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Field twinning – P-mining for grassland restoration LIFE Nardus & Limosa
12. September 2023
Join the field trip!
The LIFE Nardus & Limosa project aims for the restoration of meadow-heathland systems that are rich in Nardus grasslands. Nardus grasslands (named after the characteristic mat grass, Nardus stricta) are restricted to nutrient-poor sandy soils with a little loam, making them slightly richer than heathlands. The specific environmental conditions favour rare species of flora and fauna.
Historically, the management practices that have been applied include mowing and grazing. However, restoration of the habitat type from intensively used agricultural land is more challenging, with mowing alone being insufficient. Removal of the topsoil layer, which holds excessive amounts of phosphate, is relatively destructive regarding soil biodiversity, seed bank and breeding grassland birds. Recent attempts have implemented phosphorous-mining (P-mining). By adding nutrients to the fields to be converted, biomass production is increased and a boost is given to extract phosphorous.
Join us on a practical field day in the eastern part of the Netherlands where we will visit nature and farmland areas where P-mining projects have taken place or are still ongoing. Questions to be addressed are “What are the (dis)advantages of this management approach?” and “How can the results be optimised?”.
The field day is organised by the LIFE Nardus & Limosa project team (Natuurpunt, ANB and Brabants Landschap) and will be supervised by experts from the Louis Bolk Institute, Stichting Bargerveen and Ghent University.
Interested? Join us for this free field visit 12 September. Participants are asked to arrange their own travel, and if necessary, accommodation. Eurosite will support in finding carpooling opportunities.
Send us an email with your name, organisation, mode of travel, and phone number to info@eurosite.org.