Our Ecology and Conservation team has been busy nurturing five arable plots at Trow Farm in Devon to help boost biodiversity.
Located near our Sidmouth headquarters, Trow Farm is the largest of all our non public facing farms and is home to over 400 donkeys.
Our outlying farms are instrumental in helping us provide donkeys in the UK with exceptional care and ensure we can provide them with safe and fulfilling lives.
The importance of biodiversity
A crucial part of enriching donkeys' lives involves safeguarding the longevity and quality of our land. The donkeys in our care share their space with diverse wildlife, including species of butterflies, birds and bats.
Boosting biodiversity is essential for an enriched and resilient environment, supporting these species and our resident herds of donkeys.
Introducing variety to support wildlife
The plots at Trow Farm have recently been sown with a variety of seed mixes, including cornfield annuals, wild bird seed mix and sunflowers.
These mixes include many species, such as cornflower, corn marigold, the common poppy and sainfoin. Interestingly, sainfoin has a linguistic link to donkeys. Its scientific name Onobrychis is taken from Ancient Greek and means 'devoured by donkeys'!
The mix of wildflowers sown will provide invaluable nectar and pollen sources for insects. These insects are a vital part of the food chain and support many other animals, particularly farmland birds such as buntings.
The mix of wild bird seed and sunflowers will also benefit these birds and are sown to provide them with an important food source later in the autumn and over the winter.
Helping to reestablish the small-flowered catchfly
We reintroduced the small-flowered catchfly last year as part of environment charity Plantlife's Colour in the Margins project. Named after its covering of glandular hairs that catch small flies, the small-flowered catchfly prefers open vegetation, relatively low nutrient levels and regular soil cultivation.
These preferences make the species vulnerable to changes in land management and intensive farming, which has led to it vanishing from around 70% of its former range. By sowing this rare arable flower into the larger cultivated beds at Trow Farm, we are helping to reintroduce the small-flowered catchfly to its former range.
Preparing the land and playing the waiting game
Our teams plough and rotavate to produce a fine tilth in preparation for sowing the beds. A few undesirable plants will often spring up, so another round of rotavating takes place to deal with these.
Once the team is satisfied the ground is ready, they sow the seeds before starting the waiting game.
After a couple of weeks, hopefully with a spot of rain, we can expect to start seeing seedlings – although it is not always easy to identify them at first!
The Ecology and Conservation team are eagerly awaiting to see the small-flowered catchfly and hope to report its progress later in the summer.
