Teagasc Hedgerow Week continues until 10 December.

The week focuses on the benefits of hedgerows and what can be done to improve their management.

In this short video, Teagasc countryside management specialist Catherine Keena, discusses hedgerow management. Catherine was out with the Irish Farmers Journal’s Footprint Farmers at the end of October talking all things hedgerows.

She describes how you must decide from day one if you want a line of trees or a managed hedgerow, both have benefits for biodiversity.

If you want a managed hedgerow it should be pruned when planted and pruning should continue in order to create a dense hedgerow that will be stock proof and can increase the amount of carbon storage in the hedge, while also providing different types of habitats and shelter for wildlife.

“Hedges are managed habitats. They’re not natural, so if we want to keep the hedge as a hedge we must keep cutting the growing point [of the topped hedge],” Catherine explained.

In the second half of this video Catherine shows a young plant which was cut last year one inch above the ground. This allowed multiple stems to grow and this year this plant will be cut about one inch above the previous cut.

Catherine noted that whitethorn thrives on pruning and that it’s not a race to the top, you need to multiply the hedge up inch by inch.

To find out more about hedgerow management click here.