One of the projects I've been working on recently is a trial to see if we can use a substance called gypsum to improve the quality of the soil on the reserve. Due to how wet its been it's taken me a while to get the project completed, however this week I'm pleased to say it's all been finished off! This is just the first year of the trial, which we're carrying out on a small area of the Greenaways field.
Initially I took some base line soil samples to see what the structure of the soil is currently like. The samples showed that the soil doesn't really have a great structure being mainly made up of big clay lumps. The gypsum though should chemically break up these lumps giving a finer soil that will benefit insects, plants and everything which feeds on them.
Having taken the samples and after being granted permission from Natural England to go ahead with the trial, I've been waiting for a break in the weather. I didn't want to spread the gypsum on wet ground and so I was very thankful that this week provided a dry oppurtunity and using a fertiliser spreader I was able to triumphantly spray my gypsum out over the trial plot area. Now I just need a bit of rain to dissolve the gypsum and wash it down into the soil. We're going to monitor the situation every year to see if any changes in the structure of the soil, worm number and plant species growing in the plot occur.
This time last year there was hardly any water around. This year there’s lots of water. In both situations we have to carefully and sensitively manage how much is on the reserve. Using sluices and sometimes pumps, we can move water round the reserve and also bring more on or take some off if necessary. This morning the Ashgrave pump was turned on to drain the Noke bridleway, this area is prone to flooding and so we’ve had the pump on all day taking water from the balancing pond next to the bridleway and moving it into one of our other fields called Big Otmoor.
I wasn't down on the moor for long today but in terms of birds I got great veiws of a goldcrest on the Roman Road, about 100 golden plover coming up of the MOD, 200 lapwings were moving round the moor and a pair of stonechat on Greenaways. The bittern was seen again today from the first reedbed viewing screen and a brambling was feeding on seed spread in the Greenaways gateway.