BayWa r.e. Poland is a proud partner of the “Adopt a Meadow” project, which was established in response to the growing need to protect meadow areas actively.
The growing season on the adopted meadow has come to an end. The project organized by the Kwietna Foundation was created in response to the increasing need for active protection of meadow areas and education about that.
The area of the meadow under care is 30 hectares of land located near the Radziwill Family Palace in Nieborów, consisting of 10 hectares of valuable variable-humid meadow, rich in plant and insect species, and 20 hectares of land where in past years, there was intensive farming of field crops, which are now being restored to nature.
The project aims to restore and expand the former landscape of floral meadows with their inhabitants, with a special focus on butterfly species, which are often overlooked in studies but are an important group of pollinating animals.
During this year's growing season, botanical and ornithological surveys, as well as lepidopterological analysis, or so-called butterfly surveys, were carried out in the adopted meadow, among other things. Butterfly surveys showed the occurrence of 31 species of diurnal butterflies, which accounts for 61% of all butterfly species of the Bolimowski Landscape Park and 19% of all domestic butterfly species.
Among the butterflies surveyed, species included in the Red List of Threatened and Endangered Animals in Poland, as well as those additionally protected and included in the Natura 2000 program, deserve special attention.
The environments richest in butterfly species are primarily forest edges and tree-lined roads, but also wetlands (in the study area they were the largest biodiversity hotspot) and dry meadows and fallow land. The last ones were used for agriculture in 2023 and are therefore of pioneer nature.
What lessons do we learn from flower meadows for our renewable energy installations?
The appropriate location of PV on post-agricultural land with flower meadows between rows of PV panels can be a food source and a migration site for adult butterflies. On the other hand, plants on the periphery of PV farms, where there is no frequent mowing, rich in host plants, promote the development of insects including valuable butterflies. In addition, as indicated in the report, increasing the occurrence of significant species results in the use of appropriate mowing, grazing, and the appropriate selection of nectar-rich plants. Large-scale photovoltaics also require the proper mowing of green areas between panels, and often sheep grazing is used on photovoltaic farms. These activities can therefore be combined.
We look forward to next year, and the research continuation in the adopted meadow.
