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Landward - Season 20 Episode 23
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00:00I'm going in search of gold in the Scottish countryside. Welcome to Lampard.
00:05Hello from Kincraig in the heart of the Cairngorm National Park.
00:30It's National Tree Week, so I've come for a walk through the native woodland of birch, oak and alder.
00:37But hiding away is a rare tree species that's shining bright right now, so it should be easy to spot.
00:42More on that later. First, here's what else is coming up.
00:48Shabazz is tracking down beaver using DNA.
00:55Rosie tastes the best from Scotland's farmhouse kitchens.
00:58Are we allowed to dive in?
00:59Yes, let's do it.
01:01And Cammie experiences a farm diversification on another level.
01:06Please don't put this one in the thing like that.
01:08Come on, fish!
01:14First up, there are just under 800 dairy herds in this country, producing 1.5 billion litres of the white stuff every year.
01:23But how do you increase production without impacting animal health?
01:27Arlene's in Stirlingshire now, meeting the woman that's brought the creme de la creme to one business.
01:32Just outside Stirling, at Maines of Bohwan Farm, a herd of 250 Jersey cows produce 7,000 litres of milk every day.
01:48It's the holy grail for livestock farmers, to have a herd you get the most out of, and healthy animals.
01:56When Leanne Bertram got the job as herd manager with Graeme's Family Dairy, she had that ambition in mind.
02:05She took her time, really got to know the cattle, and two years on, she's transformed the herd.
02:13When I took over, the herd average was 19 litres.
02:18Is that per cow?
02:19That's per cow per day, and now we're at around 29, so more than 40% increase in milk yield.
02:27Oh, that's impressive work.
02:29You're some kind of magician.
02:30No, it's very much been a whole team effort, and just a real focus on attention to detail, and herd health and welfare.
02:40And a large part of that huge increase in milk production is down to the choice and preparation of what the cows eat.
02:49We feed a total mixed ration, so we are feeding a grass silage that we grow on farm.
02:55We're feeding some super grains, which is a distillery by-product, and then we feed some minerals, a little bit of molasses.
03:02You can smell that.
03:03And some fat, that's all that's in.
03:05And Leanne has worked out the exact serving, around 30 kilos per cow per day, that will be appetising to even the pickiest eaters.
03:15Because jerseys are so fussy, and they like to sort their feeds, we mill that blend into like a flour so that it completely mixes through, and the cows can't sort it.
03:27So what they do eat is like a full mouthful.
03:30They can't push the silage out.
03:31They can't just sort the sweeties, basically.
03:36This massive, bigger picture is largely driven with nutrition.
03:41Leanne's high standards for the herd required a great team.
03:47She knew exactly who to call to be her assistant, Ruby Pring.
03:51Ruby and I met in a previous job.
03:54She was really new to the industry.
03:56She had no preconceived ideas, no bad habits, and was just a sponge for knowledge.
04:02And Ruby has certainly mastered the high-tech robotic milking system.
04:07Every cow has their own collar, and on their collar is their transponder.
04:11And that pings to our antennas, which tells us on the computer who they are, and it pings back to here.
04:18So we've got cow number 31, which is called Treacle.
04:21Treacle.
04:21Yes, all our cows have names.
04:23And this cow is on her third lactation, and here it tells us that she's 21 days calved.
04:29So I guess the data is so meticulous that you can tell very easily whether a cow is well or not.
04:37Yes, we can work it out from the data.
04:40It gives us everything that we could possibly want on one screen, which is absolutely amazing to let us figure out the bigger picture of why this cow is so good, but also why is this cow failing?
04:50All that attention to detail and hard work is paying off, and not just in the milk yields.
04:57Leanne and Ruby recently scooped Dairy Farm of the Year at the Scottish Agriculture Awards.
05:03For Leanne, the winning formula is simple.
05:07Any farm is only as good as the team around them, and I'm very fortunate in that my team are really invested in my protocols,
05:14in my sort of vision for investing in the future of the herd.
05:19We are ensuring the herd hails right through our herd in years to come.
05:31This weekend marks the start of National Tree Week, a celebration of all things arboreal.
