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WILD MEADOW HARVESTING |
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Our meadow mixtures are designed to reproduce, as far as possible, the best examples of plant communities as found in the wild. However, the unavoidable limitations of farm scale propagation will always mean that crop grown seed will never be as close to nature’s model as directly harvested wild seed.
DEVELOPMENT OF HARVESTING METHODSIn 1982 we were asked by English Nature if we might be interested in harvesting a seed mixture from North Meadow National Nature Reserve at Cricklade, Britain’s finest example of a lowland hay meadow. At that time there was no satisfactory method for harvesting a seed mixture directly from wild grassland, and therefore we set about developing the necessary techniques and machinery.
We have been returning to North Meadow regularly ever since to try out and test our ideas. Over the years we have trialled a variety of methods including extracting seed from hay bales, using a binder to gather the vegetation in sheaves, collecting seed from standing vegetation using various suction machines, and combine harvesters. Not happy with any of these we built a brush harvester which collects seed by means of a forward rotating soft brush. The design was based on the horse drawn wheat harvesters common in Australia 100 years ago. We first tried the new harvester in the summer of 1992 and quickly found that the technique was superior to all other methods we had used. Since then our brush harvesters have been successfully employed harvesting wild sites across the country.
METHOD OF HARVEST USING A BRUSH HARVESTERThe harvester is robust, simple in operation, and easily transported. Being side mounted on a tractor the wheels do not run on unharvested vegetation, and the harvester operates well on steep ground and can weave around scrub and ant hills.
Harvesting is usually a once over operation, and can proceed in any weather provided the vegetation is not wet to the touch.
The harvester is gentle in operation, causing far less disturbance to the vegetation and invertebrates than, for example, making hay. In fact hay making can proceed as normal directly after seed harvest.
The harvested seed consists of a good representative mixture of most of the seed shedding species present on the site, and the proportion of chaff and immature seed is low. Directly after harvest the seed is spread in the open to dry, and to allow any insects to escape. After cleaning, the seed can be placed in a cold store until required.
The work rate of the harvester is around 1.2 acres per hour on even ground and the yield of clean dry seed is 10-40 kilos per acre, each acre producing sufficient seed to sow 1-3 acres.
USES OF BRUSH HARVESTED SEED MIXTURESThe brush harvester readily harvests seed from most grasslands including meadows, pastures, chalk and limestone grassland, rough grassland, moorland and heaths. Most types of seed are harvested irrespective of seed shape, size or density, and harvesting can be repeated through the season if there is a wide spread in seeding dates.
The technique provides a means of obtaining a high quality, 100% native, local origin seed mixture. This has applications where a donor and recipient site can be matched. For example, using a nature reserve as a seed source to establish similar vegetation on an adjacent field, or harvesting an upland hay meadow in the Yorkshire dales and using the seed for local agri-environment schemes. The technique can also be used within landscaping for the restoration and translocation of vegetation.
AVAILABILITY OF BRUSH HARVESTERSWe are pleased to provide a brush harvesting service, with one machine based in Norfolk and another at Bath. This service includes a pre-harvest site visit, harvesting of the site, drying, cleaning and cold storage of seed until required. We are also able to supply new brush harvesters. Please contact our office for more details.
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Emorsgate Wild Seeds |
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