Rougham Estate Trust’s arable flora sampling survey on Rougham Estate 2019-2021 has revealed where rare arable flora is holding on in today’s modern farming regime. Over 150 wild plants are characteristic of the arable environment and together make up the most threatened group of flora in Britain, unable to compete with crops, herbicides and fertiliser. Over 100 annual arable plant species were recorded on Rougham Estate in field corner and field margin refuges, providing reservoirs for buried, dormant seeds that can thrive again if and when conditions are favourable.
Eight of the 100+ species recorded are classified as Red Data Book Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT) or Nationally Scarce and were found in very small numbers including Stinking Chamomile, Dwarf Spurge and Sharp-leaved Fluellen. A few historically recorded species such as Corn Mint, Prickly Poppy and Corn Spurrey were ‘missing’.
Rougham Estate is keen to look at management options such as cultivated margins and wild bird cover, under yet to be announced agri-environment schemes that will encourage rare and declining arable flora to thrive. In the meantime, records of rare and declining arable flora seen by walkers on the public and permissive footpaths would be welcomed – they can be sent to Suffolk Biological Information Service https://www.suffolkbis.org.uk/groups/about or uploaded using an excellent iRecord mobile app.
IMAGE: Once so frequent, the Common Poppy is now a rare sight in a commercially managed crop but holds on in scruffy field corners and field margins with other declining arable flora in spring sown crops such as sugar beet on Rougham Estate where they provide seeds for declining farmland birds.
