COLIN Coward, who runs Mere Down Farm, near Mere, is through to the final of the country's top farm conservation competition.

He learned he was into the last six in the 2003 Farmcare FWAG Silver Lapwing Award when it was announced at the Royal Show at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, last week.

Mr Coward, whose landlord is Prince Charles's Duchy of Cornwall, will be visited by the judges tomorrow and must then wait another month before learning whether he will be one of the three winners.

The competition, now in its 25th year and won last year by Wylye farmer John Tremlett, honours farmers who have done most to encourage wildlife and enrich the countryside on a commercially run farm.

It is organised by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group and sponsored by farm-management business Farmcare.

Mr Coward, who has lived at Mere Down for more than 40 years and held the tenancy of the 681-acre arable and beef farm since 1987, has restored hedges by coppicing and replanting, with worked hedges fenced to protect them from grazing livestock.

Hazel copses have been regenerated and 66 acres of downland have been recreated with grasses and naturally harvested wildflower seed from a site of special scientific interest.

Mr Coward has grown from seed and hand-planted horseshoe vetch and kidney vetch to help the rare Adonis butterfly, which is found on the farm.

A network of six-metre field margins has created a new habitat for hares and grey partridge, and four bird-feeding stations have been built and kept supplied with wheat throughout the winter.

An avenue of lime trees, planted about 1870 and which was dying, has been pollarded and is now regrowing, and an avenue of wych elm that succumbed to Dutch elm disease was replanted with small-leaved lime to mark the millennium.

Farm buildings, some dating from 1730, have been restored, providing a home for swallows, bats and a barn owl.

Mr Coward said he was inspired to take part in the competition by his daughter, Lisa, who has worked as FWAG adviser for Wiltshire and is passionate about farm conservation.

"I used to ride around the farm with a gun - now I have a pair of binoculars," he said.

"Farm conservation is very rewarding.