TAGUNGSBAND CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS - Offenlandinfo

Meadows provided by Rural
Development Programme (2007-2013)
as donor sites for species-poor meadows
– case study of Bystrzyca Kłodzka
region
Magdalena Szymura, Agnieszka Dradrach
Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences,
Department of Agroecosystems and Landscape Management,
Poland
In the last 50 years widespread losses and degradation of
grasslands have occurred in Europe. Main causes of this
situation are agricultural intensification, like land drainage,
application of high doses of fertilizers and conversion the
permanent grassland into crop fields. Nowadays several
projects were started to restore species-rich grassland,
however, restoration and extensification programmes
have not always been successful in re-establishing typical
grassland species. Two factors, that impede restoration
process are described: limitation of site (inappropriate site
conditions) and dispersal limitation (no seeds of grassland
species are available). In case of active restoration of
grassland by harvesting of valuable seed mixtures and the
usage of them to restore arable land and degraded grasslands.
The important factor depending on effectiveness of
re-establishing species is similarity of the renaturalizated
site and donor site. Mostly, as the donor sites are managed
exclusively for grasslands, placed in protected high-valuable
nature areas, whereas the degraded sites are located
near human disturbed areas. The distance influences the
successful restoration negatively, because of the difference
in site condition and plant composition. Better way would
be to use it as a source of seeds or hay as near as possible
to the grassland plant community. Through financial
compensation mechanisms, EU have supported extensive
grassland management. In Poland this programme started
in 2004 with accession to the European Union. Nowadays,
in Agri-environmental programme, realised by of the Rural
Development Programme (2007-2013), the extensive
grassland management is promoted in package 3 (extensive
permanent grassland), 4 (protection of endangered bird
species and natural habitats outside of Nature 2000 areas),
and 5 (protection of endangered bird species and natural
habitats in Nature 2000 areas). As a donor meadows for
restoration of the degraded grassland sites areas covered
with package 4th and 5th are useful. Species composition
of these meadows are described in detail in elaboration of
the flora documentation (variants 4.2-4.9 and 5.2-5.9).
Presented paper shows the possibility of using the documentation
of flora, made for Agri-environmental programme,
to find the best donor side in close neighbourhood of
resorted site.
38
Stellwand-Nr.
Poster Panel No. 29
Weed suppression and seed bank in
early grassland restoration - Can the
sowing of low diversity seed mixtures
be used in weed control?
Péter Török, Tamás Miglėcz, Orsolya Valkȯ, András Kelemen,
Szabolcs Lengyel, Béla Tothmeresz
University of Debrecen, Department of Ecology, Debrecen,
Hungary
Grassland restoration offers a great opportunity to mitigate
the loss of grassland biodiversity. Weed control can be
another benefit, which becomes increasingly important
because of the high recent rate of abandonment of arable
lands in Central and Eastern Europe. Grassland restoration
by seed sowing is often recommended where increased
weed domination can be foreseen. But the effectiveness of
restoration by sowing in weed control was rarely analysed.
Our aim was to evaluate the role of sowing two low-diversity
seed mixtures followed by annual mowing, a frequently
used restoration technique, in weed control. We found that
the rapidly forming cover of sown perennials effectively
suppressed short-lived weeds and prevented their germination
except in the first year. A high density of short-lived
weed seeds in the soil suggested that the restoration may
have promoted the preservation of their seed banks and
threatens with a possibility of later weed infestation. We
detected a few perennial weed species in the vegetation
of several fields, which cannot easily be suppressed by
annual mowing in the short run. We also found that fields
sown with the same seed mixture but with different site
history may be dominated by different perennial weed
species. Rapidly establishing perennial graminoid weeds,
such as Agropyron species were only detected in former
alfalfa fields. Conversely, the perennial weedy forb Cirsium
arvense was found in former cereal and sunflower fields
but not in former alfalfa fields. These results show that the
appropriate post-restoration management of new grasslands
may require carefully designed management actions
that are fine-tuned to address the emerging specific threats
at the site level.
Stellwand-Nr.
Poster Panel No. 30