2007/07/01

Plant production to restore a Valencian temporary pond goes on

New plants of Mentha cervina produced in the CIEF nurseries, are already flowering in the greenhouses, waiting to be transferred to the Plant Microreserve 'Lavajo de Arriba' (Sinarcas, Valencia). As this picture shows, the flowers are being actively pollinated, so the plants put in field will be carried with new seeds to enlarge the current population of this threatened species.


The 2 Valencian partners of SEMCLIMED, CIEF and the Botanical Garden of Valencia (BGV), goes on well with the production of plant species to restore a part of the plant microreserve 'Lavajo de Arriba', a selected Mediterranean temporary pond holding lots of rare species not or scarcely shared by other Valencian sites. The 'Lavajos' are a couple of small microreserves -less than 1 ha each one- owned by the municipality of Sinarcas, and laying on the continental-climate side of the province of Valencia; It deals with the most important Mediterranean temporary ponds to Eastern Spain, where a higher concentration of Isoeto-Nanojuncetea species has been found. One of them (Lavajo de Arriba) was digged out by the local farmers some decades ago, to facilitate the water retention for transhumant livestock. The lagoon hole never recovered its primitive vegetation, remaining uncovered because of the strong slope. The restoration work will consist of refilling the water hole to recover its primitive aspect, and to plant a few characteristic species of Isoeto-Nanojuncetea vegetation, from seeds and other propagules taken in the same microreserve during the last months. The most significant perennial species involved in this project is Mentha cervina (=Preslia cervina) whose unique Valencian population live in the 2 'Lavajos' microreserves. The resotration work will join funds from 3 European programmes: 1) LIFE-Nature funds supports the civil work -to refill with sand and local soil the damaged hole- by means of the LIFE project on conservation of Valencian amphibians, herein represented by several threatened species like Pleurodeles waltl, 2) SEMCLIMED project, funded by Interreg, will pay most of the plant production -seed harvesting, germination, greenhouse and nursery works-, mostly for the BGV, and 3) EAGGF/FEOGA (European Agriculture Guarantee and Guidance Fund) will pay a part of the plant production as well as the plantation activities. At this moment most of the plant production is already developed, but sudden rains during the last days of June have refilled the lagoon hole, causing a delay to start the restoration activity. As a result of that the field work will be developed between July and September.