05:38And there's a tree species to be found here on Speyside that's well worth looking and listening for.
05:49It's the unmistakable aspen.
05:52At one time, these trees were commonplace across Scotland, but now only exist in isolated pockets.
06:00Kirsten Brewster is from the charity Scotland the Big Picture.
06:04They promote rewilding, and want to spread awareness of the problems aspen face,
06:10in the hope that the trees themselves will be able to spread again across the country.
06:16Aspen is a tree that should be found all across Scotland.
06:19We find it in little sort of refuges, you know, in the islands, in the highlands, all the way down to the south of Scotland.
06:24But because it's such a palatable or tasty tree, it's preferentially browsed by many of our herbivore species.
06:29And so it means that we've lost a lot of our native woodland in Scotland.
06:33We're in quite a low percentage of native woodland cover.
06:36Aspen has been preferentially browsed even out of those places.
06:39So it is just these little fragments that we can find where it's clung on.
06:43And these Scottish aspens don't do themselves any favours when it comes to reproduction.
06:49We've got in front of us here, this is a beautiful aspen stand.
06:53So the mature trees, they have actually lost their leaves, but you can still see the kind of beautiful bark on them.
06:59So this is a fairly small stand in a huge forest as well.
07:02So how do they actually spread?
07:04What we would often see with aspen trees in other places is that they would flower and set seed.
07:09We don't see that very often in Scotland, so it's actually quite rare and quite infrequent in Scotland.
07:13And what we see more typically here is actually aspen spreading from the root system and suckering up from the roots.
07:19And so you'll actually find, you know, with mature trees like this, there will be little suckers all around and we can see a really good patch in front of us.
07:26These new trees have grown from a root and not a sexually reproduced seed with a mix of male and female DNA.
07:33They are clones of the original tree.
07:36This makes the species as a whole less resilient.
07:40Survival of the fittest can't work when the saplings are identical.
07:45There is less potential to adapt to change.
07:47So if you think about, you know, sexual reproduction, you would get thousands of seeds from that, from just a single tree.
07:54What we do find is if it's just then a clone of a single tree, there is not that same potential for adaptation to things like climate change, diseases coming in.
08:02And so there's, you know, a bit more of a risk there essentially for trees that are not setting seeds.
08:08Aspens can reproduce in the traditional way.
08:10But the last major flowering for seed production was in 2019.
08:16And before that, it was 1996.
08:20Why does it happen so rarely?
08:23The reasons are still a little bit unclear actually, but we think there's something around the age of some of our aspen stands potentially aging out of sexual reproduction.
08:30Likewise, if the stands that are left have come from root reproduction, the trees are only one sex.
08:39So when they do flower, they have nothing nearby to reproduce with.
08:43We've got a lovely bit here to have a look at.
08:46The trees aren't just good to see.
08:49They provide a useful habitat in the forest.
08:51These little diamond-shaped abrasions in the bark, these are the lenticles.
08:57They start to form almost like cracks in the bark.
08:59And those allow lots of other species to make use of aspen bark and actually colonise it.
09:03So we've got so many hundreds of species of lichen, of fungi, of, you know, bryophytes that actually make use of aspen.
09:09Kirsten's charity wants to get the message out about aspen with their Painting Scotland Yellow campaign,
09:16which shines a light on efforts to protect and promote the tree.
09:20So what we really want is for people to recognise aspen, to recognise the trees as they see them,
09:26but also to recognise the value of aspen in a woodland.
09:29And then I think that really, once you recognise the value of something, you can think about how can you do more for it.
09:34So is there just an isolated stand of trees?
09:36And actually could that be expanded through protection or perhaps even planting aspen trees?
09:41That could be through sort of community woodlands such as this.
09:44It could be other landowners, you know, farmers, estate owners, all different types of land ownership
09:48could be recognising the aspen on their land and thinking, how do they actually see more of that?
09:53So it's a bit of a challenge then.
09:55Yes, there's a bit of work to do, but it's, you know, what's fascinating about aspen conservation
09:59is it is something that we can do.
10:01We can turn the ship around and we can actually see more resilient woodlands with aspen in them.
