Glyn-Coch Farm: Awards and Achievements

This is our boasting page, where we are going to record all our 'Oscars' and 'Emmies', but we hope to do so with a suitable sense of modesty and humour.

2002 May: Queens Jubilee. We didn't win anything, but we did dress overall for the occasion as shown above!

2002 The St Clears Gardening Awards: Best Commercial Garden. This really was a case of being the only entry, but we annoyed the others so much that we haven't had a look in since. See what we do for community spirit!

April -June 2004 -RSPB Volunteer and Farmer Alliance Survey. Among other species found nationally rare Bullfinches and Gold Crests nesting here

2005 Bangor University Link Wales Farm Efficiency Survey We were nominated as the most efficient farm in Wales. This was a basic survey of economic inputs and outputs, and as we did have some sales, and spent almost nothing on machinery (having to do most things by hand) we had a perfect efficiency score of 1! (The survey forms were unexpectedly given to us while visiting the Royal Welsh - so this is probably our highest ever achievement!)

2005 Forestry Commission Woods for Wales Competition. 4th best woodland in Wales out of over 70 entries. The rules said that short listed entries had to wait three years before re-entering. They abandoned the competition before we could enter again.

2009 Beautiful Farm Awards. Commended. Highest placed farm in Wales. Award ceremony in The House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster, where 50 % of workers carry machine guns! Probably the most glittering award ceremony we have attended!

Light trapping to monitor moth populations

We are proud to take part in the Rothamsted Insect Survey. The purpose of the survey is described in the next paragraph which is taken from the Rothamsted Website. Rothamsted is the oldest Agricultural Research Station in the world and was set up in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes, known as the father of agricultural science. He rose to prominence by proving that Nitrogen was an essential plant food, and some of the field experiments he started are still running and are increasingly important as world wide ecological standards. Rothamsted is now supported by the Biology and Biotechnology Research Council.

The Rothamsted website describes the Light Trap Network thus : -"A light trap network, run with the help of volunteers at about 80 sites in the UK, is used to monitor the larger (macro) moths. Daily samples are taken throughout the year, and altogether over 430 sites have been sampled. The earliest moth records date back to 1933 from a trap on Rothamsted Farm and a national network was in full operation by 1968. The data have a range of applications in fundamental and applied aspects of insect population dynamics and ecology."

The record of our trap which has been operated every night since March 2002 is summarised below. The catches of unusual species listed below will be recorded in the scientific literature, so that, for example, ecologists working on insect responses to climate change will know when a population first appeared in the UK.

The alpha diversity index refers to the number of species present at a particular site, and the evenness of the numbers of species. That is to say that a site that that has been disturbed has a few species present, and the community will be dominated by a few pioneer species. As the habitat settles down, more species will arrive and the numbers of individuals in most species will grow to the maximum number that that habitat can support. Generally that is thought to mean that a stable mature ecosystem is composed of many species with similar numbers of individuals of each species. Higher diversity index describes a mature and stable habitat. Diversity index varies according to the weather in each year, and our presence in the table is also affected by which other traps are running in that year. Notable Welsh traps (i.e. those so and so's who keep beating us) are at Aberystwyth, Llysdinam, Rhandirmwyn and Tregaron.

Phil Gould, the manager of the survey, who identifies our moths and those from many other traps comments that our trap produces some of the most abundant catches in the survey.

Started trapping in March 2002

2002 19th in the table of sites showing greatest moth diversity. (alpha index of diversity 38.98)

2005 Rothamsted Insect Survey A late second generation or even a very rare third generation Ectropis Bistorta (The engrailed) caught in our trap on 29th September. We also caught a very rare colour form of Timandra Comae (The Blood Vein)

2006 17th in the table of sites showing greatest moth diversity (alpha index of diversity 43.27)

2006 Rothamsted Insect Survey Trichoplusia Ni (The Ni Moth) a rare migrant caught in our trap on 5th August, and the only one caught in the survey in 2006. The first of this species that the identifier had seen.

2006 Rothamsted Insect Survey Hydriomena ruberata (The Ruddy Highflier) caught in our trap on 10th May, an uncommon species in SW Wales

2007 18th in the table of sites showing greatest moth diversity (alpha index of diversity 40.81)

2009 Rothamsted Insect Survey A single specimen of the migrant species Agrotis Ipsolon (Dark Sword Grass) caught at St Clears. This was the only specimen of this species in the UK mainland traps this year.

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