Colonising rowan saplings escape from winter sheep grazing

Seasonal regimes of sheep grazing were experimentally imposed on moorland that adjoined a strip of riverside woodland in Derbyshire. It was found that protection from grazing from April to September allowed rowan colonisation, but the saplings were then severely grazed down in the next six-month winter periods. Many saplings recovered in the following six months free from grazing, and fourteen years after the start of the experiment some reached sufficient size in summer to escape from leader damage in the next winter. The minimum height observed for this was 50 cm, and no saplings taller than 1 m suffered winter leader loss