Last Sunday (July 24th), with the help of some fantastic volunteers, we conducted our Meadow Survey at Centenary Field!
This monitoring of Centenary Field will help us to keep track of whether our new biodiversity management plan increases the number of plant species in the hay meadow. Our biodiversity management plan is a long-term strategy, and it may take up to six years for big differences to become visible!
The type of assessment we carried out was a “Rapid Assessment Meadow Survey” to look for positive and negative indicator species – AKA, species which represent the diversity and overall health of the grassland.
We investigated twenty individual “quadrats” (1m x 1m squares), recording all the indicator species found within each quadrat square. We were very pleased to find several positive indicators, including vetchlings, sweet vernal grass, buttercups, and yellow rattle.
We’d love to say a great big THANK YOU to all of our fantastic volunteers, who managed to help us investigate all twenty quadrats within 2 hours. Brilliant stuff!
If you are interested in volunteering for future Climate & Nature projects, please sign up to our Climate & Nature volunteer mailing list.
