6
One wonders if any check is made by the Authority before deciding where to plant their
trees. I know of the Essex Protected Verge Scheme and also know that this verge is not on
the "Protected List", so the Council probably thought that the verge was of no wildlife
value. However there are hundreds of good verges in Essex which are not safeguarded by
the Protected Verges Scheme and which are therefore all at risk.
1 know the Essex Wildlife Trust checks planning applications for any wildlife impact, and
wonder if arrangements could be made to vet Council planting schemes before the trees
are planted. At present good wild flower verges are being destroyed simply because they
are not considered 'special'. Presumably, if I should pull up one of the newly planted trees
I would be considered a vandal, but if the Authority kills off wild plants by its actions
then that is a pity, but has to be accepted. If Councils are really keen to do something for
the environment they should make more effort to safeguard or even enhance the one
major resource for which they are responsible - namely the verges. Their record in Essex
in not impressive.
Going back to those 28,000 children, I hope the Trust can teach them that planting trees
everywhere is not always good for wildlife. I also hope that should they grow up to be
Councillors, or work in Local Government, then they will do better than the present
generation in authority.
Charles Watson
WATCH OUT FOR.....
After reading an article in Farmers Weekly 19.2.99 which mentions a resurgence of
Shepherd's needle Scandix pecten-veneris in Suffolk on chalky boulder clay, I felt an
article was called for to explain the situation and its possible follow-on in Essex.
Until the late 1940s Shepherd's needle was a common weed on chalk and chalky boulder
clay, but the coming of the hormone weedkillers controlled it efficiently together with all
the other broad-leaved weeds in cereal crops. Most of the other crops were still hand
hoed, to keep weed competition down and stop seeding. The population of seed in the soil
decreased and the plant quickly became veiy unusual, more so in Essex.
For many different reasons the hormone weedkillers became used much less, to the point
that they are hardly used at all now. Using a hormone weedkiller necessarily late in the
season does hit the crop and reduce the yield of cereals. Other products are more tolerant
of weather conditions and soil types and can be used much earlier in the season as well as
having some persistence, and cereal weed control is quite effective.
However the broad-leaved crops cannot be sprayed with the same products and a niche
exists similar to that used by poppies and cut-leaved geraniums in winter oilseed rape and
all crops which are drilled in the autumn. Shepherd's needle germinates over a very long
period stalling in the autumn but ceasing by the spring and spring-sown crops will not be
veiy much affected.
So the crops to watch for it are the autumn drilled broad-leaved break crops, not cereals.
It will be in drifts, sometimes quite thick, but beware of mistaking it for Fool's parsley
Aethusa cyanapium until the needles appear.
David Bloomfield
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 29, May 1999