Compared to some areas of the country we have got off lightly this winter in terms of rainfall and flooding. However, we have still had a lot of rainfall, luckily the drier and windy weather has helped to dry off a lot of areas, but damage has been done especially by livestock on wet pastures.

In some cases a full re-seed will be necessary, due to the damage caused by wintering livestock, and this should be taken as an opportunity to turn an OK ley, into a top quality, high production pasture, which is going to produce you more, better quality, lower cost forage. Simple steps can be carried out such as, correcting drainage issues, checking soil nutrient status, and soil pH and also examining the soil structure. An informed decision can then be made such as, can you just power harrow the surface soils to create a seed bed, or do you need to plough, to lighten up the soil structure and correct compaction issues.

Some swards will not need reseeding, even though, they have been poached, and are a little open, you might feel that they will recover. As a rough guide, to do this, you really need at least one healthy perennial ryegrass plant in every 4 inch square of the field, if the field is to recover well. If you have less than this then weeds such as annual meadow grass, and docks, will invade the bare patch using up your fertilizer, competing with your grasses and lowering your yield and quality.

We can supply you with reseeding advice as well as premium quality seed mixtures to suite all uses, and at relatively short notice. We are very proud that the varieties of grass seed we use in our mixtures are NIAB certified, and come with scientifically backed up performance data. Furthermore the purity of our seed and the high germination test ensure that a Jameson ley will get your pastures off to the best possible start.