10:05Now Shabazz is further down the spay investigating a technique normally associated with forensic science
10:22that's now being used for environmental projects.
10:24First developed in the late 1980s, DNA profiling revolutionised the way we investigate crime,
10:39providing accurate evidence to identify individuals.
10:44And now scientists are using this technique to investigate what's out and about in the countryside.
10:50Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is life's blueprint.
11:04The unique genetic code in every cell that defines what and who we are.
11:11Here, on the banks of the Rivers Bay near Aviemore,
11:16Professor Bernd Henfling is taking samples.
11:20He heads up a team at the University of the Highlands and Islands specialising in environmental DNA,
11:27or e-DNA.
11:31If you look at a site like this, you might have hundreds and hundreds of invertebrate species living there,
11:38fish, you've got mammals swimming across.
11:42With e-DNA, you're essentially just looking for the traces they leave behind in the environment.
11:47So how does the DNA end up in the water?
11:49Well, every organism sheds DNA in the environment.
11:53This happens just through skin cells, or in terms of, in the case of fish, for example,
11:59breathing through the gills, doing poos in the water.
12:03It's a big source, actually, of e-DNA.
12:07Of course, it has its limits.
12:09e-DNA can't reveal precise numbers, but it can detect which species are present.
12:19The alternative way would be to either capture or observe the organisms directly.
12:23There are different ways of doing this.
12:24For example, for macroinvertebrates in a river, you would normally go out with a net, something
12:29that's called kick sampling.
12:30You just kick a few stones and just try to catch as many organisms as possible.
12:34Compared to just taking a water sample, you can't really get less invasive than that.
12:40And that's a game-changer.
12:46Repeated water sampling in one location can detect changes in particular species, useful
12:52for organisations like the Cairngorms National Park.
12:55We're heading down a river that flows into Loch Morlach, and we're going to have a, hopefully,
13:02be able to find some beaver signs.
13:05Beaver project manager, Jonathan Willett, is closely monitoring the animals that were reintroduced
13:10here in 2023.
13:15You can see the beavers have been busy here, then.
13:17Aye, aye, they have, yep.
13:18So they've filled this willow tree, and what they're seeking to do is they're going to be
13:22eating the bark on the tree, and that sustains them over the wintertime.
13:26Repeated DNA testing will give Jonathan a better understanding of the beaver's presence
13:32in this habitat.
13:33We're just really interested in trying to get a better idea of how beavers are actually
13:37changing the environment, and because we know exactly when we release the beavers and
13:41we've got some baseline information, that will allow us to go and show how things change
13:45over time.
13:48The water samples come to the UHI Inverness campus.
13:55Where Berndt's team do the analysis.
13:59So what is Dasha working on just now?
14:01Dasha is working on the more tricky part of the lab workflow now.
14:06Essentially, she's now pulling out the minimum amount of information we need to identify all
14:11the different species which are in there.
14:14Only a tiny fragment of DNA is needed.
14:18Berndt likens it to discovering a famous line in a beloved novel.
14:23If you want to know what book it is, you don't need to read the entire book.
14:27You just pull out a particular well-known quote.
14:29That's what we're doing.
14:30So we're pulling out these quotes.
14:33They're also called a DNA barcode.
14:36And based on this, we can identify individual species.
14:41A new chapter in how we read the story of life from the water.
14:46It's a method that's full of potential for conservation organisations.
14:50Faster, less invasive, and sometimes revealing the unexpected.
14:55Have you ever been surprised by anything that you've found?
14:59Yeah, we usually find a lot more of certain species which are quite elusive.
15:06For example, water shrews.
15:08But we also find species such as red squirrels, for example,
15:12in areas where they hadn't been recorded for a while.
15:16We know now enough about to know the limitations and the strengths of this method.
15:20One of the particular strengths is that it can be upscaled
15:23to a level that we can really monitor biodiversity on a landscape scale.
15:27So we can monitor entire catchments,
15:30which is really very difficult with conventional methods.
15:37DNA profiling has transformed the way we solve crimes.
15:42Hopefully now it can reveal some of nature's secrets
15:45and give us a better understanding of our countryside.
