The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Identification => Topic started by: Buffy the eggs layer on December 19, 2015, 06:12:07 am
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A friend has offered me grazing on her spare pasture but each time I use it my sheep loose weight. The area holds alot of water in Autumn and winter and the grass survives well in pools of clear standing water. It grows in sods and creates a lumpy uneaven surface. If left ungrazed in spring it shoots up at an incredible rate ( last time we cut it, it was over the bonnet of the pick up!)
The blades of grass are long, flat and about a fifth of an inch wide,pale green and flimsy. Almost transparent at this time of year
My friends primitives seem to do well on it but I can only use it for trimming down. I have googled grasses for wet areas but can only find spike leaved ornamental which are similar in colour and habit but not the same.
Any ideas?
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Could be deergrass or perhaps one of the sedges? Both are less nutritious than meadow grasses. Might the damp ground also harbour liver fluke?
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Hmmm,
I thought about sedge too but will google deergrass.
Re liverfluke- her primitives have never suffered any undue effects over the past 8 years but I didn't want to take any chances so I dont have my sheep on it since I discovered that it gets waterlogged. The times before when the sheep were on there was the dry season after a cut when new grass was flushing through.
perhaps its better for browsers than grazers.... :thinking: [size=78%] [/size]
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[/size]Do you think it has grown naturally, favoring a peaty, acidic, lowland environment or been sown?[size=78%]
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It might be liver fluke, but it is probably a type of grass which is they're not used to, her primatives are most likely used to it because they have been grazing it for a long time. Could ytou possibly get a few cuttings of it and send it off to be tested? Would be interesting to find out what it is though :thinking:
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I suspect it's gtown naturally. If you overseeded such an area the more vigorous native grasses that thrive in that type of environment would soon swamp the new ones.
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Having googled similar types of sedge it could be looks like orchard grass or bent fescue but paler and in tussocks. It could be poor soil that is making it floppy and watery though?
The ram lambs that I had on there in late summer for the last too seasons lost condition but when they went to slaughter there was no signs of liver fluke. It was all very dry of course then.
Having read some stuff from natural England on managing such lowland environments I think you are right about the grasses taking over Marches.
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It sounds like a grass we have, very coarse, if you draw your finger along the underside it's very rough, almost like a fine rasp. Grass blades grow in tight clumps, 'sods' stand up almost like footballs, when I was among it in the bottom field a few years ago the 'flower' stems were taller than me, so some nearly 6ft almost feathery heads, quite scary if you lose your direction. My sheep only nibble at it until winter and hungry.
I did look it up but forgotten the name. I'll go ano check my grass book
Does this sound the same as the one you mean?
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Elephant grass :roflanim: