Yellow Rattle Seeds (Rhinanthus minor)

Control Weedy Grasses Naturally Dubbed the "meadow maker" in the UK, yellow rattle is an amazing hemi-parasitic annual plant that weakens grasses through haustoria (root-like structures that attach themselves to the roots of grasses -- robbing them of nutrients). This reduces the vigor of meadow grasses, and allows other wildflowers to gain a competitive advantage. In European wildflower restoration, a tremendous amount of work is currently underway to better understand and harness yellow rattle to reduce grasses and increase wildflower dominance. The results, at their best, are spectacular. On our own farm, where the yellow-rattle is plentiful, the native forbs have never looked better. The invasive old world grasses are less vigorous after rattle establishes within a sward. It's a great alternative to the use of herbicides for natural grass control. Yellow rattle is a circumpolar plant -- distributed across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, however it is rare or absent across most o