Sunday 5th August was once again time for our monthly volunteer Sunday work party and 16 people arrived bright and early for a day’s work on site. Two important jobs were on the agenda for the day – firstly, finishing off the removal of ragwort around our Phase 1 grassland and secondly, reed seedling planting out on Phase 1 itself.
Ragwort removal is a vital element of our summer time work here at Langford for several reasons….firstly, our grassland is in such fantastic condition, with numerous important species of plants and supporting countless species of invertebrates. There is little competition from less desirable species such as ragwort – we want to keep it that way and removing the ragwort before it goes to seed is a very effective way of doing this.
We manage our grassland in a traditional way, by taking a late season hay cut in August. This ensures that all important plant species get an opportunity to set their seed, that ground nesting birds such as skylarks get a chance to finish breeding and that invertebrates get a chance to complete their life cycles, all before the grass is cut. It is then baled and sold as hay. As ragwort is poisonous to cattle and horses (that will eat the hay), it is crucial that all ragwort is removed. The hay provides a reliable income for us each year, which gets invested directly back into conservation work here at Langford.
We also have a legal obligation to control our ragwort on the western Phase 1 grassland, as we are within 50m of grazing cattle on the Trent bank.
It is also a great chance to learn a bit about the plant species we have in our grasslands and the insects and other invertebrates that use them and throughout the morning, the group were treated to good views of several butterfly and dragonfly species and learned how to identify many of our common plant species.
After a spot of lunch at the beach hut, we moved onto reed planting on the old silt lagoon and managed to plant 1000 seedlings onto the newly developing reedbed. The reed planting is supplementing natural reed growth nicely, with some good dense patches of new reed appearing over the re-developed areas of Phase 1 and the old silt lagoon.
And once again, a big thank you to all involved for a productive and very enjoyable day’s work.
Here are some photos from the day, courtesy of volunteer Barrington Randle.
Planting and fencing off reed seedlings on the old silt lagoon.
And a spot of lunch at the beach hut.