THE Working Wetlands Project led by Devon Wildlife Trust is helping farmers to create new wildflower meadows in a sustainable and cost-effective way.

The conservation technique, known as 'green haying', involves transferring the seeds in a hay cut immediately to a new site and has proved remarkably successful over the last three years. 

It will be used to restore around 40 hectares of species-rich Culm grassland in the area around Roadford Reservoir during August.

Butterflies and bees benefit from the increase in wildflowers, but they are not the only winners. As the new meadows are managed with minimal inputs of nutrients, fewer phosphates and nitrates find their way in to nearby water courses, resulting in healthier streams of higher quality water.

In West Devon, the main target area for the project is Hollow Moor. Other target areas include Knowstone and Witheridge, and the Torridge and Tamar headwaters.

Mark Elliott, DWT's Working Wetlands project manager said: 'Once a potential site for restoration has been selected, the field needs to be carefully prepared so that there is some good bare earth for the seeds to germinate.  We then need to do a bit of match-making to find a suitable donor site rich in certain wild-flowers, such as yellow rattle. This site is then cut and baled into big round bales of green hay.'

One of the sites being used as a 'donor' was itself re-created as a wildflower meadow by the green haying process three years ago. In this time, farmer Simon Kerslake has seen his land move from receiving green hay to donating it.

Simon said: 'I farm right on the banks of Roadford Reservoir, and am being encouraged to take my steeper fields out of intensive production in order to help protect the water supply.  Creating meadows like this still gives us a good crop for our equine business as it is high in roughage, and low in sugars. It has also been amazing to see how good it is for the bees and other pollinating insects on the farm.'

Mark said: 'The next stage is to transport the bales of hay from the donor site and spread it across the receptor site, using a bale chopper. If the hay can't be spread quickly enough the heat builds up inside the bale which kills the seeds that are being transported.  We only have a few hours to do this so time is of the essence.'

Ninety hectares of Culm grassland have already been restored using green hay in north west Devon in the last three years, and the Working Wetlands team expects to double that over the next couple of years.