FARMERS and land managers gathered on one of Annandale Estates hills, near Lockerbie, last week, to witness Scotland's first demonstration of the new method in controlling the fast growing weed, bracken.

This event revealed how the weed can not only be controlled to help improve the land, but how it can be harvested and turned into both liquid biofuels and biomass pellets.

A multitude of equipment was present from European companies, Brielmaier, Schiltrac, Orkel and Ecokraft, which has been brought over by Oakland Biofuels, a company based in Wales who are in the process of establishing a pilot project in Grimsby. Oakland has said that if it has access to sufficient quantities of bracken in a reasonable area, which produces the correct amount of ethanol yield, it would consider building a full scale plant in Scotland.

"During this process, we will use our own equipment and take on the cutting service free of charge, which reduces both time and cost for the delegate," said an Oakland spokesman. "We can cut bracken and transport it as far as 50 miles but it very much depends on the yield that you receive from the bracken. A yield can be up to 40 tonne per hectare but this varies depending on the terrain on site."

However, for one plant to be successful, the company needs to collect 90,000 tonnes of green material to feed it – although it is apparent that other troublesome plants such as rushes and rhododendrons can be used too.

Brielmaier, a Germany company which Oakland Biofuels met at a trade show in Paris, have been selling harvesting machinery for 24 years and now have a market share of 75% for premium mowers for alpine use in Europe.

Due to bracken being more of an issue in Britain, compared to other countries which are mainly all grass related, they have recently developed machines suited to steeper land on hill farms.

Scottish Land and Estates chairman David Johnstone said: "This is a very interesting project which reduces the amount of bracken on our land, improving grazing for our animals and minimising the risk of ticks on stock. This cutting/harvesting service will also introduce more employment too, but I feel we need some form of Government funding to get the project up and running."