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A minor or major problem in Shetland?

Or none at all?

If a problem how are you trying to solve it? Mechanically, with herbizides or...? Success?

 

Here the level in the regions differ extremely. We ourselves are (still) in the lucky position of having none. A few km away there are grazings badly affected.

How is the situation in Shetland?

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Commonly referred to in Shetland and the Tansy.

 

Its patchy, and may appear where you least expect it. Sheep eat it, so with sheep being nigh on almost everywhere, you don't realise its around until you graze exclusively with other stock, and after 2-3 years or so suddenly the field is yellow with the damn stuff.

 

I don't think you'll find any on virgin hill/rough grazing ground, least I've never seen any appear on that. Ground formerly cultivated but lain a long time fallow is the commonest place for it. It can creep in to old reseeded grazing ground a little, but it doesn't usually come to much there, and it has been known to start appearing in grassland intended for cutting if its been a number of years since it was last cultivated/never have been cultivated hay meadows.

 

That said, you can have one field that's in danger of being over-run with it, yet just across the boundary on someone else's field, there will be none, despite both fields apparently being treated the same. The historic husbandry of any one plot of land seems to be something of a factor in either encouraging or discouraging it.

 

Anyone who has some in a field they're intending to cut for silage, or hay for horses has little option but spray it to kill it off, otherwise folk don't generally do much of anything about it unless maybe going over the grazing field once the plants have flowered, and pull them up roots and all. It doesn't get rid of it, but at least it keeps it in check.

 

The best way to be rid of it is graze the ground with sheep in the spring/early summer for a few years, they'll eat the young plants and kill it off temporarily. Once it starts re-colonising, just repeat.

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one years seed - seven years weed.

 

Some of the crofts around me are getting overrun with it but I have found that so long as I'm vigilant and get every stray plant out before it sets seed I can keep control. This year I only found two but if I had let it do it's own thing I would be swamped in the stuff in only a few years. I have never seen it on land well grazed by sheep but if any seed has fallen on the land in the previous seven years (or maybe longer) it will appear in your fields as soon as you change the grazing pattern.

 

Someone once told me it was illegal to harbour it on your land but that may just have been wishfull thinking on their part. I certainly never see any enforcement.

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Its getting to be a problem on Fair isle because there are very few of us who treat it when its on our land.

 

 

Always a slap in the face when you are removing plants every day only to see it being left to go rampant on neighbouring crofts.

 

 

It is actually ilegal to allow it to grow on your land, but wont be enforced unless the address is reported as doing so.

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It is actually ilegal to allow it to grow on your land, but wont be enforced unless the address is reported as doing so.

 

Nope it's actually "protected" and illegal for anyone to pick or remove other than the land owner. You can request that the landowner does something about their land, or if on public property, the council must treat a problem if reported. The only way that a land owner has to deal with a ragwort problem is by court order.

The same rules apply for thistles & dockens, and you see everyone dealing with those here too (no sarcasm smiley?).

Round this way some fields it's quite amazing the sheep manage to find anywhere to graze for the thistles.

 

ooh edit and a reference http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1959/cukpga_19590054_en_1

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I am manic about ragwort for obvious equine reasons.

 

I ragwort religiously - either spray with Magneto, or pull (the ones I forgot) and then burn.

 

I loathe the stuff. I start itching if I see it on other folk's land.

 

It does such damage and no one cares or does anything about it apart from me, it seems.

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Sorry Francis.

Not trying to sound cold.

You're not the only one who cares. Ragwort posioning is not pleasent for horses.

It just bugs me when folk talk about notifiable plants. the closest to that is the list in part II http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1981/cukpga_19810069_en_33#sch13

 

These are the plants where

 

Subject to the provisions of this Part, if any person plants or otherwise causes to grow in the wild any plant which is included in Part II of Schedule 9, he shall be guilty of an offence.

 

Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 14(2)

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I did read that animals tend to avoid ragwort if it's growing, but sometimes folk pull it up and leave the plant behind, then animals eat it and get sick.

 

Any truth to this?

 

Sheep will quite happily seek out ragwort, and not suffer too ill an effect - it takes a lot to poison a healthy adult sheep.

 

Horses though are not quite so strong of stomach and will normally avoid ragwort due to it's bitter taste. Unfortunately once picked it loses that bitterness and is very dangerous in hay/silage (for horses)

 

I found the whole thing really interesting about poisonous plants, after discovering Giant Hogsweed on an island at the swimming beach, before that I'd always been told botanic gardens needed a licence to grow it, so was intregued to see it in the wild. Ragwort however is native and therefore "protected" under the same act.

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In some fields, you would think folk were growing it as a cash crop.

 

I am sure others are just as vigilant as me, but ragwort pulling is a lonely business and I sometimes feel that I am alone in my vigil against this ruddy plant.

 

As for sheep and cows, very few of them live long enough for damage to be seen. It still does damage them, I am told but find me a sheep or cow that is allowed to live until old age. Very few.

 

Liver damage is a grotty death for any animal.

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^^ Cows will refuse to eat it, either in grazings or in hay. I'm pretty sure its the smell of it that puts they off it. In silage its a whole other matter, as the sap from the plants spreads through a disproportionate area of the pit/bale and cattle end up eating it unwittingly. They don't ingest much, relatively speaking, before the effects begin to show. I've had cattle as old as 14 and sheep getting close on the same age grazing in parks with it, and neither showed any ill effects.

 

By that age both were most definitely showing signs of old age, and unless for a high maintenance pet for a short time they were close to the ends of their days in every sense of the term.

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you probably have seen this already but it's one of the defra leaflets on the control of ragwort http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/management/weeds/pdf/cop_ragwort.pdf

 

and general guidance on ragwort, docks and thistles http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/management/weeds/weedscontrol.htm

 

this is also an interesting dutch site http://www.ragwort.jakobskruiskruid.com/

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Its not only dangerous to sheep/cows/horses - grazing animals, if you go pulling it without gloves and get sap on your from broken stocks, your skin is also absorbing the same toxins.

 

Personally, I've never found that sheep will eat ragwort, rather they eat round it, which come spring, makes it decidely easier to locate once the florettes start to appear.

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