DEAR EDITOR
Every year on our farm in the Donegal Gaeltacht, we have to go rooting out Rhododendron Ponticum plants which have seeded in from our neighbours. The plant is toxic to cattle and sheep. One mature plant releases a million seeds per year which, with the right Atlantic winds, can disperse up to a kilometre.
It is illegal under EU legislation to permit it to grow on one’s property. Once established as a canopy on blanket bog or wet heath, it kills off all other plant and aquatic life and when a continuous forest of it establishes, it costs more to remove per hectare than the land is worth.
I did a field survey of my neighbours and counted 867 houses growing the plant as hedging or decorative bushes. I then did a questionnaire of 236 house owners to discover not one knew they were breaking the law.
Farm organisations need to lobby to ensure the national biodiversity centre and county council biodiversity officers educate farmers and gardeners alike about the illegality of this plant and its consequence for farmers.
Prosecutions are only a solution in the last resort. Firstly an education programme and a subsidy scheme to enable all landowners, irrespective of size or whether in ACRES or not, to remove Rhododendron Ponticum is urgently needed. Now I’m going back out to the farm with my clippers and glyphosate.
SHARING OPTIONS