Reliable Aerial and Ground based Bracken Control

Why Control Bracken?

Bracken is an invasive weed. The plant sends up large, triangular fronds from a wide-creeping underground rootstock, and may form dense thickets. This rootstock may travel a metre or more underground between fronds. The fronds may grow up to 2.5 m (8 feet) long or longer with support, but typically are in the range of 0.6-2 m (2-6 feet) high. In cold environments bracken is winter-deciduous, and, as it requires well-drained soil ,is generally found growing on the sides of hills.

Why is bracken such a problem on grouse moors and upland farmland?

Bracken has proved to be the most pernicious and poisonous weed infestation that establishes itself on moorland and high ground farms.

It can spread at the rate of 5% per annum when well established. It spreads underground like bindweed, with its rhizomes (roots) running for 20 metres before reappearing.

Bracken blanks out heather as well as grazing and will poison stock that eats it. Bracken litter provides and excellent habitat for sheep ticks. These ticks are carriers of the Lyme, Louping Ill and Redwater viruses.

Furthermore, during its "ripe" period, when the bracken fronds (leaf ends) are fully extended, the plants emits carcinogenic, potentially cancer bearing spores which can infect both fauna and animals with diseases such as Lyme Disease, Louping Ill and Red Water Fever.

Bracken can complicate sheep gathering in the summer and autumn.

How does bracken affect grouse and moorland birds and animals?

First and most obvious effect of bracken beds on high ground is that it removes large areas of living and nesting space by blanking out the existing heather and grassland. Once well established, the competing flora will die back from lack of nutrients. This can also be a forerunner to erosion when bracken is removed. The peat soil is also sapped of goodness by the pervasive weight of the 200+ root formations. The rhizome system, originating from one plant, can eventually cover a hectare of space weighing up to 62 tonnes.