Practical Guides
On this page, we've gathered our practical guides across a wide range of areas helpful in running your farm.
Crops & Soils
Conservation & Biodiversity
Surveying Farmland Wading Birds – A Practical Guide
Monitoring breeding waders on your farm enables you to track changes from year to year. This Practical Guide gives some guidance as to why and how to begin surveying farmland wading birds.
DownloadEnergy & Renewables
Farming for a Better Climate Practical Guides
This is legacy content from Farming For A Better Climate
Farming For A Better Climate: Practical Guide – Alleviating Soil Compaction
This Practical Guide gives some ideas on how to alleviate soil compaction.
DownloadFarming For A Better Climate: Practical Guide – Improving Soil Quality
This Practical Guide concentrates on how we can improve soil quality to help us to adapt to climate change.
DownloadPractical Guide: Improving Ewe Efficiency (1)
This Practical Guide looks at benchmarks to assess flock efficiency. Additional guides in this series focus on maximising performance both pre and post lambing.
DownloadPractical Guide: Improving Ewe Efficiency (2) – Pre Lambing
This Practical Guide looks at maximizing performance within the flock, concentrating on pre lambing.
DownloadPractical Guide: Improving Ewe Efficiency (3) – Meeting Benchmarks Post Lambing
This Practical Guide looks at maximizing performance within the flock, concentrating on post lambing.
DownloadLivestock nutrition
Livestock nutrition: A practical guide
DownloadPractical Guide: Adapting New Farm Buildings to a Changing Climate
This practical guide looks at the effects of climate change that should be considered when planning a new farm building.
DownloadPractical Guide: Adapting Traditional Farm Buildings to a Changing Climate
This practical guide looks at adaption of traditional farm buildings to cope with climate change.
DownloadPractical Guide: Anaerobic Digestion (Biogas)
This Practical Guide focuses on anaerobic digestion and how it can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
DownloadPractical Guide: Feed-in Tariff
This Practical Guide focuses on the Feed in Tariff Scheme to fund renewable resources on farm, which can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
DownloadPractical Guide: Introduction to Small Scale Renewables
This Practical Guide gives an overview of small farm scale renewable systems
DownloadPractical Guide: Micro-Hydro
This Practical Guide concentrates on micro-hydro opportunities. Installing micro-hydro could reduce electricity bills, provide an additional income, and reduce GHG emissions from the farm.
DownloadPractical Guide: The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)
This Practical Guide explains the Renewable Heat Incentive.
DownloadPractical Guide: Wind energy
This Practical Guide concentrates on how to develop a medium scale wind turbine and help reduce GHG emissions. (Note: other scales of development may be appropriate at your site. The basic principles still apply.)
DownloadPractical Guide: Solar Photovoltaics
This Practical Guide concentrates on the opportunities for producing electricity from solar photovoltaics (PV) on farm, which could help to provide an additional income and reduce farm GHG emissions.
DownloadPractical Guide: Improving Shed Ventilation for the Beef Herd
This practical guide looks at maximising performance of housed beef cattle by improving ventilation in buildings.
DownloadPractical Guide: What can your Dairy Cows Tell You?
This practical guide looks at helping to maximise performance of cattle by improving their environment.
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