There's also a page on the FoE blog entitled "Is ragwort poisonous? A ragwort mythbuster"
You can read that
here It would seem that the context for the briefing paper linked in my first post was a move to make public bodies be more proactive in controlling ragwort. FoE clearly think the plant should be left to fulfil its ecological role where it is not posing any direct threat to livestock, as do I.
However, the tone of the briefing paper, read outwith that context, seems to head in the other direction, and imply that ragwort is best left wherever it grows, even in horse paddocks. That, I think, could be misinformation and potentially lead to animal welfare issues.
Native ponies such as Fells and Shetlands, when kept on better grassland, have to be kept on slim pickings in spring and summer in order to reduce the risk of laminitis. Therefore they may be hungry enough to eat ragwort plants. And possibly may unwittingly eat ragwort plants which are at the 'rosette' stage, when the plant is flat to the ground and not as easy to distinguish as when it has grown its flowering stems.
The advice on the mythbuster page talks about letting ragwort set and release seed so long as there is no bare ground for the seeds to germinate on. Well, where ponies are tightly grazed (see above), there may be bare or nearly bare patches of earth. (And without this being as a result of neglect, in fact, quite the reverse.). Plus, where there are hedgerows and sheep, and there has been rain or sun, there will always be bare patches of earth in the lea of the hedges where the sheep have sheltered and lain.
In Cumbria, we had Marsh Ragwort in the wet ground, which we left, but occasionally got the odd Common Ragwort plant in the odd location, presumably grown from seed arriving on tourists' boots or trousers. We always pulled these plants up by the roots, once they'd flowered, wrapped them securely in plastic bags, and discarded them in the landfill waste. We almost never got regrowth in the same place in subsequent years.
Here, what I understand to be the case is that the folks here have been diligent in removing ragwort plants from the hedgerows and margins of the one field where it appears, but that it is there every year. No doubt some seed arrives on the wind from the nearby main road, where it grows unchecked on the verges - and will find bare earth on which to germinate in these locations in our meadow, for the reasons I've described above. It is also possible that some of the plants are now perennial, complete removal including all roots having not been accomplished.
I will do more research, but my current thinking is that we continue to remove ragwort plants here, anywhere here, as a) we have ponies and cattle, in particular we have ponies that need to be grazed very tightly in order to reduce the risk of laminitis and b) we make hay, and ragwort is at its most dangerous in hay as it is more palatable when dried. However, I am proposing that in general, we do not attempt removal until the plant is well in flower.
Currently we think that plants only grow in the hedgerows and margins in that one meadow, and therefore we should be safe to make hay from the inner parts of the field, and from other fields. After hay making, we would dig up any flowering ragwort plants not already removed, and let the cattle in first, who would eat the long grasses left around the margins but leave any ragwort plants standing. Once the plants are standing proud, neither sheep nor ponies will graze them, so we could then let these back onto the shortened margins and the fog. We'd continue to remove the plants once they've flowered.
We may need to remove some plants at the rosette stage if there is a risk to grazing animals at that point, but in general, if we do not have sheep or ponies grazing on lean pickings where there might be rosette plants, we should be safe. We will, of course, need to keep an eye on the growing plants to be sure that nothing has been nibbling. And also need to continually review the risk of ragwort getting into hay.
Topic: Ragwort (Read 8493 times)
