Lowland Meadow
Lowland meadow (.PDF 95.22 Kb)
is a herb-rich grassland found on freely-draining soils where traditional farming techniques are still practiced. 
It is typically managed as pasture or is cut for hay and more recently, big-bale silage. It is usually associated with low input agricultural practices, such as no animals grazing during the early growing season and little or no fertiliser application.
This habitat has a high percentage of fine-leaved grasses and colourful flowering herbs. Lowland meadow has little or no rye grass which is the main component of improved grassland that is intensively managed and fertilised.
The most characteristic herbs species found include meadow vetchling, common knapweed, common bird’s-foot trefoil, yellow-rattle and bulbous buttercup. Fine-leaved grasses are a major constituent of the sward, including common bent, red fescue and crested dog’s-tail.
A number of scarce and declining plant species occur in lowland meadow habitats including the greater butterfly-orchid. In the more acid type grasslands species such as heath bedstraw and tormentil grow.
The wetter types contain a variety of different sedges and rushes, while drier types contain white clover and ribwort plantain.
Crested dog’s tail and common knapweed are the typical species of grazed hay meadows. This variety of plants provides a food and nectar source for a wide range of insect species and their predators. Moths and butterflies include six-spot Burnet, cinnebar, meadow brown and ringlet.
There are no large areas of lowland meadow in Northern Ireland. It occurs on well-drained mineral soils, largely in the south and east, particularly south Armagh.
The habitat is generally fragmented even in areas where it is quite abundant and is usually limited to small parts or field parcels where agricultural field operations are difficult.
It is often located on quite steep slopes and only part of a field that is used for intensive grass production or found as part of a transition habitat or habitat mosaic.
As these grasslands are generally confined to the more fertile soils of the lowlands, many have been reseeded and/or managed more intensively for agriculture and are becoming increasingly rare.
Examples of this habitat can be seen at Slievenacloy, Crom and Florencecourt