LETTERS & ADVICE DEALING WITH WEEDS Coping with Ragwort


Lew Difford analyses the return of weeds, and comes up with an unusual tactic


Ash Regrowth W


Classified Ads Terry Faull asks about rabbit control


e have a 3.5ha woodland which was planted in a rather formal fashion in 2009, with mainly oak and ash. It has now reached the stage where it requires some thinning and you


may be interested in two approaches we are trying. Last spring we cut a few ash trees in the hope that they would


regrow from the stumps, but this has not happened and it has been suggested that this is because of a lack of light combined with possibly rabbits eating any young growth (we do not have deer in the wood). This year we are trying two methods, by cutting the trees in a group down to ground level in one area in the hope that increased light levels will encourage regrowth. Elsewhere we are cutting alternate individual trees but doing so to


Ragwort stalks surround a monkey puzzle tree near Lew Difford's woodland in Hampshire. "Had the path not be cut through in late summer beside the monkey puzzle, that area too would have been a maze of ragwort," he says. Lew has tried many tactics to combat the ragwort in his own woodland, the Three Corner Field (right)


shaped field in 2003 from a local farmer; it was farmland that had reverted to grassland, with no trees at all. All three sides have well-established hedgerows and one of them borders the railway line that runs from Salisbury to Bathingstroke [where I swim regularly]. I started planting saplings, mainly


I


broadleaf and native species in 2004 as a memorial wood for my late parents and other loved ones who have died. By 2009 I had 2,600 trees in various stages of growth from saplings, with about 100 feature trees that were about 3m when planted. With the help and support of MoreWoods in 2010 I was able to plant a further 900 saplings, all native species. More than half are ash so fingers crossed and so far so good, no sign of the dreaded Dieback. Nature has been left pretty much to its


own devices, except for the first three years of each new batch of saplings that enjoyed a metre diameter spray zone to kill weeds. Ragwort began to appear and I religously


'pulled' it year after year as that was the advice I had been given. Other than cutting 'lanes' twixt every third row or so to enable me to walk the wood in summer I do not have the grass cut and apart from one year at the beginning of my occupancy no grazing has taken place. In 2011 there was an influx of cinnabar


moth caterpillars and they devoured much of that year's curse. However, 2012 was of nightmare proportions, the ragwort 2m high with masses of flowering heads and it was too thick to even consider 'pulling' [I was 69 that year]. It was like a very thick forest and too dense to walk through! Don't get me wrong, it looked absolutely glorious and was a haven for butterflies and bees


26 Smallwoods New Year 2014


am a Small Woods member and have an eight acre plantation in Overton, Hampshire. I bought the triangular-


etc..., but I decided to read as much as I could about the pestilence. I even went on a woodland seminar in Oxford to see if I could elicit any useful advice from the assembled delegates. Unfortunately most of those in attendance had established woods with canopies that kept down the ragwort manace and I was unable to get any real input on the day. Having decided that it was an impossible


task to 'pull' that volume of ragwort in 2012, I opted for a strategy of simply leaving it to seed, as some of the online sites were advocating this as a solution; they postulated that 'pulling' simply exacerbated the problem for next year as the seeds, though airborne, only spread within a 2m radius of the host plant and would find bare earth to germinate in. I have a host of rabbits resident in and around the field so there are inevitable patches of bare earth but most areas of the field are covered with some sort of vegetation, mainly grass and wild weeds. The amazing result is that not only did


I have very little ragwort this 2013 season, much less that 10% of 2012, but the ragwort that I did have were thankfully covered with cinnabar moth caterpillars, which devoured the vast majority of the plants. Granted the weather conditions this year have been totally different to 2012, so it may not be a good direct comparison and maybe we will have to wait until 2014 to see whether it was indeed the strategy of allowing the plants to seed and die that made such a significant difference. I just thought you might be interested in my experience. For the avoidance of doubt, in case


any horse lovers are watching, I do have neighbouring fields that graze horses but the hedges all round my field are extensive and very thick and as the research I read suggested that the seeds only blow a couple of metres from the host plant I took a calculated risk. I told my neighbours of the action [or lack of action, in fact] I was taking and though a little concerned they did not experience any increased invasion as a result; they spray each year in any case. There is also no danger that any of the ragwort will end up as forage as I do not harvest the grassland for profit or otherwise. I hope you find this of interest and


perhaps there are lessons for others [that also do not make 'hay' while the sun shines] to learn from my experiment with ragwort?


As well as having to cope with the ragwort, Lew Difford now has a 'creeping evil' invading his Hampshire woodland (right). He cannot identify the creeper at the moment, and welcomes any suggestions


Second Opinion Lew Difford has an interesting and controversial approach to what is a real problem for many landowners. If you have experience of tackling ragwort (successfully or not) we'd be very happy to hear from you. We should also draw your attention to the obligation that landowners have under the Ragworth Control Act 2003 to effectively control the plant to prevent its spread to grazing land.


leave a stump of about 0.75m to see if this stops any potential rabbit browsing of new growth. I wonder if other members have experience of these methods? I suspect you are right when you blame the lack of regrowth on light and rabbits, although I think if you coppiced just the odd tree, lack of light would have been the major factor. You will probably get more success with your heavier thinning, but if you wish to establish a mixed coppice I would cut in larger blocks of at least 10m square to give more light. It really depends on your objectives. If you are aiming for quality timber then I would say that you are thinning a bit too early, as the intention would be, in this case, to free up the crowns of the better trees by removing those of poorer form, whilst ensuring sufficient side shade on the better trees to draw them up and suppress side branch formation. Your approach of coppicing at a couple of feet high has been tried by a few members with some success, but if you do have deer, this method will make the new shoots even more accessible.


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Since Terry wrote to us he has had mixed results from his two approaches. "There is not doubt that the ash trees which were cut off at about 2.5m high have had the most regrowth. Bearing in mind we are not growing for timber production, the first group are most successful. I suspect that in each case the light levels are a significant factor."


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