the 'todays job' thread

[Ty Korrigan]

Harry Potter and the line clearance job.

Synopsis:

Our hero aged 15 3/4 is asked if his Nintendo skills are transferable and given command of a 7t 19m MEWP for the day.

  This was a Fat Groundy Production.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Ty Korrigan

[doobin]

Some scrub clearance. Both the alpine and multione flat out carting to the dump site, this is pretty dense. 

The site scrubs up well with a pass from the cut and collect. Might be just in time to save the habitat. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by doobin

[Mick Dempsey]

What habitat is that you’re trying to save?

[doobin]

11 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

What habitat is that you’re trying to save?

Acid heath. 

[Stubby]

8 minutes ago, doobin said:

Acid heath. 

Sandy soil then Doobs ?

[Stere]

Just looks abit  like a field would if left to go wild?

 

 

 

I thought of acid heaths as more heathery not so much grass or bracken

 

 

[bigtreedon]

Couple of beech for out nice day at the east coast 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[doobin]

23 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Sandy soil then Doobs ?

Very. It's over near Coates.

 

@stere- you are correct! See below. Also take a close gander at the pic post flail collecting- you'll see some heather that I deliberately missed. The grassy patches in the other photos are areas that we cleared a year ago. They have come back (along with supplementary bracken rolling and flail collecting) to a good variety of fine acid grassland, which along with some heather is just the ticket for the field cricket- what this is all about. Of course we're balancing other interests here too, so there are some scrapes for lizards, beetle banks from the scraped turf, plenty of scalloped edges, various growth stages of scrub, some deadwood and some songposts for the birds.

 

Acid heath with the right boxes ticked is worth £700 / ha /year under the new stewardship options. Yet desite this, correct manangement is very often lacking. Sometimes just a pass with a topper so that if they are ever inspected for compliance it still vaguely resembles heath. I'm torn between being grateful for the work, and wishing that it was just maintained correctly in the first place.

 

When it gets too far gone, capital works projects like this are applied for. By pulling the scub out by the roots and moving it to a dump site, you remove the potential nitrogen loading that would arise from just mulching it and also end up with randomised bare ground- which luckily is exactly what heather (the seeds of which can lay dormant for 80 years) needs to germinate. Basically, if heather was present in the past (and it was here before it was all put to pine plantation) then it will come back given the right conditions.

 

It's quite an interesting job. I really like it- it's a long run of work, nobody bothers you, you deal with one set of staged payments, it's reasonable money. And if you take a little bit of time to understand exactly what is required and learn some plants you can do a really good job. Quite satisfying when you're ripping out the gorse taller than the machine, and you come to a little patch of heather just hanging on. So you clear all around it and give it space to breathe, along with some bare ground to spread. Not all the gorse needs to come out, and the minor gorse can be left wherever it is found.

[Stere]

How one modest shrub entrapped humans in its service | Aeon Essays

AEON.CO

---

As Neolithic people transformed prehistoric forests, they stumbled into an ecological trap. Domestication goes both...

 

Thought this  article was an interesting  viewpoint on heather....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JLA1990]

38 minutes ago, doobin said:

Very. It's over near Coates.

 

@stere- you are correct! See below. Also take a close gander at the pic post flail collecting- you'll see some heather that I deliberately missed. The grassy patches in the other photos are areas that we cleared a year ago. They have come back (along with supplementary bracken rolling and flail collecting) to a good variety of fine acid grassland, which along with some heather is just the ticket for the field cricket- what this is all about. Of course we're balancing other interests here too, so there are some scrapes for lizards, beetle banks from the scraped turf, plenty of scalloped edges, various growth stages of scrub, some deadwood and some songposts for the birds.

 

Acid heath with the right boxes ticked is worth £700 / ha /year under the new stewardship options. Yet desite this, correct manangement is very often lacking. Sometimes just a pass with a topper so that if they are ever inspected for compliance it still vaguely resembles heath. I'm torn between being grateful for the work, and wishing that it was just maintained correctly in the first place.

 

When it gets too far gone, capital works projects like this are applied for. By pulling the scub out by the roots and moving it to a dump site, you remove the potential nitrogen loading that would arise from just mulching it and also end up with randomised bare ground- which luckily is exactly what heather (the seeds of which can lay dormant for 80 years) needs to germinate. Basically, if heather was present in the past (and it was here before it was all put to pine plantation) then it will come back given the right conditions.

 

It's quite an interesting job. I really like it- it's a long run of work, nobody bothers you, you deal with one set of staged payments, it's reasonable money. And if you take a little bit of time to understand exactly what is required and learn some plants you can do a really good job. Quite satisfying when you're ripping out the gorse taller than the machine, and you come to a little patch of heather just hanging on. So you clear all around it and give it space to breathe, along with some bare ground to spread. Not all the gorse needs to come out, and the minor gorse can be left wherever it is found.

Nice work when you get it.

 

We were tasked with translocating turves a few months back. Turves moved onto prepped areas of tall ruderal vegetation on a meadow to form one large area of unimproved grassland. Idea is for it to be managed effectively and provide a high quality grassland of value for nature conservation. The grassland is species-rich with several acid/neutral grassland indicator plants such as corky-fruited water dropwort and hoary ragwort.