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Monitoring the mowing

Wednesday 19 February 2014, by Sophie Duhautois

All the versions of this article: [English] [français]

**Sites involved in the action

The Basses Vallée Angevines, Moyenne Vallée de la Charente and the Moyenne Vallée de l’Oise

**Objective

Assessing the impact of conservation measures and communication about chronology of mowing

**Description

The conservation management measures for the Corncrake aim at delaying mowing dates and adapt the best mowing practices. Dates and times mowing vary from one year to another on a given site, mainly due to climatic conditions. However, there are little data on their progress during the summer (% mowed per day). Similarly, the differences between years (early and late mowing) remain unquantified.

The agri-environmental measures have fixed late dates of mowing on grassland under contracts, but this has not had the expected results on a site global scale, since mowing dates on other parcels remain fully free. Indeed, to be effective on site scale, parcels under contract for late mowing should be large enough regarding the dates. On the other hand, some plots had their dates changed for earlier mowing contract.
Data collecting on the mowing dates of plots under contract or otherwise, their location and their surface is needed to assess the risks caused by mowing at each site and to try to assess the impact of agri-environmental measures.

**Expected results

• Assessment of the impact of conservation measures and communication;
• Recommendations to better adapt mowing dates to the biological requirements of the corncrake.