What is the purpose of this field planting?

Research studies concluded that sunflower, buckwheat and phaecelia were the least popular, more birds went for brassicae and millet seeds. Anacdotal evidence from farmers suggest that the greatest beneficiary were rats, with alleged populations "of fifty times more", with the thought that red kites and owls could do well. Perhaps phaecelia will be spread in pellets.....

 

Its not a subsidy, it is paid for work to tight specifications, with not inconsiderable additional costs in time, fuel and seeds.

 

In the last 10 years or so I have planted phacelia for wildlife and find it doesn’t spread/ re-seed half as much as I want it to. For example, if I seed it in year 1 it grows and flowers lovely, year 2 only a few plants grow and but year 3 nothing grows. I find borage and red clover are more persistent. I love phacelia though and was once told by a bee keeper the honey bees will fly further to get it than they will for other flowers, how true this is is anyone’s guess but I like to think it’s true .

 

Phacelia is not a native plant and ,although it may survive in mild winters, its generally an annual in UK. It can self seed but is likely consumed by finches etc. It improves the top soil layer by root action, provides copious green material and is usually rolled/disced and incorporated before drilling the subsequent crop, often directly into the produced tilth.
I wonder how your beekeeper discerned the distance of foraging; perhaps he timed a bee to calculate or maybe recognised an individual at range while he himself travelled to the crop....

 

There are so many borages here I guess the niche phacelia wants to fill has already been filled by more competitive ones. I wonder what the difference between annuals and perrenials is for bees and green manure though, if you are tilling it into the soil obviously perrenials dont work but if you are mowing and relocating some of the cuttings?
I have read that annuals in meadows are more diverse than perrenials but produce less resources per m^2. When the farmer cut his mix here the soil was bare for quite a while, perhaps this makes it less efficient for nutrient accumulation. I dont think he tilled it in though, looked more like a surface mow.

 

There are many permutations of potential options for SFI ; according to soil type and rotations etc.
Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme: expanded offer for 2024