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Wildflowers: Bringing significant visual and habitat benefits to your farmed environment
Each year, we see a huge amount of interest in the incorporation of wildflowers on farm and we work closely with our customers to ensure the correct species and mixtures are chosen to meet their specific requirements.
If you're thinking of adding wildflowers to your farm, it's worth noting their establishment and maintenance can sometimes be challenging if not planned properly. It's therefore important to be clear about the objectives you are wanting to meet to ensure you achieve the best long-term results. In this blog, I'm covering how to choose the right mix to meet your goals, where and how best to establish the crop and what you need to consider in terms of ongoing management.
If you already have wildflowers on your farm but are thinking about changing up your mixture, the advice below should help you too.
Choosing the right mixture
There are various wildflower mixes available and what you choose should depend on your individual objectives. Are you looking to create more diversity? Or improve pollinator habitats? Are you hoping for a striking display of colour? Do you want to achieve the aims in your Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) action? Maybe the answer is all of the above!
At Kings we've developed mixtures and straights that can suit all these scenarios. We can also work with you to tailor mixtures that include species suited to your natural habitat, or which will thrive in those trickier wet and shady areas.
A general mix containing reliable species like black knapweed, birdsfoot trefoil, yarrow and wild carrot can do well in a variety of different habitats and has the benefit of working across all soil types too.
However, it's important to bear in mind that different components will deliver different benefits in different situations.
Mixture recommendations
Our catalogue includes a range of our wildflower mixtures, but it's important to note that they are available in different pack sizes to suit different needs.
Some of these are smaller sizes of 1kg, such as our Basic Wild Flower Mix. This is to accommodate smaller projects, or in circumstances where you are establishing into an existing grass sward as you'll likely only require the wildflower seed.
Mixtures which come in hectare packs are better suited to larger scale projects and contain both grasses and wildflower seed.
Deliver for your SFI action
For the SFI, you need a mixture of at least four grass species (can't be ryegrass) and ten wildflower species. No flower species can make up more than 25% of the total wildflower species by weight.
My recommendation for "AB8: Flower-rich margins and plots" in Countryside Stewardship and "IPM2/CIPM2: Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips" in SFI is the Flower Rich Grass Mix.
This mix includes both 10% native wildflower/agricultural legumes and 90% non-competitive grasses. It consists of five grasses and 12 wildflowers - perfect for creating habitats to support pollinators and beneficial insects on farm.
Establishment
Once you've chosen the right mix, your focus will turn to establishment. It's important to find a sunny spot with low fertility, as grasses and weeds can dominate fertile areas. Ideally, wildflowers should be placed next to hedges, ditches and water bodies to provide wildlife a range of habitat.
When to sow
Wildflower seeds naturally fall to the soil surface in late summer. For best results, try to mimic nature by sowing in the autumn.
The target sowing period in autumn is late August to the first half of September. If black-grass is a problem then spring sowings can be useful. You can sow in April to early May but be careful with moisture as seeds can dry out.
Seedbed and sowing
Preparation of a clean and good quality seedbed is the key to successful flower establishment. A fine, firm and weed-free seedbed is the target, especially as most wildflower and legume seeds are small. When sowing, think about broadcasting rather than drilling.
Drilling can improve sowing accuracy, but just let seed dribble on soil surface rather than drilling it too deep - do not put coulters into the soil and a light following harrow is useful. Try not to bury seeds any more than 0.5cm as this can lead to dormancy. Ring roll after sowing to improve seed to soil contact.
Ongoing management
Adequate management throughout the first year is vital to ensure the success of your wildflowers.
Cuttings
The two key causes of failure are insufficient mowing to control competitive weeds in the first year or not removing the cuttings following a high yield cut.
You should aim to frequently cut perennial seed mixtures in the first year as this is essential for establishment. This may mean that few flowers are produced for pollinators in the first year, but good weed control is key to the longevity of the desired perennial species.
Our guidance is to cut to a height of 6-8cm every 6-8 weeks which is when the sward gets to 15-20cm high. The more fertile the soil, the more frequently you may need to cut – it could be as many as four cuts in the first full spring and summer.
The last cut can be made in late September. By then, insect activity is low and you can head into the winter with a short crop of about 10cm in height.
On most sites, especially fertile areas, it's always a good plan to remove the cuttings. This will have two main benefits:
- Lower fertility by nitrogen removal
- Alleviate rotting debris which can smother small flower plants.
If removal isn't possible, consider more frequent cuttings to produce less volume. In these cases, the type of topper is important – rather than a horizontal blade always use a flail with the correct blades to produce a fine chop, e.g. 3Y blades.
Managing for the environment
Once the plots are established well enough to maximise the benefit to the environment, don't cut all plots at the same time otherwise the entire winter habitat will be removed.
These habitats are a valuable over-wintering site for many invertebrates. Rotationally cut some in autumn (around mid-August to October) and some in spring - before April to knock the grass down to allow the flowers to come.
You can also occasionally leave around 3m of a 6m margin uncut which is best next to a hedge. Cutting a percentage of the area in mid-season/spring can extend the flowering period until late summer, providing a longer period of support to pollinators.
If grazing your wildflower plots, this can be done around mid-August until the end of October. It is best avoided over winter as it could cause poaching.
You can find more advice about the addition of wildflowers on farm in this video from sustainable farming advisor, Jim Egan.
Summary
I hope you've found the advice in this blog useful if you're choosing to establish a wildflower mix or looking to switch up your current plots. When established and managed correctly, wildflowers have brilliant potential to deliver diverse, environmental benefits along with striking, colourful visuals – for many, many years to come. They really are a fantastic addition to any farm!
For more information or advice about wildflowers, including how we can support you with their integration and to meet agri-scheme requirements, please get in touch with your Kings contact.
You can read more from Hannah on the importance of wildflower mixture selections in article with Crop Production Magazine'
Hannah Clarke
Kings Central Technical Advisor & SFI Delivery Lead
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