15:58At the crack of dawn,
16:00the day's already well underway for our nation's farmers.
16:04And it's no different for our own Cammy.
16:07He's on a farm in East Lothian now, ready to get going.
16:11But it might not be what he's expecting.
16:16The farmer we're visiting today asked me to be here at 6am
16:20and for some reason he told me to bring a PE kit.
16:25Right, jackets off, anything you want to take off.
16:28We'll go in about 30 seconds.
16:30Like many agricultural businesses,
16:33Calaverat Farm has had to diversify to stay sustainable.
16:36OK, from there, we're running down to the bale.
16:39So, before the sun comes up...
16:42Let's go!
16:43Pete Eccles' farmyard near Trenent
16:45turns into a high-intensity workout zone.
16:51An on-farm gym might seem like a bit of a stretch,
16:55but it's strengthened Pete's business and his community.
16:59It's not for the faint-hearted, though.
17:02Please don't put this one in the faint-hearted day.
17:04Pete's a fourth-generation farmer,
17:08taking over Karlavrock when his dad retired in 2023.
17:12Drive it over, excellent.
17:14Right, let's go down.
17:14I'm going to the silage pit yesterday, actually.
17:16I've been practising that one.
17:18The gym was a perfect fit
17:19when the former rugby player decided he needed another revenue stream.
17:23All right, let's go, let's get in.
17:25We've got five seconds.
17:26Beyond his 150 acres and herd of Hereford's.
17:29Good job!
17:32So, Cammie, one round in, how are you feeling?
17:35I'm getting flashbacks to the man I used to be.
17:39Before midlife got me.
17:40We'll see how you feel in two more rounds.
17:42I was about to say, two more rounds?
17:43Somebody said one more round.
17:49He's a hard taskmaster.
17:51So, keep going, Cammie.
17:52Drive the arms.
17:53And the 45-minute workout
17:54leaves me wishing someone else got the give.
17:57Doogie must be away at his part-time job.
18:02Three, two, one.
18:05Great job, everyone.
18:06Well done.
18:07They phoned Doogie, but he was busy.
18:08Can they come?
18:09Guys, I've just got a wee thank you for Cammie for coming along.
18:13So, just a wee, you're a member of the team.
18:17Thank you, guys.
18:18It's just my colour.
18:22With the class over,
18:24Pete can tell me how the farm gym came about.
18:26Fitness, for me,
18:28has always been a big part of my life.
18:30I used to play rugby.
18:31And when I finished up a few years ago,
18:34I sort of felt a bit lost.
18:36Kind of lost the team camaraderie.
18:40And then also,
18:42just not training regularly
18:43and getting exercise.
18:45I just started to struggle a wee bit mentally.
18:47I started to recognise
18:48I wasn't myself anymore.
18:50And I thought,
18:51hey,
18:52why not start a gym?
18:53Yeah.
18:54Yeah.
18:54As you do.
18:56It's that interaction with folk
18:57and just, you know,
18:58connecting with people,
19:00being active,
19:01and then I can get on with my day.
19:02You've already had your win for the day
19:04before the sun's up.
19:05That's it.
19:05You're already achieved by 7am.
19:07Yeah.
19:07Brilliant.
19:08Pete runs classes in the mornings
19:10five days a week
19:11and has more workouts
19:13two or three evenings a week.
19:14With that number of classes on the go
19:16in the farm buildings,
19:18there was a change of lifestyle
19:19for his Herefords.
19:22I love animals
19:23and I like seeing them
19:24in a natural environment.
19:25I like to see them calving outside
19:27where it's clean and healthy
19:28and they don't have the stress
19:29of having to be calved in a shed.
19:31So that frees me up
19:32to focus on the gym
19:34in the mornings.
19:35And with them being foragers
19:36and a bit lower input
19:38being outside,
19:39frees up some buildings.
19:41Absolutely.
19:41Some of these older farm buildings
19:43just aren't really functional
19:44or have a purpose
19:45in modern agriculture now.
19:46So it's just,
19:47how do you make a use of them
19:48and what can we do
19:49that's going to make the most
19:51of that asset
19:51and create another revenue stream?
