Last week we carried out the first harvest of hayseed on the grasslands of Pratomagno, habitat of European interest that are being restored under the LIFE ShepForBio project. The use of the hayseed, which is nothing but the “dirty” seed, which also includes other apical parts of the plants, for environmental restoration interventions (grasslands, as in our case, but also caves and scarps) is a technique widely tested on the Alps and more generally in northern Italy, but which was realized for the first time in Tuscany.
The hayseed is harvested from specially identified donor meadows (it is therefore native hayseed), through a special machine equipped with a brush that, pulled by a tractor, It only removes the seeds from the plant, leaving the rest standing; the lawn can then be grazed or mowed. In the particular case of Pratomagno, the hayseed will be used to restore areas overgrown with brooms and raspberries where in recent months interventions of bush-cutting and regenerative grazing were carried out. Other interventions are also planned in the territory of the Union of Municipalities Valdarno Valdisieve.
The LIFE project, in particular the Union of Municipalities of Pratomagno, will purchase one of these machines, which will be made available to all partners of the project (Union of Municipalities, National Park of the Casentino Forests); the machine is about to be completed and will be delivered soon. This first collection was possible only thanks to the collaboration of the Monte Barro Natural Park, which with its Centro Flora Autoctona (Centre for Native Flora) of Lombardy, was a pioneer of the use of hayseed in Italy, and that has made available to us one of its machines. Thanks also go to Vaghi Engineering, the company that is producing our machine, and who wanted to participate in the initiative by contributing to the transport phases.
