Shropshire Star

Herefordshire nursery nurtures transplants ‘in house’

Wyevale Nurseries goes back to 1930 when Harry Williamson bought Kings Acre Nurseries and began to produce ornamentals, roses, hedging plants and specimen trees for the trade on the outskirts of Hereford. The company, not to be confused with Wyevale Garden Centres, is now owned by Heather and Simeon Williamson, the third generation of Harry’s family.

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Ray Jenkins, director of Wyevale Transplants in charge at Bromsberrow and Adrian Cituran, farm manager at Wyevale Transplants at the Bromsberrow site

Wyevale Nurseries were importing hedging and forestry transplants from Holland but In 1987 Wyevale Nurseries set up a joint venture with Snell Farms on the 220 acre Russells End Farm at Bromsberrow near Ledbury to establish a nursery to produce transplants ‘in house’ rather than having to rely on importing. Another plus for Wyevale producing in the UK is customers are keen to purchase British grown trees and shrubs, grown under good environmental conditions with excellent biosecurity at Bromsberrow, using no peat, artificial heat or plastic pots.

The light sandy soil, although drought prone is an ideal soil for producing around 5 million plants annually from seed or cuttings, with native hawthorn accounting for some 20% of the production. Trees such as oak, sweet chestnut, hazel, beech, hornbeam, wild cherry and a range of other species suitable for woodlands, hedging, conservation planting, windbreaks and young stock for Christmas tree growers.

As well as being marketed through the trade as transplants, some are moved to the Tree Division site at Swainshill to produce specimen trees or potted up at the main Hereford site for sale as containerised stock.

The transplant nursery is on a massive scale geared to meeting the demand for millions of plants annually. Every year they sow 26 miles of seed-bed rows which includes 7.5 miles of hawthorn and plant four tonens of hazel nuts, which have to be netted to stop the patch being decimated by squirrels.

The crops are grown in a rotation which includes an area sown to grass for a year before returning to the production of transplants. To prepare the land for planting, which receives some locally produced recycled compost; it is ploughed, cultivated and set up into raised beds ready for the seed to be sown from March through till May. The seed is sown using a tractor mounted 5 row drill which deposits the seed near the surface which is then covered by a layer of special sand. The drill can plant extremely small seeds such as willow and right through the range to acorns and walnuts.

As much of the seed is sourced locally as possible, some is collected from established trees in the vicinity and from a Shropshire based native tree seed company. The seed is treated to break its dormancy before being sown. Early weed control in the beds is done using a tractor mounted steerage hoe, in combination with spraying and if needed by a limited amount of hand-weeding.

Some species such as hawthorn have to be sprayed with fungicide to prevent a build-up of mildew which could slow growth and affect quality. The frequency of spraying depends on the weather and disease pressure. Hawthorn is usually sprayed every 14 days but under severe conditions is done more frequently. Depending on the season foliar feeds are sometimes used.

The whole area can be irrigated with water sourced from the Glynch Brook when during periods of winter excess flow, water is pumped into a reservoir. It is circulated around the farm through a system of permanent pipes and then through large hose reel irrigators or sprinklers.

Lifting starts in late October by mechanical harvesting machines with a capacity to lift up to 100,000 plants a day. The plants are brought into a shed where they are graded on two grading lines. From there they are either despatched to customers or stored in a purpose built climate controlled cold-store ready bundled to meet off the shelf orders as they come in.

Most of the plants are lifted after one growing season during the dormant period, graded and some of the larger ones sold, the others transplanted out a wider spacing to grow on for another season to produce the classic 1+1 (2year old) transplant of about 40 to 100 cm tall.

Many of these two-year-old plants are supplied to farms for hedges or as woodland trees as part of an HLS or similar environmental scheme or as game cover or an amenity planting.

During the summer 6 or 8 people are employed, plus some 20 extra seasonal workers during the autumn and winter for lifting, harvesting and grading the transplants and preparing them for despatch

The operation at Bromsberrow is overseen by the company’s Transplant Director, Ray Jenkins, who has been with Wyevale Nurseries for 29 years, the farm manager Adrian Cituran organising the day to day farming operations, with Jules Griffiths running the office, receiving and processing the orders for transplants.

Wyevale Nurseries is yet another of Herefordshire’s entrepreneurial non-mainstream farming enterprises which has flourished and grown from small beginnings into a large thriving business and with the government predicted to move to a more environmentally oriented agricultural policy post Brexit, Wyevale Nurseries are well placed to react to the possible changes.