The bracken problem and its control in northern Scotland

Abstract

SynopsisBracken is not a major weed problem on hill land in the north of Scotland, being restricted by environmental factors to the lower slopes of sheltered glens. There is no evidence of widespread stock poisoning by bracken in the area.Ploughing and reclamation, forestry planting and spraying with the selective herbicide asulam have considerably reduced infestations of bracken on land worthy of improvement. At the present time there is little scope for further economic control of bracken.Field experiments have defined full frond emergence from mid July to mid August as the most effective time for application of asulam. Reinfestation in about five years has been shown to follow incomplete control on small plots but an area sprayed by helicopter in 1972, where a very high degree of initial control was achieved, remained almost free of bracken in 1980.Easier handling of stock and increased availability of summer grazing are reported following bracken control. An increase in herbage production has been measured experimentally in the second year after removal of the bracken by spraying.

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Clonal Plants

“…This was a specifically spatial phenomenon, justifying the use of a spatially explicit model, and was also consistent with the applied literature on P. aquilinum (e.g. Scragg, 1982;Pakeman et aI., 1997). The emergence of finescale spatial structure from biological interactions is a widespread characteristic of spatial simulation models parameterized from field systems .…”

Survival and spread of the endophyte Stagonospora pteridiicola in Pteridium aquilinum, other ferns and some flowering plants

“…Bracken [Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn] is a widespread Australasian plant whose typical form ranges from Britain and Sweden to the Caucasus, and throughout most of Africa. Variants extend to South-east Asia and North America (Willis, 197S), Bracken has extensively colonized heathland, moorland, woodland and some pastures across Britain where it has often hecome dominant (Macleod, 1982;Scragg, 1982). Godfrey (1974) characterized hriefly the phylloplane mycoflora of P. aquilinum, and more extensive investigations have been carried out by Frankland (1966Frankland ( , 1969Frankland ( , 1976 who isolated species of Phoma and Stagonospora from apparently healthy petioles.…”