19:54The gym's allowed me
19:55to invest in the buildings
19:56and get a return on that
19:57that doesn't involve
19:59having to muck the sheds out.
20:01Yeah, by hand.
20:03There's another workout.
20:04But Pete's farmyard gym
20:07has become about
20:08much more than money.
20:10I think it's challenged me.
20:11It's taken me out
20:11of my comfort zone.
20:12It gives me a break
20:14from the sort of stresses
20:16and strains of everyday farming.
20:17Everyone comes to the gym
20:19with the different goals
20:20or aspirations
20:21of what they're trying to achieve.
20:22But the sort of changes
20:23I'm seeing in people
20:24varies on the individual
20:25depending on what their goals are.
20:27but it can be fat loss
20:30to mental health benefits
20:31to just being able
20:33to do their job better.
20:34As a farmer,
20:35you know,
20:35I'm flipping over ring feeders
20:37a lot easier than I used to.
20:38Yeah, yeah.
20:39Well, an absolute pleasure, mate.
20:40Same time next week?
20:42Same time tomorrow morning, Cammie.
20:43No, I need at least a week
20:45to come up.
20:45In fact,
20:46just delete my number, please.
20:47Here on Landward,
20:54we love to shout out
20:55about the amazing array
20:56of food produced
20:57across the land.
21:00And over the next few programmes,
21:02Rosie is on a mission
21:03to get us into the kitchen
21:05and using some of those
21:07fantastic Scottish ingredients,
21:09just like generations
21:10of her family before her.
21:14My great-grandfather,
21:16Alexander,
21:16was a baker.
21:18Famous in Bucky
21:19as Valentine the Baker.
21:21And his passion for cooking
21:22has made its way
21:23down the family to me.
21:26These are his treasured notebooks,
21:28the secrets to his best bakes.
21:32He loved hearty,
21:34homemade food,
21:35and so do I.
21:37So I'm leaving my kitchen
21:39and heading to farmhouse kitchens
21:41across Scotland,
21:42meeting the farmers
21:43who produce the ingredients
21:44and seeing what they do with them.
21:46This time,
21:48I'm starting at Lucy
21:49and Robert Wilson's farm
21:51near Kelso in the Borders.
21:54So this was an old stable block
21:56that we converted
21:58to host our meals in
22:00and people come to enjoy our produce.
22:02That's a great setup you've got.
22:03The food miles are low,
22:07the beef on the menu
22:08coming from their herd
22:09of 250 pedigree Herefords.
22:13Why did you choose Herefords
22:15in the first place?
22:17We've always had them as a family.
22:19So my grandfather,
22:21he had a few commercial cows
22:22and then went into Herefords
22:25in 1955.
22:27They were just a good,
22:28suitable breed
22:28for the type of land we've got.
22:30And what is it
22:32that you really like
22:33about the breed?
22:34They're really easy to work with.
22:36For me,
22:37probably like a lot of guys
22:38working by yourself,
22:40you need something
22:41that you feel safe around.
22:43On top of that,
22:44they're really good
22:44at turning grass
22:45into both meat and milk.
22:47I don't want to say it too loudly,
22:48but they're quite tasty as well.
22:51These girls are all in calf,
22:52so they've got a different job.
22:55They're OK.
22:56They're OK.
22:56Don't listen to them, ladies.
22:57You're fine.
22:59At what point
23:00did you want to introduce
23:01that food aspect
23:02to the business then?
23:04It's been a gradual process.
23:06So we decided
23:08to go into agritourism
23:09in about 2018.
23:11And then when COVID came along,
23:13we had what we like
23:14to call a COVID pivot
23:15into more of a food angle.
23:21And dealing with the food angle
23:23is Robert's wife, Lucy.
23:25Hello, Lucy.
23:26How are you doing?
23:27Hello. Good.
23:27I'm just picking
23:28some of the last radishes.
23:30Adding seasonal ingredients
23:32from their garden.
23:34Is there something
23:35I can help you with?
23:36Do you want to just pick
23:37some of the little bits
23:38of purple kale?
23:39Just snap off the end bits.
23:41Of course.
23:42That'll be really delicious.
