TEAMS of seasonal student workers and Forestry Commission staff are on the pull in the New Forest - but it is ragwort not romance that they are looking for.

And they are facing double trouble in the annual crusade against the perennial peril of the bright yellow weed which is fatal to horses and other livestock.

A wet summer last year is blamed for a 100 per cent increase in the ragwort now infesting the open forest, fields and roadside verges.

More than 20 pullers have been at work since the start of July and the operation is likely to continue until mid-August in a bid to rid the forest of ragwort before it seeds and wilts, becoming more attractive to grazing livestock.

Containing a powerful alkaloid poison, as little as two pounds of ragwort is enough to kill a horse and the poison, which attacks the liver, is cumulative, untreatable and invariably fatal, leading to an agonising death for affected animals.

Seeds produced from the profuse flower heads on stems up to 5ft high spread over a wide area and can lie dormant for up to 20 years before germination, making ragwort almost impossible to eradicate.

But continued springtime spraying of the leaf rosettes followed by pulling of the mature plants in the summer is the most effective way of controlling the spread of ragwort and reducing the risk of poisoning to animals.

The Forestry Commission has been pulling ragwort on its land for more than 50 years since the reseeding of wartime airfields led to an explosion of the plant - senecio jacobaea - also known as St James' wort because it blossoms around the saint's festival day on July 25.

Hampshire County Council and the Highways Agency have also pledged their support to efforts to stem the rise of ragwort at the roadside.

And the British Horse Society, backed by other farming and animal welfare organisations, chose this week to launch a Ragwort Awareness Campaign.

The BHS also initiated a private members bill, which successfully completed its third reading in the House of Commons earlier this month, to make landowners responsible for controlling ragwort, already proscribed as injurious under the 1959 Weeds Act.