For the last ten years now we have been paid as commoners to reduce the amount of grazing with cows and sheep on the open moors. This has been under the governments flagship conservation scheme Countryside Stewardship, and is aimed squarely at improving the common land for wildlife and allowing the heather to regenerate wherever possible.

It has been a bit of a bumpy ride with the farmers bemoaning the loss of agricultural ground and Natural England dissatisfied with the rate of recovery of the dwarf shrub cover. However one element of the moors has been completely happy with the scheme and flourished over the decade – European Gorse.

The lack of livestock and a milder climate has enabled this tenacious plant to build on its foothold and spread and grow at an alarming rate.  Within the uplands it is now recognised as an invasive species and there is funding under the scheme available to deal with it if you can.

It is a known fire-climax plant, which means is readily catches fire but re-grows from the roots afterwards, and the seeds are also adapted to germinate after slight scorching. So you can burn, but unless you introduce livestock again afterwards (to nibble off the fresh shoots) it only reinvigorates the plant and will re-grow very quickly, using the ash of the fire as plant food.

Mechanical flailing will hammer it if you are brave enough to risk your machine, but this tends to scatter and spread the seeds ever wider, and so with each passing year you end up with a wider and thicker mat of fresh gorse to deal with.

Natural England’s preferred method is the good old slash and burn. You pick an area and clear with bow or chain saws and then remove and burn in large stacks. While this undoubtedly works it is to my mind a criminal waste of a valuable resource.

In my humble opinion, the best way to tackle the gorse is to cherry pick and only cut and remove the older (say fifteen to twenty year plus) bushes. Once they have reached this age they do not seem to have the energy to regenerate and the roots will rot into the ground. This coppicing will not only give the livestock greater access to all areas in the summer, but their thick tree like trunks also provide you with a usable fuel for your biomass burner (kitchen stove to you and me).

There is nothing startlingly new or original in this idea. Two hundred years ago, farmers would actually plant a field of gorse (or furze) for winter fuel and many farms still have fields call Furze Park. Once again I find we are relearning what was once commonsense sustainable agriculture.

Now, so long as I don’t lose any fingers using my lethal new tractor mounted saw bench, we should all be warm and cosy this winter.