Látrányi-puszta Természetvédelmi Terület

The Látrány-puszta Nature Conservation Area, located in the northern part of Somogy County, is one of the protected areas of the Balaton Uplands National Park Directorate. The 223.6‑hectare area has been protected since 1977 and has been a nature conservation area of national significance since 1992.

Geography

The Látrány meadow extends east and southeast of the village of Látrány and west‑northwest of Visz, adjacent to the western side of the new route of road 67. The surrounding areas are covered by loess, but on this area the sand steppe is characteristic, whose surface is made varied by low sand dunes and the wide, flat valleys of periodic watercourses, and also by landscape scars caused by sand mining that shape the surface. A feature of such a surface is that even small elevation differences result in significant differences in soil water supply, therefore within a small area completely different plant associations alternate: dry sand‑steppe meadows, well‑watered meadow meadows, fresh grazing meadows and forested areas also occur here.

The area was a royal estate in the 14th century, and from then until the 20th century it was owned by various noble families. Its altitude above sea level varies between 116.8 and 143.1 metres. Its geological base consists of tertiary sediments, but the surface is covered by quaternary sediments. The lower‑lying part was once the shoreline of Lake Balaton, and the lake sand that accumulated here was later blown by the northern winds, forming dunes in the higher western parts. In the eastern, lower‑lying part the deposits of the Tetves stream cover the surface: this stream carries the surface waters to Lake Balaton. Groundwater occurs in the valleys at a depth of 2–4 metres, is of calcium‑magnesium‑hydrocarbonate type, and is extensively nitrated.

The number of sunshine hours per year is 2000, the annual mean temperature is 10.2 °C, the average summer maximums are 33.5, the winter minimums are –15 °C. The open sand patches can warm up in intense sunshine to as much as 55–60 °C. The frost‑free period is on average 205 days, the number of days with snow cover is 35–38. On average 650 mm of precipitation falls per year, of which 400–420 mm occurs during the vegetation period. Over the area fog formation at night is frequent, and humidity is high over the sand dunes.

Traditional meadow management played a large role in the fact that the landscape of the area and its wildlife remained largely unchanged for a long time. On the fresh meadows and sand dunes mowing cultivation was used, on the drier meadows they were grazed (mostly sheep and cattle).

At the beginning of the 20th century the mill operated by Péter Tukora, the Tukora mill building, still stands today.

Flora and fauna

On the Látrányi puszta the plant life is especially rich, more than thirty protected species also occur here, not a single one in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals. In the region only here live the white clover, the white liverwort, the hill straw thistle and the mosquito‑legged bellflower. Among its animals, many protected species occur among the insects, including for example the marsh tiger moth, the large fire moth, the bloodwort beetle, the zanot beetle and the scarlet beetle.

In culture

The Látrányi meadow appears in István Fekete’s novel *The Testament of the Koppányi Aga*: here Laszlo Babocsai and Oglu, the Koppányi aga, duel with each other.