Whether the stock of others were counted or not made no difference because most of the farmers never stocked the commonage but still got paid .unfortunately others pulled out of the scheme because of the stocking rate therefore losing out on payments while those that took the chance on not being inspected got paid

Not sure how they could not stock the commonage when their stocking rate includes the hectares of the commonage. They would either have had to rent out more land to make up the shortfall or starve the animals in the fields. Both seem kinda pointless.

MIKEKC

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Not sure how they could not stock the commonage when their stocking rate includes the hectares of the commonage. They would either have had to rent out more land to make up the shortfall or starve the animals in the fields. Both seem kinda pointless.

They simply took the chance and with little or no inspections all continued to get paid.

Birdnuts

MIKEKC wrote: »

They simply took the chance and with little or no inspections all continued to get paid.

Last year the EU audited such schemes and the results did not make for pretty viewing - basically Ireland has been told by the commission that any new schemes going forward will have to be tightly monitored and measured for outcomes

Mach Two

TPF2012 wrote: »

I am in Glas here myself, doing wbc and traditional meadow which I think are mixed in what they do for environment. My wbc is feeding a herd of deer all summer so not be much left for birds.
Reps was before my time in farming on my own and I'm just wondering what was so good about the scheme, I hear farmers talk about it with great reverence and longing.

REPS paid for my slurry facilities. So no slurry being drained in to the environment. All being recycled to silage ground. So less chemical fertiliser needed. Over 100 deciduous trees planted. Only 3-4 failed. Surely 400 yds of hedging planted. All still growing strong.

It would be nice to see some sort of wholecrop being planted for any other environment scheme. Our landscape is dominated by grass. So a monoculture. I would like to think that a wholecrop would benefit ground nesting birds.
What is WBC?

endainoz

Mach Two wrote: »

REPS paid for my slurry facilities. So no slurry being drained in to the environment. All being recycled to silage ground. So less chemical fertiliser needed. Over 100 deciduous trees planted. Only 3-4 failed. Surely 400 yds of hedging planted. All still growing strong.

It would be nice to see some sort of wholecrop being planted for any other environment scheme. Our landscape is dominated by grass. So a monoculture. I would like to think that a wholecrop would benefit ground nesting birds.
What is WBC?

WBC stands for wild bird cover, farmers participating in glas, it's debatable if it does much for birds really. The only birds I really saw in mine werr sea gulls and crows trying to eat the seed as it was just planted so not really what was originally envisioned.

I think your wrong to assume all grasslands are monocultures though. It might be true in intensive or dairy type operations where you find places dominated by ryegrass and nothing else, it's fair to call that mono culture but grasslands in general are the furthest thing from it.

Danzy

Mach Two wrote: »

REPS paid for my slurry facilities. So no slurry being drained in to the environment. All being recycled to silage ground. So less chemical fertiliser needed. Over 100 deciduous trees planted. Only 3-4 failed. Surely 400 yds of hedging planted. All still growing strong.

It would be nice to see some sort of wholecrop being planted for any other environment scheme. Our landscape is dominated by grass. So a monoculture. I would like to think that a wholecrop would benefit ground nesting birds.
What is WBC?

Land planted with species to help nature, wild bird cover.

I've 5 acres set, all under a 1 year mix of tentacle grain with mustard, phacelia, vetch and some kale and other

Danzy

endainoz wrote: »

WBC stands for wild bird cover, farmers participating in glas, it's debatable if it does much for birds really. The only birds I really saw in mine werr sea gulls and crows trying to eat the seed as it was just planted so not really what was originally envisioned.

I think your wrong to assume all grasslands are monocultures though. It might be true in intensive or dairy type operations where you find places dominated by ryegrass and nothing else, it's fair to call that mono culture but grasslands in general are the furthest thing from it.

Mine would be fairly active. That said, if the fields were rotavayted and let come up with red shank etc naturally, it'd do a good job.

Tileman

Mine is very active. Beautiful this time of year with all the color in it. Full of bees now and birds in winter and spring. I actually like it And will miss it if it’s now in the new reps

longgonesilver

Can you put up a few pictures please?

Tileman

longgonesilver wrote: »

Can you put up a few pictures please?

Yea I’ll put up some later when I’m up there

ruwithme

See the junior minister for ag spoke about calling out unsafe farming practices. I agree with him. But i do hope those with responsibility for any new reps will recognise that in the past some ridiculous dates/deadlines for completing measures in reps /glas were the order of the day.

Some of these dates for work to be completed did put pressure on us involved , meaning there was often a rush on, especially after maybe along broken spell of weather to get things done.

I'd rather miss out on a few pound for some reps measure than have a ridiculous date to have it completed by. ie pay me from year 3 onwards if i didn't get it done till then.

Tileman

Here is my WBC’.

Water John

'A man goes out to sow his mustard seed... and some fell on good ground'

Say my name

Water John wrote: »

'A man goes out to sow his mustard seed... and some fell on good ground'

Someone was at Mass yesterday.

I think them Bible crowd don't like multispecies crops..

pure breed

Question on Glas Scheme.
Does anyone know if its OK to put FYM (farm yard manure) on some of the LIPP? It had got approx 1 bag to acre in spring of 18=6=12. Thanks

Base price

pure breed wrote: »

Question on Glas Scheme.
Does anyone know if its OK to put FYM (farm yard manure) on some of the LIPP? It had got approx 1 bag to acre in spring of 18=6=12. Thanks

I remember reading that it depends on the soil index of the LIPP that you got from your nutrient management plan. From memory fym should be spread on other plots (not lipp) first. Maybe you should phone your advisor and get him/her to check what indexes your LIPP is and ask.
Chemical N cannot exceed 40kgs/h.

pure breed

Base price wrote:

I remember reading that it depends on the soil index of the LIPP that you got from your nutrient management plan. From memory fym should be spread on other plots (not lipp) first. Maybe you should phone your advisor and get him/her to check what indexes your LIPP is and ask. Chemical N cannot exceed 40kgs/h.

Thanks Base Price,