Ragweed, Ragwort, Jacobaea vulgaris or Senecio jacobaea all names of the dreaded yellow perril, the nightmare invader of livestock pastures, road-sides and abandoned ground.
I found out about the rather amusing name of "Stinking Willie" after doing some research into it's history, commonly known by this name in Scotland because it spread in the path of William, Duke of Cumberland’s Culloden campaign in 1746. Since the industrial revolution the dandelion type seeds have been more widely spread by trains and motorway corridors than conquering armies!
For as long as I have had anything to do with horses or the countryside I have been aware of the dangers of this member of the daisy family and been reminded often. It is highly poisonous to all, causing severe liver damage the accumulative effects leading to death.
As a child I vividly remember one of the pony club vets lecturing us in the dangers of Ragwort and the importance of removing this yellow weed from pony paddocks. We were shown a fairly graphic video of sick ponies, she went on to shock us with a story of having to shoot a sick pony from a distance as it was going berserk..... Now I'm not really sure if that was true but it certainly kept me busy most summers pulling the dammed stuff out of our fields for the last 20+ years!
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| Our little helpers in the Rag War. Where we could I allowed some plants to stay to feed the Cinbar Moth Caterpillars. |
Our paddocks only had a few Rag plants initially, these were pulled and burned last summer and that was that. The grazing ponies moved in and ate the rough grass and scuffed up the moss letting in light and water to the soil. This started a chain reaction and kicked the dormant roots and seeds back to life, here began our war on Ragwort!
After much thought and research we purchased 10lt of Roundup and started precise spot spraying as soon as the weather was warm and dry. Although the Roundup was effective the weather turned and the lovely damp summer created perfect conditions for the ragwort to take hold. By October there were brand new Ragwort plants that had sprouted to the size of large cabbages, with leafy bases nearly two foot high.
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| Nov 2015 - Ragwort growing out of control to the size of huge cabbages. (my boots just seen at the bottom of the pic) |
November 2015; It appears that we are not alone with this embarrassing problem, Ragwort has taken hold all over the UK. The same damp and mild growing conditions this year also mean we will all be having giant Sprouts with out roast dinners this winter! Sky News - monster brussels!
So for now, I will just keep pulling the damn stuff up and burning it! Despite claims that this can encourage growth, I would rather get rid of what I can see now than risk the horses eating it. (I have since swapped "riding" as a hobby to "electric fencing Macramé" and " paddock weeding"...who'd of thunk!?)
For further info on Ragwort please see;
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