For some months now, field work has been underway on the Valcorchero pilot farm of the Life Scrubsnet project.
This work began with the construction of a parallel enclosure on a stone wall, which acts as the north-eastern boundary of the woodland. This stone wall is a point of conflict between the property of the mount and the boundaries, due to the frequency of demolition of the wall to move onto privately owned land. To try to combat this problem, and framing it within the project’s axes and objectives, a dry masonry wall has been reconstructed, arranging the stones and generating linear arrangements in a dry stony structure, which is a very attractive refuge for both invertebrate animals and reptiles.
In parallel, around 100 metres in length, a mesh enclosure has been set up. In the coming months, in the centre of the enclosure, the land will be prepared to plant a line of thorny species (hawthorns, hackberry and bramble), which in the future will cover the masonry wall itself, serving as a screen and plant boundary, and in addition, 2 insect hotels will be installed.
Lastly, 10 enclosed boxes have been built for the establishment of islands of scrubland. Specifically, we are talking about 36 square metres, with equal sides of 6 linear metres each. In addition, a 1.5×1.5 metre enclosure has also been installed, enclosing the livestock for control plots. Once fenced, soil samples were taken, both in the scrubland fencing to be implemented and in the control fencing. After the soil samples were taken, the land was prepared by hollowing out the soil, with the aim of planting a total of 180 plants in each box, which will be distributed among 12 different species and with a representation of 15 specimens per species.
Photographs provided by Extremadura Verde S.L. (EXVER)
