Low-fertility grassland

Reedland that does not receive a steady supply of nutrients will display an increasingly thinner vegetation and will lose shape, with the vegetation becoming more open. Only at the waterside will the vegetation keep its height, since nutrients are provided via the water. Mowing in the long run has such a fertility reducing effect that the reed vegetation will be transformed into low-fertility grassland. One may then switch to summer mowing, as in wet flower meadows. In Sphagnum reedland turning into low-fertility grassland, one should be mowing through the Sphagnum layer, just above the substratum. In this manner, the Sphagnum layer stays in good condition, and at the same time it prevents the mosses (Polytrichum spp.) present in this layer from dominating. As a result of the conditions becoming increasingly poorer in nutrients and more acidic, species characteristic for this situation will gradually start to appear, for example Eriophorum angustifolium, Potentilla erecta, Drosera rotundifolia and Juncus subnodulosus.