Mowing the hummocky meadow in
Zgornja Radovna in Triglav National Park.
Employees of the public institute Triglav National Park (PI TNP) together with students,
university students and volunteers today tackled a demanding task – mowing the hummocky
meadow in Zgornja Radovna (municipality of Kranjska Gora), which is essential for
preserving biodiversity on it.
Mowing a meadow with hummocks and valleys is a demanding task, regardless of the fact that
employees of the Public Institute Triglav National Park tackled it today with modern
equipment. Students and pupils who are at PI TNP on internship or holiday work, as well as biology students who are at a camp organised by the Slovenian Ornithological Society (DOPPS) in Bled, came to their aid.
Hummocky meadows are a rarity
In PI TNP, we care for two hummocky meadows in Zgornja Radovna with a total area of 3.5
ha as part of the project Preservation of priority grassland habitat types in Slovenia by establishing a seed bank and in situ restoration, LIFE FOR SEEDS, in which our
institute participates as a project partner. One of the project's tasks is the restoration of dry
orchid meadows (Natura 2000 habitat type or European important habitat type that must be maintained in favourable condition), which are either overgrowing or
intensifying. Such meadows are common in the Julian Alps area on hummocks. "For
easier maintenance, these meadows were levelled in the past. The few that remain
are overgrowing due to the abandonment of mowing. PI TNP has long-term leased
two meadows in Radovna as part of the project to preserve this important habitat type," explains
mag. Tanja Menegalija from the nature conservation department at PI TNP.
Hummocky meadows got their name from the hummocks left behind by the glacier.
They were formed from the finest glacial material, which water together with chemical
processes slowly shaped into hummocks. These are about one metre high and up to three metres wide.
The peculiarity of hummocky meadows is not only their appearance, but also the diversity
of plant and animal species that thrive and live on them. "When we did botanical inventories on this meadow,
we recorded as many as about 120 plant species, which is a lot," warns mag. Menegalija.
Why is mowing so important?
That hummocky meadows are very demanding to mow was confirmed by the participants as well. On
the hummocks, the grass sward is sparser, in the valleys very dense and it needs to be mown with
some skill. In the past, mowing was done with scythes, now mechanical mowing is in the forefront.
To preserve orchids, the meadow needs to be mown once a year. If left to grow freely, it would overgrow with woody species and the grass patch would slowly
turn into a forest. Therefore, we at PI TNP have been repeating this action for several years and intend to
continue it in the future.
This year too, the mowing of the hummocky meadow took place as part of the aforementioned project
Preservation of priority grassland habitat types in Slovenia by establishing a seed bank and in situ restoration, LIFE FOR SEEDS, in which PI TNP participates
as a project partner. The project, led by the Slovenian Ornithological Society (DOPPS), started in September 2021 and is scheduled to
end at the end of 2026. In addition to meadow restoration, the project also focuses on
establishing a seed bank of 300 characteristic species of three priority habitat types at
EU level: dry orchid meadows, fens and drying lakes, which, in addition to aquatic habitats, also include numerous types of wet meadows. The status of all three
habitat types in Slovenia is assessed as inadequate or poor in the last report under the Habitats Directive for the period
2013-2018.
The project is worth 5.35 million euros, with the EU financial contribution amounting to over
four million euros. The project is also co-financed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning,
the Ministry of Public Administration and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. More about the project can be
found on the website
https://lifeforseeds.si/.