Yellow Rattle in a Yorkshire Fog!

Nursery 'tiger'

Starring the new NT strip!

Pulled out all the stops & kit for continuing the tree guard work at Sherborne down from Crookmoor Ash /Moors copse. So on a hot day we completed the new guards protecting the young elms and replaced one of the existing broken guards with its maturing oak {see pic}. Next steps are to replace the rest of the damaged tree guards so more hammering, drilling and sawing to keep me busy. Not sure about the new NT 'postman' branding for our green and pleasant countryside though!

Some serious grassland analysis

Thursday was spent with the Wildlife Trust at Winyard's farm initially tackling removal of Himalyan Balsam. The volunteer team was lead by Richard who also squeezed in a couple of educational sessions on assessment of the grassland environment in this area. In the session I was part of we tackled one of the two grassland fields, the one on a slope. It proved more interesting than I thought and there were more plant/grass species present once we began to look more closely. They included clover, speedwell, vetch, sorrel, mouse ears, hogweed, orchids, yorkshire fog and the 'special' parasitic yellow rattle. Lots of new information to absorb, for me especially, delivered in fine style by Richard revealing the relationship  between plant diversity and fertility i.e. diversity increases the less fertile the ground. If a particular plant or grass dominates then ability for other plants to thrive decreases and so this is where Yellow Rattle reveals its true colours. Because of its parasitic nature towards grasses the dominant grass plant is controlled allowing other plant species to grow. Management of these grasslands and the application of topping, grazing play a key role in how rich in diversity the grassland is. Of course the geology and type of soil {alkaline, rock, water, terrain etc} provide constraints along with the farming techniques applied {or not} to the land.  Out of all this gradings such as SSSI are derived and hopefully application of appropriate land management to sustain or create important grassland beneficial for wildlife and hopefully landowners. The results of the survey of the upper grassland field which had a flatter terrain provided some differences in the plants present which demonstrates the impact of what appear to be small 'environment' differences can have on the diversity. Overall though both areas scored  around 5/10 which doesn't mean its not important but it doesn't get into the category {SSSI, County level..} which makes it a high priority when competition for resources are tight.  On the Balsam front the days effort certainly can claim a high proportion of existing Himalayan Balsam has been removed from this area which will protect further spread down the River Eye which is quite close to this local springs environment.

More on a related topic curtesy Mark Avery.