Moat Farm, Salehurst

Field meeting reports
Picture of River Rother, Salehurst
River Rother, Salehurst. Photo: Brad Scott

Meeting date: 15 June 2016

(Leaders: Judy Clark/Ellen Campbell)

Cherry the farmer welcomed eight of us in her lovely old farmhouse kitchen. We were transported to the meadows in a Land Rover, known as the ‘Mushy Pea’ because of its pea soup colour. We bounced and lurched around field edges and through rutted gateways, sometimes on two wheels, sometimes seeming to leave the ground completely. Stephen followed valiantly behind, and this rather ridiculous entourage eventually arrived at the meadows, shaken but not deterred! We split into two groups to record plants in a large field where 15 species of grass were recorded and frequencies of all taxa were estimated on the DAFOR scale as required by Natural England.  The field showed considerable variation in the distribution of species in different areas. We visited two more fields which were wetter but less diverse, Filipendula ulmaria (Meadowsweet) being abundant. A closer search in one of the fields revealed a small amount of Myosotis scorpioides (Water Forget-me-not).

Picture of Moat Farm, Salehurst
Surveying grassland at Moat Farm, Salehurst