Biodiversity & Multi-species products
Blends to boost biodiversity. As well as breeding and trialing grass, forage & herbal ley varieties, we create and trial biodiversity mixtures at our trial site, Cropvale, looking to find the next generation of multi-species leys.
The aim of our biodiversity trials is to come up with an optimum blend of legumes, root crops, herbs and grasses, which will be suitable for a wide range of farms throughout the UK. With blends that will produce large volumes of high quality forage, for livestock farmers to increase meat and milk yields, and blends to enhance farm biodiversity. Including legumes in a biodiversity blend is one way to achieve this. Legumes have great nitrogen (N) fixing potential, which means less artificial nitrogen needs to be added to the soil to grow the crops. Deep-rooted species are also employed to improve soil structure while flowering species are utilised to help pollinating insects do their job. Due to the nature of the species involved, weed control in our biodiversity trials is very limited so we score the plots for their natural weed suppression abilities, which will add to the persistency and quality of a mixture in the field. The following are our top performing herbal ley mixtures.
Barmix
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A multispecies grass mix, providing benefits from diverse grass rooting structures
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Tolerant to periods of dry conditions
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For cutting & grazing
Prota Sile
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Suitable as an intensive cutting mix for high quality conserved feed
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Can be grazed where appropriate, particularly suitable for finishing young stock
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For cutting & grazing
Barbumper
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Quick establishment and rapid growth
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Flexible in rotations with 2-18 month longevity
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For cutting & grazing
Winter Cover
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Quick establishment and rapid growth, ideal as a cover crop
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Flexible in rotations
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For cutting & grazing
Prota Plus
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Versatile mixture, very flexible in rotations with a ley length up to 18 months
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High yields of high quality Italian ryegrass
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For cutting & grazing
Barmix Renew
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Multispecies overseeding option
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Long season production with strong growth during the shoulders
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For cutting & grazing
SFI Herbal Complete
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A mixture of grasses, legumes and herbs, for biodiversity, productivity and compliant with the SAM3 SFI scheme
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Ideal for cutting and grazing
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Long term
BarHerbal SFI CSAM3
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Herbs and clovers in a productive grass mixture, for biodiversity that’s easy to manage
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Clovers provide nitrogen fixation and protein content
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For cutting & grazing
SFI CSAM3 Oversow
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Can be used to oversow legumes and herbs into existing grass leys
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Can also be used on its own as a grazing finishing mix for young stock
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For grazing