Ragweed, ragwort or buachalán buí. Whatever you call it, most people who live in the country are familiar with the bright yellow flowers along roads and in fields during the summer.

This bright, pretty flowering plant is poisonous, particularly to horses, causing irreparable liver damage.

While most animals won’t eat its bitter leaves while it is growing in a field, it loses most of the bitterness when dried. This then is the problem in fields where hay is cut.

Growing up on a dairy farm, we made hay every year that was sold to neighbouring stables. We earned a little pocket money pulling the dried stems out of the rows before it was baled. There was so little in the grass that we were never going to be millionaires doing that job.

But Da was a stickler and when we said a row was clear, we had to

check it again and then he’d walk the row to be sure, to be sure.

I remember on several occasions the local guard stopping on his bicycle to check if we had ragwort as it’s notifiable under the Noxious Weeds Act, 1936. Da was quite happy to demonstrate how little there was in our fields.

I remember bringing Ma to an agricultural show a few years ago. She was horrified to see lots of stems of ragwort included in the entries for the wildflower display.

She was worried that stems would fall and be left on the field where the show was held and after a time be eaten by horses. The winning entry was mostly ragwort.

Native plant

Ragwort is a native plant that has an important place in our biodiversity. It is estimated to support over 100 invertebrates, with 30 species relying on it to exist. For example, the Cinnabar moth, a gorgeous red and black moth, lives on ragwort.

The caterpillars eat it down to nothing. In parts of America, Australia, New Zealand and Britain, the moth is being used as a biocontrol agent to control ragwort. Could that work here?

How do we deal with the growing concerns about the impact on human health as well as on biodiversity of glyphosate-based herbicides?

In recent years, many local authorities and Tidy Towns groups have stopped spraying roadsides, thus allowing wildflowers to grow. This is great for biodiversity but is this one of the reasons ragwort is so prevalent?

If we spray the weed into extinction to protect farm animals we will eliminate, at the very least, the 30 species including the Cinnabar moth that rely on ragwort to survive.

Is it fair that a farmer can be penalised for having ragwort on his land when it has spread from the unkempt road verges? Who is in breach of the Noxious Weeds Act? The farmer or the local authority?

Ragwort is just one example of issues that arise with the opposing needs of humans versus the environment.

How do we deal with the growing concerns about the impact on human health as well as on biodiversity of glyphosate-based herbicides?

While in the past they may have been used indiscriminately, now many call for a complete ban on its use. However, it appears to be the only solution to eliminating invasive species such as Japanese knotweed and rhododendrons. Can it be used safely?

I, with most of the country, was glued to the recent All-Ireland hurling final. Hurling is traditionally played in counties where the ash tree grows well as hurleys are made from ash.

But ash dieback, which came to Ireland on ash trees imported to meet the need to plant more forestry, has decimated our native ash.

Many farmers have suffered economically from ash plantations wiped out by dieback and even the production of hurls has been impacted.

Will we do the same thing again importing trees to fulfil the demand created by ACRES? We are being warned that we could be importing fire blight. Fire blight could devastate many of our native trees including the hawthorn.

The hawthorn or fairy tree that has a sacred place in our folklore is susceptible to fire blight.

Are we willing to risk it being wiped out?