For farmers, hedgerows supply shade, shelter, biosecurity and diverse browse essential for the high welfare, resilient livestock farming we pride ourselves on in Britain. They protect soil from erosion, encourage pollinators and offer natural pest control. Hedges sequester carbon in their biomass and surrounding soils, and filter pollutants preventing them reaching nearby water courses. Healthy hedgerows are undoubtedly an asset to farming.
Hedgerows can also be biodiversity powerhouses, providing home, food, shelter and connectivity to wildlife. In fact, a study conducted by Devon Hedge Group’s Robert Wolton found over 2,000 species within an 85m stretch of hedge in Devon! They clearly punch well above their weight as a habitat considering their modest land-use footprint.
But they do all this best when they’re in a healthy structural condition. And this is where the vital task of assessing hedgerows is crucial in unlocking their substantial potential.
Assessing hedgerows – You can’t improve what you’re not measuring
Hedgerows need to be managed according to their “natural” lifecycle if they’re to persist in good structural condition, or indeed at all. This means that the way we manage them should change depending on the structural condition they’re already in.
But of course, assessing all the hedgerows on a farm takes a considerable amount of time and, until now, this has never been recognised financially. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) hedgerow assessment action (CHRW1) is a new approach from the Government and is the first time farmers in England are paid (currently £5 per 100 metres per side per year) to undertake a hedgerow health-check of this kind.
This is a great opportunity to take stock.
The missing link – advice
Assessing your hedge is only the start; the other stated aim of this SFI action is ultimately to “effectively plan how they [hedgerows] can be managed to improve their condition” and this requires a link to be made between the current condition of a hedgerow, and the appropriate management which will improve it going forward.
This is exactly why People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) made the Healthy Hedgerows survey – to provide that missing link – advice linking condition and management needs. It’s quick and easy to do, making it possible to survey your whole farm. It provides the evidence you need to demonstrate you’ve completed the SFI action, and it can also provide free, bespoke management advice for each hedgerow you’ve surveyed.
Our ultimate goal is healthy, well managed hedges that live up to their potential, which means sharing this advice far and wide. We’re delighted that PTES’ Healthy Hedgerows survey is now available to a wider audience through its integration with Land App and Land App Mobile.
Not only will these assessments help farmers decide what management their hedges need, but with updates to the survey annually, it will also demonstrate whether the interventions are taking them in the right direction.
Hedge management – in a nutshell
At its core, hedgerow management needs two different elements: periodic rejuvenation and routine maintenance.
- Rejuvenation, (laying or coppicing), is essential to every hedgerow to reset their natural succession, give them another lifespan, and encourage dense branching growth back to the base. Ideally a hedge will be rejuvenated every 30 or 40 years at the longest, although you may wish to do it more frequently depending on what routine management you choose between rejuvenation events, (see below). Hedge rejuvenation is a non-negotiable – all hedgerows eventually die without it.
- Routine management is how we manage a hedge in the years between rejuvenation. With wildlife in mind this might include cutting hedges slightly higher and wider each time, or maybe cutting every two, three or four years rather than every year. This will ensure they provide blossom and berries for wildlife. Trimming slows down how quickly a hedge matures through its lifecycle and, done sensitively, can extend the cycle length (between rejuvenations) up to 40 years.
Routine management might even mean not trimming for a number of years, as long as this is then followed by rejuvenation. Such were some traditional lay-leave-lay cycles. Whilst you might save on trimming costs here, it might mean laying the hedge more frequently – perhaps every 15-25 years instead.
The various combinations and approaches to rejuvenation and routine maintenance offer a huge amount of flexibility for hedge management. With a bit of experimentation, you may find a new combination that works better for your farm, your hedges, and saves you money. Of course, you don’t need to manage all your hedges in the same way – a coppice cycle might suit hedges which are a pain to trim or where height is an added benefit, and a slow trimming cycle may be better where sightlines are important, by roadsides or where space is a premium.
This all used to be commonly known; we’ve been managing hedgerows on their lifecycle with periodic rejuvenation for pretty much as long as we’ve had them. But understandable changes in the way we farmed post-war meant that we’ve largely not been managing hedges like this for the last 60 odd years, and this understanding is no longer commonplace.
Whilst farming might have changed in recent years, the needs of hedgerows haven’t.
So, PTES’ Healthy Hedgerows is a survey, a record of hedge condition, a tool offering management advice and also aims to reintroduce the theory behind lifecycle hedgerow management, gently guiding your management in that direction.
Why now?
The Capital Grant money covering hedgerow rejuvenation works has never been better for hedgerows, and Defra has made it more flexible and easier to access; essentially there has never been a better time to shake up the way you manage your hedgerows.
Seeing the hedge for the leaves
Whist having more tree species in a hedge makes it better for wildlife, more robust to climate change and tree diseases , we actually don’t look at species in this survey – we’re more interested in structure. And to really know what’s going on with a hedge it’s best to asses it in the winter months when leaves have dropped and you can see the skeleton framework below. I’m always surprised what becomes clear when you look at a hedge in winter that you’ve totally missed in the lush of summer.
‘Staggering’ potential possible [from staggering hedge management]
The best thing is, when we get hedges back into traditional management then everything else benefits too. Managing hedges by their lifecycle leads to fantastic hedgerows capable of living forever. This will benefit farming enormously. But staggering all the hedges on a farm around the lifecycle, with some at every stage, creates a mosaic of different size, shape, density and maturity hedgerows which is also the best way to help wildlife; diversity loves diversity.
Healthy hedgerows are an asset to farms, it’s why we’ve had them for almost as long as we’ve been farming. So I’m optimistic. Hedges are an area where I see enormous scope for impressive, positive change – both in the potential speed and the extent of change we can achieve with a few tweaks to how we approach their management.
At last count we had over 400,000km of managed hedgerow in the UK, and with impressive planting and gapping rates in recent years we know there’s growing interest in them again. Besides planting new, so much can be achieved by changing the hedges we already have. Hedges are powerful, robust and, luckily for us, they’re quick to respond to restoration. With a re-think to the way we manage our hedges, and adequate support from the Government, we can ensure each of these hedges once again have the potential to support 2000 different species.
Ready to manage your hedgerows with the PTES’ Healthy Hedgerows survey on Land App? Sign up or upgrade today
Author Bio
Megan is the Key Habitats Officer at wildlife charity People’s Trust for Endangered Species where for nine years she’s been focusing on hedgerows and other ‘woodland edge’ type habitats. She created and manages the Healthy Hedgerows rapid assessment app, designed to help farmers make good hedge management decisions through free advice. In her ideal world, she’d love to see hedgerows reaching their potential as valuable farm assets as well as the ecological dynamite that we know they can be.
