Yellow rattle: flowers and ripe seedpods
I came across a clump of a really pleasing new plant recently: Rhinanthus minor or yellow rattle. I sowed some near the orchard area, but none have appeared there. These ones appeared right down by the river on the north corner of the tree field near near where I coppiced the alder earlier in the year. There seems to be a number of plants judging by the size of the clump, so it may have been seeding around for a few years unnoticed. It wasn’t the flowers I noticed first, but the seedheads, which are a line of small inflated bladders.
Yellow rattle is a annual plant, so needs to resow itself every year. It is semi-parasitic on grasses and other plants. By reducing the vigour of grasses it enables a wider range of meadow flowers to grow. The historic practise of cutting hay for winter feed suits it’s lifecycle. When the seed is ripe they rattle in the bladders in the wind and the farmers knew it was time to cut the hay. The seeds readily fall out, or are added with the ripe hay as supplementary feed into other meadows. They need to overwinter before germinating, but have a short viability, so need to grow and set seed successfully in order to propagate. How they seem to have managed to survive in the sheep field previously I don’t know!
Since some of the seed is already ripe, I have been spreading it along the trackways a bit. If we manage to cut the grass properly in the autumn, this will expose the soil a bit (which is important to enable successful growth). We can cut just a strip of narrow path to walk along again next year and the rattle (hopefully) can grow in the rest of the trackway, set seed and be cut in autumn again. I’ll save some seed to scatter after the grass is cut this year as well.
When I read up about yellow rattle I was excited by the possibility of it reducing the vigour of couchgrass, but unfortunately it doesn’t like couch grass or other very vigorous grasses which swamp it. However it is a happy addition to the flora and hopefully will increase the diversity of wildflowers in the tree field further.
SkyeEnt 
How disappointing that it won’t parasitise couch grass! We have bought some yellow rattle seeds and had hoped to reduce the couch grass.
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Yes, such a shame!
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Worth a try anyhow, I should think!
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I’m pleased that yellow rattle has started to grow for you. I wonder how long it will be before you notice a change in the range of plants you see because of it?
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I’ve tended to think that because our soil is thin, acid and always leached by a lot of rain, that we would see less effect from yellow rattle.
I have to say though, that parts of the tree field are less diverse than others. I still think this is mainly because of a lack of seeds etc. since the field was ploughed to grow potatoes for several decades. Part of it was too steep, or really shallow, and that is where the greater diversity is.
Change sometimes happens so slowly that you don’t notice till it is obvious. I’m still a bit surprised that I didn’t notice this rattle last year!
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Perhaps there wasn’t so much of the yellow rattle last year? And hopefully your practices will help build the soil, slowly seeds will become more abundant etc.
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That’s the plan!
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😊
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