I visit Langholm Moor in Dumfries-shire, last
week. This moor is part of the Buccleuch
Estates and the focus for a 10 year, large-scale, demonstration project. See the project’s website for more
details. However, the main reason for
the visit was to inspect the plots that have been prepared as part of a heather
restoration trial after an attack by heather beetle. This work is separate from the demonstration
project, it is being supervised by the Trust’s President , Prof Rob Marrs, and
funded by Scottish Natural Heritage.
Since I was last a Langholm, some changes
have taken place. In the wake of two
large-scale heather beetle attacks in consecutive years, the heather needed to
be given a break from grazing. Stock
removal was agreed with the estate’s tenants, last year and this year, a long
length of fence has been constructed to control the movement of stock and
maintain the exclusion area. Such fences
are ugly, intrusive and expensive, but they are also very effective.
I was struck by the response of the
heather. It was growing strongly within
the stock exclusion area and with the prospect of another winter without
grazing, when the stock tend to remove all the growth achieved in the summer, I
would expect the condition of the heather to improve markedly. Heather was regenerating on the many areas
after muirburn and the areas that had been cut were also showing heather. On its own the improving condition of the
heather may not answer the challenge faced by the estate and the project staff
to restore grouse numbers, but a good stock of heather is an essential
ingredient.
