Trollards Natural Colonisation Future Wood Pasture

[00:00:03][music] >> Just come into the little paddock by Trollads where we're running an experiment on putting pigs into a old horse paddock and seeing how many little oaks are coming up in it.

[00:00:22]And there isn't very many, but we're seeing a few. Here's one little oak here.

[00:00:27]Um another one over there, another one there.

[00:00:33]I don't know if you can see that. That's another little oak here. So, the idea was that we were putting the pigs in here to root and open up the sward and then see if the that encouraged um shrubs and you know, thorn thorny stuff and and trees and so on to come in.

[00:00:54]It doesn't seem to have done much and we're in we're in our third year.

[00:01:00]And here's another little oak. Um lots of ants and trot and stumbling over ants.

[00:01:08]Um but otherwise and Izzy's out there looking as well and we're not coming up with lots of shouts of oak oak oak.

[00:01:19]Um other things are happening. See nice little vetches coming in and so on.

[00:01:27]This was um planted with the grasses that were were sown in here were sort of horse paddock grasses. Uh so that's what dominates this now and it's obviously grown up and then created a thatch.

[00:01:42]So, it's still so it's still you know, that that thatch alone will stop a lot of the um the plants getting in.

[00:01:51]But I was hoping for a lot more um little woody shrubby plants in here.

[00:01:58]Just found a little um patch of oak here. It's actually quite a long way from any other any other oaks.

[00:02:06]Um So, we're probably equidistant from all of the oaks, really.

[00:02:12]And here is a group of little oaks uh oak seedlings, maybe half a dozen, that sort of number.

[00:02:19]Um all looking a bit like that.

[00:02:24]And that.

[00:02:26]So, will they will they replace the uh other trees that are dying in the landscape? Yeah, perhaps. That's um a long-term live thing. So, now that we've got another bit of dog rose.

[00:02:41]And another little oak.

[00:02:45]And another oak.

[00:02:48]So, there's some uh hawthorn. Oh, well, there's some more things going on down this corner. This was actually, incidentally, uh really hammered by the pigs, this corner. So, maybe maybe we have got some information here can give us encouragement.

[00:03:10]The area just coming across, so you can see the Trollads farm building in the background. Here's another little hawthorn, another hawthorn, and oak, and then you've got some nettles, so high nutrient levels here somewhere.

[00:03:26]And then you've got um a dog rose growing up.

[00:03:34]I'm back in the Trollads field 6 years after I took the other video.

[00:03:42]And in that other video I show Izzy, I think, having a look at this dog rose.

[00:03:51]But in the other video, which was taken in 2020, so 6 years ago, the oak trees that I was finding in the grassland were all very much little tiny saplings.

[00:04:06]And some of them had been eaten by uh and pulled up by the pigs.

[00:04:11]Um I've just been across the ground here and it's incredibly rutted.

[00:04:18]And you can see some big anthills.

[00:04:22]And you can see it's almost plow uh looking at the ground.

[00:04:28]Um but what has emerged in the 6 years is a whole load of wonderful little oaks from those saplings.

[00:04:39]So from what we were looking at 6 years ago, it felt like, well, might might we might be successful in establishing some oak in this landscape.

[00:04:52]But actually, it's pretty tenuous.

[00:04:56]And so we were beginning to worry like so many people that come to Knepp, they keep on saying, "Well, nothing's happening.

[00:05:02]Nothing's happening."

[00:05:04]But here, you just be patient and then something does happen. And the happening is a surprise cuz suddenly you appear to just come and have another look.

[00:05:20]And suddenly there's a whole load of trees that you didn't even know had made it.

[00:05:25]Here's a big hawthorn.

[00:05:28]Um but covered in oaks.

[00:05:32]All colonized this ground.

[00:05:36]You can hear the crunching crunchiness of the dry grassland. So we've really been in one of the most incredible hot spells in in England. Um I think broken all records this year.

[00:05:52]But here we got a little dog rose with some robin nests.

[00:05:59]So you've got this lovely beginning of a little oak woodland in places.

[00:06:05]So we've got to make a decision at some stage of whether we let the animals in now.

[00:06:13]So we just fenced it out. It was a pony paddock before.

[00:06:17]So they had polo ponies in it.

[00:06:19]And those polo ponies gave away for this this little initiative which is having a look at what happens if you just allow a little bit of grass and with some oak trees around it cuz there is some oaks.

[00:06:37]Uh what happens if you just abandon the ground. Here's another anthill. So I took up the drone which I'll share some footage with you.

[00:06:49]Took up the drone a couple of days ago and with the thermal imagery camera you can see a whole load of very bumpy lumpy ground.

[00:07:02]Um the thermal imagery camera is showing up where the the sides of the anthills and the and the mounds are being heated up.

[00:07:10]And so you can actually see a shadow of of where the anthills are. So this ground is incredibly ante.

[00:07:19]Uh so it's got anthills.

[00:07:21]And look at these oaks. And then that's a that's another 2 ft 3 ft taller than I am.

[00:07:28]Um you've got a bit of bramble.

[00:07:31]You've got a bit of uh bit of ragwort common ragwort.

[00:07:37]Lots of anthills.

[00:07:39]Minus walking past one.

[00:07:42]Another anthill there.

[00:07:47]But lovely.

[00:07:49]So, what do we learn?

[00:07:51]We learn that through natural colonization you can establish oak in this clay of Sussex, this Wealden clay.