When meeting people out at Flanders Moss we gets lots of questions about all the birch trees that are growing up around the boardwalk and the area to the west. People generally know that too many trees aren't good for the bog as they dry it out by sucking water out of the peat and intercepte the rain with their foliage so that it never reaches the bog surface. So they want to know what we are doing about them all. Well things are happening though it is not always obvious. One thing that is going on is in the Plantation, the 40 ha area to the west of the boardwalk over looked by the viewing tower. The conifer trees were removed back in 1997/8 and since then ditches have been blocked to make it wetter but the birch has still started to spread. In the long term we aim to get grazing going in this area to control the birch regrowth but in the meantime we are working with a fellow government agency Forest Research to trial methods of applying herbicide to kill the birch. Plots have been marked out with posts and herbicide applied to the small birch using different techniques to see which one works best and which one has least effect on the bog vegetation. You can see the cleared squares from the viewing tower.
Over the last couple of weeks Forest Research guys have been sweating it out in showers of rain and clouds of midges to fix markers in the plots and carry out studies on the effects of the herbicide.
So these plots are really just a little skirmish against the birch but should help us plan our tactics to escalate the conflict to a battle as part of an overall war. Cor, makes me sound like a war correspondent ! Will keep you posted from the front line.
