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pfm Picture A Week (PAW) 2021

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A somewhat melancholy couple of days, we finally had the opportunity to say farewell to my wife's mum & dad who passed away last year. At their request(s) their ashes were taken to the places of their choosing. I am very fond of the small Staffordshire Moorlands town of Leek, it holds fond memories for me, but the real magic lies in the surrounding area which is just stunningly beautiful.

St Edwards by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

Fuji X-T2/XF23-1.4R
 
Jacobaea vulgaris (ragwort, stinking willie)

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How I hate ragwort, the destroyer of hay meadows. We have horses, and I obsessively walk the fields at this time of year, pulling up and burning every plant before it can spread its thousands of seeds.

It used to be a notifiable weed, and it was the duty of the landowner to remove it, but councils have long since lost the interest and resources, and via the roadside verges it has moved from endemic to epidemic over recent years. For some reason that I find incomprehensible it seems to be developing an undeserved status - it recently featured in a 'wild' garden displayed by the RHS.
 
The good lady & I took a walk along the Shropshire Union Canal between Berwood and Wheaton Ashton. A lovely warm summers day with barely a breeze but out of nowhere came a warm downpour!

Sea change
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Here it comes..
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Rainbows ahoy!
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Ragwort is not a problem in reality. It is avoided by livestock due to its taste and is only an issue if included in dry hay crops used as feed. Very few animals have died from ragwort poisoning. The reason it was originally thought to be a problem was due to only asking one veterinary hospital how many cases they had seen and multiplied that percentage up to the entire horse population of the UK so statistically completely wrong. There is no legal requirement to remove it. In fact to do so would be illegal under the wildlife and countryside act. Seed only spreads about 2 m from the parent plant and the recommended strategy for eradication is to allow it to seed and ensure no bare ground nearby. It supports a very diverse fauna and is a native plant.
 
It does indeed support an interesting ecosystem, the most notable participant being the cinnabar moth. I have actually left plants with a cinnabar caterpillar population and gone back after a day or two to find the plant efficiently consumed.

But the cinnabar population is clearly insufficient to deal with the infestation that one witnesses all around us at the moment. I saw a couple of caterpillars on a plant two days ago and left it. This evening the plant was thriving, and the caterpillars had gone.

Ragwort is a indeed a native wildflower. It is invasive, and to these haymeadow owning eyes, ugly. Horses don't eat it unless it is dried in hay. We crop hay. It is one of 5 weeds mentioned in the 1959 Weeds Act, and there is an obligation upon landowners in to control it in circumstances of grazing or cropping for hay or silage, and landowners can be fined for failing to control it. It is only illegal to remove it if you don't have the permission of the landowner to do so.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-on-how-to-prevent-the-spread-of-ragwort
 
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