The farm is a demonstration farm for Beacons Water Group for which Keri is an original Founder Director, where eight farmers are working in collaboration with Welsh Water (Dwr Cymru) to trial and safeguard the extreme quality of our drinking water as 50% of Wales population are drinking water from the Brecon Beacons Water Catchment area in Bannau Brycheiniod. 

 

Over the last 6 years The Farm has piloted numerous trails including a Productive Buffer Zone experiment.

 

KEY FINDINGS TO DATE: 

 

1. Productive Buffer Strips altered the surface water infiltration rates. 
    

2. As found in earlier studies, red clover gave the highest surface water infiltration rates of all the forages investigated
    

3. A 10 m wide x 100 m length buffer of red clover would absorb the equivalent approx. 6.75 tonnes of water per hour

 

This experiment involves trialing different grass lays, mainly Red and White Clover, Herbal Lays. The results of the two year trial is that we can improve water infiltration by 60% with the use of a red clover buffer zone. 

 

The reason for this is that Clovers are legumes and they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with their root nodules. The deep rooting nature of clover roots breaks up the soil structure, so the fungi and microforma are supercharged with the root nodules, improving the soil condition. Thus allowing significantly more rain to infiltrate the soil and bedrock, keeping our rivers cool and flowing more freely to mitigate toxic blue algae blooms in summer months. 

 

More importantly, improving the soil capacity to store a significant amount of rainfall during the large and more frequent storm instances that we are experiencing, going some way to reduce the flood risk to more urban towns and cities downstream.

 

This is a partnership that we are trying to develop with the Wye & Usk Foundation, Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal and Powys County Council. Where land use is seen as pivotal to improve the environment that we live in. This kind of collaboration project is seen as a gold standard by the Welsh Government where farmers are making decisions for themselves and seeing the fruits for their labour in the way that the farm is then more resilient to drought and flood damage in the winter. 

 

There is also a win-win situation for farmers through the use of Red Clover, and this is a brilliant weight gain crop for our livestock. This leads to happy cows, happy sheep and a happier environment. 

 

Another knock-on benefit is our earthworm numbers which have also been significantly improved, and on a recent count we have recorded 288 worms per square foot. To put this into perspective, there is more weight of livestock below ground than there is above ground per square foot. This fact simply amazes us!