At Knettishall Heath the main winter task for our volunteer team is to remove a percentage of the young saplings that, by natural succession, will just pop up all over the heathland habitat. Scrub, in this case mainly young pine and birch, has a very important part to play in the ecosystem here, providing overwintering sites for insects, nesting sites for heathland birds and cover for reptiles. However, if left to its own devices with the distinct lack of rabbits and other natural graziers, the heathland would eventually turn to dense woodland. The wonderful deciduous and coniferous woodland habitats that can be found at Knettishall Heath are incredibly important, but so to is the rarer Breckland heath and species it supports, such as woodlark, reptiles and Breckland plants and insects. So, every winter, the team here remove a small percentage of the young pines and birch growing on the heath, whilst ensuring a large amount of scrub still remains. In essence the aim is to maintain a real mixture, with a bit of everything, a wonderful wild mess that benefits as many species as possible, whilst ensuring the increasingly rare Breckland heath isn’t lost.

This last winter however, Covid 19 has prevented our volunteer teams being in action in groups on the heath, when they would usually be working closely in pairs to cut and treat saplings as they remove them. One volunteer, Mark Papworth, came up with the idea of creating a sapling puller, that would allow staff and volunteers to work socially distanced, pulling saplings on their own. It also has the added benefit of at times removing any need for the use of chemicals.

Similar tools are used fairly widely, but not commonly, and so Mark turned to his master craftsman friend Sergio Muelle at Twisted Horseshoe Knives to co-design what they have christened the Hyperbolic Sapling Puller, or HSP! Sergio is a master knife maker and general blacksmith who used his local workshop and resources, including farrier files for the grip, to design and create this tool. Between them, Mark and Sergio trialled several models, testing them in action on the heath to get the design right. The idea is that one person can pull up a silver birch sapling, including the root system, using the principles of leverage.

With a successful prototype designed, Mark has generously purchased the first one from Sergio, and donated it to the Trust in memory of our volunteer John Turner who passed away in 2020. John was a longstanding volunteer with the Trust both at Knettishall Heath and Redgrave and Lopham Fen, who put in many hours work helping to maintain these wonderful places.

The Knettishall Heath volunteer team are now looking forward to getting back to work this year, and hopefully being able to try out the HSP this autumn!