Hay's Way: A visit to Rottal estate with Dee Ward

A visit with Dee Ward at Rottal estate in the Angus glens as part of Hay's Way

Transcript

00:00 There's a good spot here to see some of the stuff we're doing. So you've got the remanded burn

00:05 weaving its way through there. You can see a lot of young trees coming up, you can see a lot of

00:09 rough ground and one of the things that and rushes over here, they're rushes, so we'll graze the

00:14 cattle through here to break up the rushes but it's really good for waders and it's really good

00:19 for all sorts of wildlife. So rather than having grass that's an inch high, I like to have a lot

00:24 of rough ground. Now that's not perfect farming terrain possibly but for the Highland cattle they

00:31 do fine on it and you get the benefit of the wildlife. So a lot of the farm looks in inverted

00:37 commas messy but actually when you walk through it it's full of wildlife and full of different

00:42 plants and different insects and so on and that's to me what we should all be doing a bit of.

00:49 Jim Fairlie, I think that I put a lot of videos up of the stuff we're doing and I think he just

00:55 likes the idea that we're farming in harmony with nature and we've got a lot of wildlife yet we're

01:00 still running a productive business and I think everyone can do that. Whether it's planting some

01:05 nice big thick hedges or little corners which can be a little wetland area which are probably

01:10 never any good for farming anyway so it's just thinking about your farm and thinking how can I

01:16 do my little bit for nature. I mean if you look behind us so we're looking down there at all the

01:22 and over here where you've got all this more grassy and rushy ground and we're going to

01:26 this is wet in here but we're actually part of our new project is creating a or restoring the

01:32 wetland that would have originally been there with lots of wet channels coming through.

01:35 But when you look up here we've also got all this heather and moorland at the top there so it's kind

01:41 of you know there's very different habitats on on this estate and the moorland at the top we're

01:47 very much going to manage as moorland. Halfway up we've actually got a new project which we're going

01:53 to put 500 hectares of trees so what's that 1250 acres of trees in the bottom half of the hill but

02:00 the top of the hill will still be managed. Oops, grey lags coming over. We'll still be managed for

02:08 moorland which I think is great, waders like it, the black grouse like it, the red grouse like it,

02:12 we get dunlin and things on the top so and I love moorland too but I think it's getting that balance

02:18 right it's readjusting to get the right balance. We cut down we had a load of Sitka spruce in here

02:24 and we've cut down and there's the burn runs through and we've planted a lot of stuff in here

02:29 which runs down the burns to your left but it basically runs down through there but it's all

02:36 about this riparian planting so trying to get shade on the water and put more insects and things into

02:42 the water and I think it's definitely working. I mean we just get, I'll actually drop this case

02:49 another probably well up to the bottom of that hill there and plant a lot more trees because I

02:57 think we're going to have to do that or else we're going to get these horrible floods the

03:02 whole time and if I can hold water up here one it's good for me from a carbon income point of

03:06 view, two it's good from a wildlife point of view and three I think it should really help reduce the

03:12 flooding. That combined with the peatland restoration we're doing I'm hoping will make a

03:17 big difference but you know with nature you never quite know.