23:45So we have some
23:46beautiful-looking veggies.
23:48Yeah, they look really
23:49colourful and fresh,
23:50don't they?
23:51They really, really do.
23:52What are we going to be
23:53doing with them today?
23:54We're going to cook
23:55some Hereford beef,
23:57some rump steak,
23:58and we're going to make
24:00a lovely stir-fry
24:01with our beautiful,
24:02fresh vegetables
24:03that we've picked.
24:04But the meat
24:05is the star of the show.
24:07The very big star.
24:10Okay, so we're going
24:11to put a little bit
24:11of salt on it,
24:13which is going to give
24:14it a really delicious
24:15flavour when it's cooked.
24:23How long do you leave it
24:24on each side?
24:25Probably about
24:26two minutes on each side,
24:28and the really important
24:29thing is to not keep
24:30moving it and turning it.
24:32Once both sides
24:34are seared,
24:35it goes into the oven
24:36with an in-oven thermometer.
24:38It doesn't matter
24:39which oven I'm using,
24:41or quite often we do
24:42this on the barbecues,
24:43which are obviously
24:44a different kind of heat,
24:46and if you do it
24:46by temperature,
24:48then it's always
24:48going to be the same.
24:50Straight into the oven?
24:52Lucy is aiming
24:53for 50 degrees,
24:54but you can vary that
24:55depending on how
24:56you like your steak done.
24:58If the vegetables
24:59aren't from Lucy's garden,
25:01she gets them
25:02from as near as possible.
25:04This broccoli
25:04is from a neighbour's farm.
25:06When you're using food
25:08that's grown locally,
25:10it generally tends
25:11to taste better
25:12because it hasn't travelled
25:15massive amounts
25:16of distance.
25:18And we've got so many
25:19wonderful producers locally,
25:21it's really not difficult
25:22to find good food
25:25anywhere in Scotland.
25:25Wow, that's an impressive
25:31bit of steak, that.
25:38Lucy flavours the veggies
25:40with soy sauce,
25:41garlic, Korean chilli paste,
25:44and a sweet Indonesian
25:45soy sauce
25:46for an Asian vibe.
25:47The colours just look
25:49incredible,
25:50and it smells so,
25:51so good as well.
25:52Are we allowed to dive in?
26:01Yes, let's do it.
26:02Let's go for it.
26:04Beef first,
26:04it's got to be,
26:05isn't it?
26:08Mmm.
26:09The flavour on that beef
26:11that you managed to get.
26:12Mmm.
26:12That's stunning.
26:13Mmm.
26:14Really tasty,
26:15local,
26:16seasonal Scottish food.
26:18That's the way to do it.
26:19Thank you so much.
26:19You're very welcome.
26:21Next time,
26:22I'm leaving the meat behind
26:23and taking the vegetarian option
26:25at a pick-your-own patch
26:27in Aberdeenshire.
26:31That brings us
26:32to the end
26:33of this programme.
26:34If you'd like to watch it again
26:35or catch up
26:36with some of our
26:36previous episodes,
26:38go to the BBC iPlayer
26:39and search for Lambert.
26:41Now,
26:41here's what's coming up
26:42next time.
26:45Planting trees
26:46to reach net zero.
26:48Trees are a wonderful solution.
26:49Climate change.
26:50They take carbon
26:51out of the atmosphere
26:52and they store it
26:53in the trunks they grow.
26:54The Perthshire Castle
26:55getting a facelift.
26:57With the changing climate,
26:59with increased rainfall,
27:00we're having to work
27:00a little bit harder
27:01to look after it.
27:03Oh, wow.
27:04What an amazing space.
27:06And Shabazz discovers
27:07how dry-stained daiking
27:09inspired this incredible art.
27:12Please join us for that
27:14and much, much more
27:15if you can.
27:16In the meantime,
27:16from all the Lambert teams
27:17around the country
27:18and especially for me
27:20here in beautiful
27:21King Craig.
27:22Thank you so much
27:22for your company.
27:23Bye for now.
27:24We'll see you next time.
27:54Bye for now.
27:58Bye.
27:58Bye.
27:59Bye.
27:59Bye.
27:59Bye.
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