Hay rattle and roll

We have, mainly through inattention, created a Traditional Hay Meadow. There is grass in there, even some Lolium perenne, perennial rye-grass. If Irish agronomists had their way, a following wind and infinite money, the island's pastures would be 100% rye-grass; because scientific studies have shown it a) responds well to nitrates b) promotes faster weight-gain in livestock than any other forage species.

One of the consequences of our mowing / feeding / selective killing [ragwort bad; kill ragwort] practice is that we have A Lot [see L: >100 plants per sq.m in patches] of hay-rattle, gliográn, Rhinanthus minor. It was part of what got us nominated as Farmers for Nature last year. We were advised then to contact Wild Flower companies to seed-share. In June, at one of the Organic Open Days, we were button-holed by Saorla Kavanagh from Teagasc. She also waxed enthusiastic about us looking at getting cash for hay-rattle.

Hay-rattle [the round yellow or purple blobs L are the seed capsules] is in Family Orobanchaceae aka broomrapes. Most of the species in the family are parasitic on the roots of grasses and/or legumes including clover: they tap into the phloem and suck out the sugars generated by photosynthesis in the host. Hay-rattle is a pretty comprehensive disaster for farmers who want to grow livestock for money. But it is a useful additive in wildflower plantings on roadside verges and roundabouts, and bougie horse-paddocks If grass is suppressed, poppies and forget-me-nots, bedstraws and orchids can get their colourful flower-heads up and seen.

There is another possible viewpoint for maintaining a greater diversity of plant species where cattle and sheep graze. For us, it is quite possible to subsist on a diet of oatmeal porridge and buttermilk but that's an existence rather than a rich and healthy life.  A more diverse diet is going feed up our gut microbiome to better fight off pathogenic infections and release micronutrients and vitamins. I have an open mind on whether cattle self-medicate. My pal P did some work 40 years ago looking at how ovulation in kangaroos Osphranter rufus is driven by plant estrogens which become available after drought-break.

If I was the scientist I was when I was 18 y.o. I would have done a quadrat analysis to assess how many hay-rattle plants we have. That would require throwing a dart (. . . stick, rock, coat-hanger) at random into the field [with a string attached so it don't get lost] and counting the plants in a 1 metre square of which the dart is the SE corner . . . rinse, repeat say 10x. But 100 plants will do for order of magnitude estimate. We have 11 acres of trad.meadow over 4 fields. Round that down to 4 hectares = 40,000sq.m. I 'harvested' 10 hay-rattle plants on Monday evening and shook out [L] 2½g of seed - they are the size of tomato seed rather than poppy. That converts to 25g = 1oz per sq.m. or 1,000kg = 1 tonne in total! Wildflower folk are quoting €10/kg harvested. That's me on the piss tonight! or as soon as they payola.

Goaded by Saorla's call and with her help, we scared up some names and telephone numbers including Sandro Cafolla [bloboprev on ecotypes of Ash], who Wildflowers just over the far edge of our (tiny) county. He's been doing this for at least 30 years [and his website is about the same hand-cranked vintage]. We went on a courtesy call / informational interview there yesterday: mainly to see what machinery we'd have compacting the soil of our meadows. Could be a Hege 140 or a Hege 125  plot combine harvester.These teeny-combines were invented & developed by a German engineer called Hans-Ulrich Hege [1928-2021] to selectively harvest small plots for plant breeding stations, universities and experimental farms. They tread lightly on the earth. Alternatively a brush-harvester hauled behind a quad-bike. I R excite! New venture, bigging up biodiversity.