Harvested heather shoots as a resource for heathland restoration

Abstract

Large quantities of woody stems bearing seed capsules can be cut readily from heathland in the autumn and winter. Unlike other sources of heathland propagules, harvested shoots are a renewable resource which can be collected as part of routine conservation management. A study on heathland in Dorset, England compared the regeneration capacity of harvested heather shoots on both abandoned farmland and mineral wastes. Harvested shoots contained large numbers of seed of heather species. Seed of other heathland plant species was present, but in a smaller proportion to that of intact vegetation. Variations in the amount of biomass and seed collected from different sites were due to differences in vegetation age and composition, management history and topography, as well as the time of year when collected. Adequate reinstatement of the heathland plant community could be achieved using as little as 0·6 kg m −2 of harvested shoots, and it is possible to restore between two and five times the area harvested. It is likely that the woody stems provided suitable microsites for the germination and survival of heathland species and acted as a mulch, conserving moisture on skeletal mineral wastes and suppressing weed growth on farmland. The depth of harvested shoots applied to the substrate was found to have a critical effect on heather seedling germination and recruitment at the small scale.