Grass and flowers sourced locally
Colourful, low-intensity grasslands not only look attractive, they also offer valuable habitat for many plants and animals. Yet they have become rare in many places. To create more environments that contain grass and herbs, it is usually necessary to sow the appropriate plants. But which seeds should be used? Many scientists and environmentalists are speaking out in favour of seed from the same region as that in which the future grassland will lie. Ecologists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle (Saale), Germany, have carried out a joint study with colleagues from the universities of Tübingen and Münster, and TUM (Technische Universität München), to investigate the suitability of this approach. Two studies in the Journal of Applied Ecology have shown that using indigenous seed actually does bring benefits.