Improved grasslands have been changed a lot by people to improve agricultural productivity, or to create amenity grassland for recreation. Changes include applying fertilisers, reseeding and intensive cutting or grazing. They typically have a limited variety of species of grasses and flowering plants, with white clover, perennial ryegrass and other agricultural species usually covering more than 50% of the area.
Increase and enhance grassland across Dorset by creating more species-rich, larger, better-managed, and interconnected areas.
Increase and enhance grassland across Dorset by creating more species-rich, larger, better-managed, and joined up areas.
The priority is to protect and expand existing species-rich grassland sites, create new sites and ensure they are connected. By increasing the variety and density of grassland species and improving the condition of grassland habitat by more nature-friendly management practices, such as stopping the use of artificial fertilisers and avoiding under or over-grazing.
What are grasslands?
Grassland habitats are areas where most of the plants are grasses. They are often maintained by people through mowing, drainage, or livestock grazing. Grassland can be separated into the following types, depending on their biodiversity and management:
Typical grassland species
Field voles
Adder
Bee orchids
Nature recovery in action
The Hogchester Meadows Expansion Project was funded by Dorset National Landscape Partnership through both the Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme and National Grid’s Landscape Enhancement Initiative, with additional funding from the Hogchester Conservation Trust.
The project’s aim was to increase local wildflower seed availability for meadow restoration. Conventional seed harvesting methods were impractical for small, diverse grassland sites (often under 1 hectare). However, the project identified and funded compact equipment to enable accessible seed collection. Volunteers helped sort the seeds, and innovative sorting methods were developed.
Between 2022 and 2024, seed from 17 donor sites has been used to restore 25 hectares across 40 new meadow sites.
Image credit: Rachel Janes
Potential activities
See what activities people can carry out to help achieve this priority. You can view them all, or just look at the one most relevant to you. These activities are a guide and are not exhaustive, as there are many small activities involved in habitat management and restoring ecosystems.The activities and Dorset’s nature recovery maps provide a starting point, but additional land management and ecological advice will often be needed to support activities on individual sites.
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Select the sector you're interested in to see the relevant activities for this priority.
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Listed here are all the potential activities for this priority:- protect and sustainably manage the few remaining species-rich grassland sites and increase connectivity between these sites and other nature-rich habitats
- manage meadows and pastures to support abundant wildflowers and associated wildlife, for example, insects, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles
- create more species-rich grassland habitats
- adapt mowing and maintenance regimes in greenspaces, such as parks, sports fields, and grounds of hospitals or businesses, to create connected wild patches and meadows, and areas for insects to overwinter
- manage road verges using ‘cut and collect’ to restore and maintain wildflower-rich habitat
- manage verges alongside National Trails and Public Rights of Way to act as species-rich corridors, helping wildlife connect and allowing people totravel along and enjoy access to nature. This may involve a mix of grassland, hedgerows and trees
- use rotational grazing of meadows or pasture to divide a field into smaller paddocks and rotate livestock between paddocks. This allows the grass to rest and recover between grazing, provides high-energy forage and often means less chemical inputs are needed
- reduce the use of chemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers on farmland and gardens
- encourage diverse sward heights on grassland, with some areas developing into longer tussocks, pockets of scrub and keeping some bare ground to increase diversity and help join up different habitats
- make existing species-rich grassland bigger, expanding them to be big enough to protect from external pressures, enhance resilience and encourage natural processes
- if improved grassland or arable land is identified as less productive for farming, convert to species-rich grassland
- create and maintain herbal leys as temporary grasslands on farmland to support pollinators, improve soil health and structure, capture carbon, reduce runoff and increase diversity of livestock forage
- create species-rich grassland on renewable energy sites
- source local seeds or green hay from existing species-rich grassland (source/arc/donor sites) to restore meadows in other places in Dorset
- enhance and create wildflower arable field margins to help with pest control, pollination, nesting areas for birds, soil health and water management
- enhance and create hedgerows alongside grassland to help transition between grassland and other habitat types
- create or enhance wood pasture, parkland and/or orchards between species-rich grassland as important connecting habitat
- create and maintain unimproved and semi-improved grassland within woodland tracks, open spaces and at woodland edges
- increase species-richness of semi-improved grassland. For example, by reducing chemical inputs, adding in different native plant species, or using rotational grazing
- when considering acid grassland management, consider if it is appropriate to use conservation grazing to develop a mix of heathland and grassland, thereby increasing habitat and species diversity and helping join up heathland fragments
- when creating or enhancing grassland habitats, keep existing wet features like depressions or re-wet historically wet areas of the land