Series: SRC: Planning the field

Last Updated: 28 September 2009

This is the second of my articles on coppicing Willow as a sustainable and renewable fuel supplement on the Orkney island of Westray.  This article concentrates on how I will use the field for its multi-purposes and my initial ideas.

The primary lay of the field is east/west, sloping towards the sea on the east.  The soil in that area is normally of a sandy loam with a pH of around 6 to 6.5.  The total area of the field, along with actual pH readings and so on can’t be performed until I make a visit up there during October.  I need to order a basic pH kit from somewhere to see what the soil is actually like.  This will help me choose the type of willow and supporting vegetation.

As it is surrounded by agricultural grazing land, I would guess that it has leached a reasonable amount of local fertilisers.  The field, I am told, for several years has been used for the production of silage and may have received chemical additives during that time.  It will be interesting to know who has been using the field and having a good talk to them about what has been done to it.

The filed is going to be multi-purpose, supporting the following:

• A good sized workshop;
• Pipes for ground source heat pumps – 1, 2 or 3, I have not decided;
• SRC Willow.

This article concentrates on the SRC willow, but I have to be aware of the other two uses of the field.  Like I don’t want to be digging it up for ground source heat pumps after I have planted the willow plants.  As the pipes are buried 1 to 2m down, these should be well out of the way of the SRC crop and the machinery to plant.

So first up, I need to allocate an area at the west end of the field for the workshop.  I don’t want heat pump pipes under there.  Next I need to dig up the field in a suitable format to lay the pipes in.  I will need to lay several distinct loops.  Firstly to allow for failures and secondly for different configurations.  This will allow for taking loops out of service if they fail, to allow parallel/serial configurations to enhance flow and to allow additional heat pumps to be installed at a later date.

Once the pipe are laid, I can get a local farmer to plough and harrow the field to removed the compaction caused by many years of grass use and the cutting of the grass by machinery.  This then provides a suitable preparation to plant the willow batons.  Then I can spread with a suitable seed mixture.

This seed mixture can then aid the increase of natural habitat for wildlife, increase the nitrogen fixing (via clover) and provide an general covering that keeps weeds at bay and provides a flower landscape throughout the summer.

All of this has to be completed within the first year after moving in.  Along with all the other jobs that need my attention.

The mixed seeding I was looking at, would be something similar to an offer from a site I found on the Internet.  The packs are described as a ‘Coastal Area mix’, containing the following plant seeds:

Lady’s Bedstraw, Common Birds-foot-trefoil, Sea Campion, Wild Carrot, Cats-ear, Common Centuary, Ox-eye Daisy, Common Evening-primrose, Foxglove, Harebell, Hounds-tongue, Common Knapweed, Greater Knapweed, Wild Parsnip, Sea Plantain, Greater Plantain, St Johns-wort, Sheeps Bit, Wild Thyme, Tansy, Alexanders, Everlasting Pea Narrow Leaved, Common Toadflax, Kidney Vetch and Vipers-bugloss

This a mixture of 20% wild flowers suitable for a coastal region, and 80% grasses.  Although not quite perfect, in that is is missing any white (or even better) 0r red clovers.  I think I would add it to the mixture.  The addition of the clovers gives a good fixing of nitrogen into the ground to aid the growth of the willow.  This seed needs to be sown at a rate of about 5g per m².  Which could be done by hand, or more effectively by a machine.  I’m hoping there is a suitable machine on the island that I can rent/contract for this part.

I am hoping that the mixture will produce a suitable ground covering that is interesting, supports the harvesting of the willow and provides a suitable habitat for insects and small animals to help in the vegetable gardens being implemented elsewhere on the site.  The price (at time of writing) is around £57 per Kg, which would cover about 200m².  I have no idea on the area at the moment.

The pack was from: Nickys Nursery.  I have no idea what the supplier or the product is like.  The red/white clover could be supplied from: The Grass Seed Store.  Again I have no idea on the supplier or the products.  The clover is supplied in 25Kg bags and cost over £120 a go.  I would probably source the clover seeds from a local agricultural supplier, the grass/flower mix is probably a special only from this supplier.  But I might be able to find an alternative.

As for the willow variety, it is looking like the hybrid: Aston Scot.  As for a supplier, searching the Internet has not proved to provide any sort of suitable supplier within the UK.  So I’m still hunting around on this note.  I will need to mix this with other varieties to reduce the spread of diseases.  Along with just breaking the plantation up a bit.  I’m not sure if I’ll break the planting up randomly, or with specific rows and columns of different varieties.

I am hoping that the wall on the south side of the field and my large buildings to the north side provide enough general protection.  The prevailing westerly would be travelling along the length of the field and would be subject to damage.  However, once the workshop is built within the next couple of years, this should provide a suitable ‘wind-break’.  Time will tell if this is all suitable or not.

It would also be interesting if anyone on Westray (or Orkney for that matter) keeps bees and would be interested in putting a hive in the area.  To take advantage of the semi-wild flowers that I would be producing.  It is not worth investing, as the start-up for bits is heading towards £1000.  But if someone wanted to leave a hive on site in exchange for a couple of pots of honey, that would be good.  I’ll have to do a little more investigations.

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