This study was designed to address the following over-arching question: Can solar farms and their associated management lead to a greater ecological diversity as compared to equivalent undeveloped land? In tackling this question, several areas of investigation were followed.
Does active management of solar farms lead to greater botanical diversity?
7.1.2 This study demonstrates that solar farms were significantly more botanically diverse overall for grasses and broadleaved plants. This result is expected given that control plots were either arable fields or intensive pasture and therefore botanical diversity was restricted to a monoculture crop and a low diversity of arable weeds, or pasture composed of one or two agricultural grasses. All solar farms had been seeded with grass mixes including a minimum of several species of grass and on three sites including wild flowers. This initial seeding provided equal or greater botanical diversity than the site’s arable or pasture origins.