Wildflower project set to receive extra funding

The Cornfield Flowers Project was set up more than 10 years ago in response to concerns that almost all the wildflowers in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park (NYMNPA) area had disappeared.

Many wildflowers can only grow in wheat and corn fields and have been put at risk by the growth in herbicides.

The project is run in partnership by the Carstairs Countryside Trust, NYMNPA and the Ryedale Folk Museum, and aims to support the natural biodiversity of the region and reverse the trend toward extinction of indigenous plants.

The partnership has made a request for £80,000 of funding from the NYMNPA, which will hold a special authority committee meeting on Thursday, November 12 to decide if the funding should be released.

The grant has already been approved by the Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund Panel but must be rubber stamped by the committee.

The Cornfield Project is based in the National Park, as well as on arable land near the A19 and south of Thixendale on the Wolds, near Malton.

So far the project has established 26 wildflower sites on farms and in three disused quarries.

The project has been so successful that the partnership has been able to donate thousands of seeds from five rare plants to the Millennium seed bank at Kew Gardens, in London.

Rona Charles, senior ecology officer at NYMNPA, said: "Ten years ago one of our botanists realised how few wildflowers there were left in the Park’s arable land.

"We realised that unless we did something we would lose some of the species altogether. Wildflowers rely on farmers land but farmers have got very good at getting rid of them."

The next stage of the project will last for five years and plans are in place for the £80,000 to be used to expand operations in disused quarries, work with small scale farmers and non-farmers to teach them how to support local flora and to broaden the range of rare plants that are planted.