Application





Persistence





Environment






Boundaries




Safety





Costs

Cinnabar

One simple application in the area to be controlled.
Cinnabar are self locating, they will seek out ragwort, searching wide areas to locate clusters and even individual plants.

Native to the UK, Cinnabar breed many times faster than ragwort.  Once established at breeding densities,  Cinnabar can continue to breed and re-emerge year after year as long as ragwort continues to germinate.

As a part of our natural environment,  Cinnabar are able to control ragwort without any negative impact, leaving other wild flowers undamaged, whilst enhancing the natural food chain as they in turn die each year.


Cinnabar do not require permission to cross a boundary to eat the flowering ragwort on neighbouring land.  They find ragwort and eat it wherever it stands.

One simple application minimises risks and requires very few safety precautions.
Cinnabar are safely used in agricultural environments, they will not attack commercial crops.

Once breeding densities have been established, Cinnabar multiply to the limit of the available food.  Ragwort becomes the currency of its own control.  As the area controlled by Cinnabar expands, other methods will not be required.

Herbicide/Mowing/Pulling

Every single plant must be treated in order to achieve control.  Plants left untreated will flower and seed, adding to the wind-blown seed load.



Seedlings germinate continuously, control must be repeated every 1 - 2 years to prevent flowering and seed production.



Herbicides kill other broad leaved plants and leave soil residues.
Mowing can prevent important wild flowers from flowering and seeding.
Pulling disturbs soil and stimulates further ragwort germination.

Intervention must stop at legal boundaries.  The law of trespass prevents the control intervention from being effective where ragwort colonises across a boundary.

Ragwort poisoning from mowing aerosols or skin contact through pulling or herbicide toxicity must be controlled by risk assessment and appropriate safety systems.


Costs are proportional to the type of intervention and the area to be controlled.  Costs escalate year on year with the escalation of ragwort invasion.