Urgent ragwort advice needed Please!

HorseMad20

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8 December 2010
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I have friends who rent their own fields and keep 5 horses on there. I am looking after them for a month while they are away.

Next door there is a farm and cows are kept on the land but the fields closest are obviously not being looked after because there is loads of ragwort
Well the last few days since i have been going up there, there is more and more of the stuff in the fields nearest the farm..the seeds have obviously been blown over into hers.

Is there anyway i can get the farmers to come out and sort out the ragwort in their fields?? Because i really dont want her horses getting ill and im sure she doesnt want to be picking ragwort forever. (obviously i have got rid of the stuff i have seen today)

Any advice is appreciated
 

BobbyMondeo

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I had the same issue last year. Someone on here sent me a link to defra, but i cant find the form i used now.

It did get sorted though

Hopefully someone can send you link, hope it works out for you
 

indie999

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I believe you are advised to speak to the landowner first and ask them to get rid of it. I had to ask a local farmer last year and he came and topped the lot(after I pulled tons of the stuff up....and got it burnt). He had no idea as he had a lot of land but he came down straight away.

Someone reported a farming relative of mine and he was upset as he said if they had knocked on his door he would have sorted it out. Again he just went and topped it straight away. It was field he completely forgot about and never used.

But yes def worth getting rid off. I spent a lot of time over the years minimalising the amount i had in a field virtually to the odd one or two plants, so I like you didnt want it blown all over my field after working so hard to eradicate it.


http://archive.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/management/weeds/pdf/cop_ragwort.pdf
 

philamena

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Hi

I don't mean to sound like a scaremongerer, but unless it's going to be unsafe, I'd hold off reporting the chap to Defra until you can speak to your friend and him about it. Reporting him to Defra without talking to him first would look pretty heavy-handed and could cause problems for your friend by spoiling the relationship.

I'm not downplaying the horror of ragwort poisoning - I lost a pony to it about 15 years ago and it's horrible and I'm now utterly paranoid about the stuff. I won't bore you with the sordid and almost unbelieveable details, but we're pretty sure that reporting our neighbouring landowner to what was then MAFF for ragwort backfired spectacularly for us in that situation.

Anyway, ours is an extreme case! Suffice to say, deal with others the way you'd like to be dealt with and get your friend's permission to talk to her neighbour first and give him a chance to solve it swiftly but amicably.

Good luck!
 
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