Ragwort and horses

[Esther Hegt]

Originally Posted by animartco

BUT we have other winds in Britain. The highest number of twisters in the world! Most are just enough to lift seeds thirty feet up where a stiffer wind carries them away. And of course the wind is frequently strong enough to whip whole clumps of seed off plants and take them out across neighbouring fields.

Does your English wind have any correlation to 6500 dead horses a year like prof Knottenbelt claims?

[animartco]

Originally Posted by Littlesparrow

When i started this thread i didn't know it would cause so much controversy. I am sitting in Southern Germany at the moment and out of interest looked about to see if we could find any ragwort, there is very little here, either it hasn't spread here or the conditions don't suit it.

Hi Little Sparrow.
No the reason it isn't around is because the people there aren't irresponsible enough to deliberately grow it and let it seed.

[animartco]

Originally Posted by Esther Hegt

Does your English wind have any correlation to 6500 dead horses a year like prof Knottenbelt claims?

Esther you ought to come over here and see the state of our countryside. You wouldn't believe the numbers of large flowering ragwort plants there are everywhere you look! At this rate in a couple of years it'll be our commonest weed.

[Esther Hegt]

Originally Posted by animartco

Esther you ought to come over here and see the state of our countryside. You wouldn't believe the numbers of large flowering ragwort plants there are everywhere you look! At this rate in a couple of years it'll be our commonest weed.

In the Netherlands we have Stichting Floron, they do cartering wild plants.
On my Dutch website I have some floracards about our Ragwort from 1900 till now. ragwort in the Netherlands The page is written in Dutch, but the cards are images. There is some increase but if you look at the maps you can see ragwort was always common in the Netherlands.
Ragwort comes and goes, there are places they do nothing and they have discovered when you do nothing ragwort bullies itself away (Bezemer M ., J A. Harvey, G. A. Kowalchuk, H. Korpershoek & W. H. Van der Putten. 2006. Ecology, 87(8), 2006, pp. 2002-2013). In a pasture it is not a good idea, but in reservates it works very well, it take some time but it works.
In England was it always common too (Harper, J. L. & W. A. Wood. 1957. Senecio jacobaea L. The Journal of Ecology 45: 617-637).
I understand that people have fear about ragwort, but I think the media makes the fear. They can better write articles about good pasture management and journalists have to control or the numbers of victims are real or based on fear. It is important that horsekeepers can identify poisonous plants. In the Netherlands there was also a lot of fear, but now the papers write in context. A lot of people do manage their fields much better now to prevent ragwort in their field.
I know it is awfull to loose a horse by liverfailure, my horse died by liverfailure but we are very sure it was no ragwort.

Esther

[Stinky Bob]

Originally Posted by animartco

Esther you ought to come over here and see the state of our countryside. You wouldn't believe the numbers of large flowering ragwort plants there are everywhere you look! At this rate in a couple of years it'll be our commonest weed.

It maybe where you live but where I live with countryside as far as the eye can see (in all directions) then your I think rather over the top statements are wholly incorrect. I see fields of yellow but they are Oil Seed Rape and dandelion's on the fields that are scrub.

[John_M]

Originally Posted by animartco

Esther you ought to come over here and see the state of our countryside. You wouldn't believe the numbers of large flowering ragwort plants there are everywhere you look! At this rate in a couple of years it'll be our commonest weed.

I think you'll find that that statement is in disagreement with the scientific studies.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by John_M

I think you'll find that that statement is in disagreement with the scientific studies.

that'll make a change then

[FungiJohn]

Now is probably a good time to close this thread.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in a positive way.

John