1 acre meadow

[Jo Miller]

We have had a one acre meadow on the southern edge of Dartmoor at Cornwood for seventeen years, it had been a horse pound back in the day and after that grazed by horses. The soil is very thin as we are on the slopes of a Tor. For the past nine years we have been gradually turning it into a wildflower meadow with a few fruit trees and it has been going well. Our problem is age (ours) and restricted access. In the beginning we were able to get someone with a small tractor in to cut it and we would remove the cuttings, that source dried up. Then we cut it ourselves with a ride on and/or scythe and raked the waste (which is the hard part). Our wildflower meadow is about one third of the field now and the grass in the rest is in parts thick and clumpy and in others fine and thin. To cut or graze or just to leave? Having read and watched so much from Moors meadows over the years I am beginning to think there is a case to just keep on doing the mosaic thing and let the rest look after itself and keep encouraging wildlife, we have many invertebrates, mice, etc., but, interestingly, not so many butterflies as we had about 5 years ago. I would be interested to hear your views on this.

[Amy]

I would caution against just leaving it - we had no stock and did not cut for 4 years = no management = huge explosion of wild flowers, bank voles, grasshoppers = delight = then the tall cocksfoot tussocks took over in a large area and molinia in another, and were quickly spreading into new areas - and the most thuggish flowers -yarrow, devils bit scabious and betony could survive in amongst the tussocks, but other things began to be shaded out. In another area we had fine grass and silverweed and there the thatch became very deep and few new flowers could penetrate.

DWT and Butterfly Conservation both advised control of the tussocks to keep a diversified sward, and to rotate the cutting and/or grazing in different areas in different time periods. It was a huge amount of work in the first year to remedy the undermanagement. We cut and cleared 3 times in the first summer to try and get on top of the tussocks. Like you, we have found people willing to cut/strim, but no one wants to rake up.

So I would say - keep an eye on your clumpy grass areas, and don't let them spread too much,---unless you are happy to have a large part of it permanently tussocky with fewer flowers, which surely some wildlife will love and will mean minimal work for you --- and perhaps this is the best answer. It wouldn't be so easy for you to walk through - you'd still have to cut paths. I think bumblebees nest in vole holes beneath tussocks, and the grass butterfly larvae overwinter there, but other species like different lengths of grass.

It depends what you want to manage your land for, and if you can find voluntary or paid help.

Alternatively perhaps back to intermittent grazing by someone else's horse or donkey, you'd have to protect your trees, restricting access to half the area, eg a spring grazed area allows August flowers to set seed, and vice versa; there would be an initial outlay of fencing to divide up the area.

Or geese if you had enough of them to keep on top of the grass. Geese are very noisy, very messy and would need a fox proof perimeter - which once done, should last for for 10-15 years, and they need short grass to start with, which they then keep very short, but they are hugely entertaining and provide beautiful eggs. They too would need their eating areas rotated through the year to keep enough grass fresh for them. Geese do like to walk along the edges of tall grass, nipping off some flower heads, but not the whole lot, and sometimes they winkle out a favoured plant - so you'd have to keep an eye in case they go for your most precious wild flower. They sometimes winkle out things from my lawn, but I haven't worked out what it is, possibly dandelions. But --- if bird flu becomes an annual event with the legal requirement to keep poultry housed throughout winter, then this idea is probably a non starter.

Or, buy/hire a tractor and a topper which also collects the cuttings - (flail mower collector) (and sell/give away/use the compost)- quite expensive but you might think the outlay is justified if it saves you so much labour and it would keep your meadow as a meadow rather than losing the flowers to grazing pasture. = others here could probably advise further on the best machinery and availability of hire. A nice little business for someone, I would think.

Whatever you choose to do, wildlife of some kind, will love it.

[Jo Miller]

Hi Amy,

Thank you for your reply to my question on the forum and I'm sorry to have taken so long in replying, have only just read it. I was very interested in your ideas. We do have a lot of cocksfoot tussocks in about half our field and I am quite torn between the wildlife these encourage and those of the wildflower meadow - so I think I will probably manage it for half of each and patrol the borders fiercely!