Rush for first reed harvest

LAST week saw the exciting first harvest of bulrush heads for The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside’s wetter farming trial site on a farm on Chat Moss in Greater Manchester.

- By KIRSTY TYLER Lancashire Wildlife Trust

After a huge amount of work in the last two years transforming what was once a waterlogged and unproductive field into a pioneering wetter farming trial, the first harvest of bulrush seed heads has started on Steve Denneny’s farm in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester is home to Chat Moss, once one of the largest expanses of lowland raised peat bog in the UK.

But sadly, only fragments of the once healthy soggy wetland landscape remains after it was drained for agriculture to provide food for the rising population in the 20th century.