AlpBioEco

In the Alpine area, the hay meadows (rough pastures) can be used to produce seed material. Every three years, the flowers of Alpine hay meadows can be harvested with a specific machine, cutting off only the top parts of the meadows to harvest the flower heads, still leaving enough hay standing on the meadows for the farmers to harvest it as conventional hay to be fed to animals. The harvested flowers are then dried, stored and packed into large sacks in order to be sold for revegetation purposes. To complete the offer, a revegetation service or advice can be booked, as some knowledge is required to successfully seed Alpine hay flowers. Regional seed material is particularly interesting for the revegetation of building sites, road construction sites, embankments, roofs or other renaturation projects. In addition, the harvested material can also be used for the cosmetics industry, serving as a basis for the production of hay flower distillates and essences. The produced seed material can be used for approximately three years before it loses its germination capacity.

 

Picture: Harvesting Alpine hay seed material for revegetation use in Austria © Conrad Amber, www.conradamber.at