{"id":5785,"date":"2019-08-17T22:52:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T02:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/?p=5785"},"modified":"2019-08-17T22:52:22","modified_gmt":"2019-08-18T02:52:22","slug":"grass-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/grass-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Grass update&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/THGrass.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/THGrass-810x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Thistlehill Farm Grass\" class=\"wp-image-5788\" width=\"300\" height=\"365\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve never gone into the fall and winter with this much  reserve grass. It\u2019s called stockpiling and Church is stockpiling about 70 acres which is just over half our total acreage. The best I ever managed was about 40 acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This field was underwater the first part of the year. We think it\u2019s  switchgrass&#8230;a native grass that does particularly well with \u201cwet feet\u201d. An adjacent pasture with reed canary grass handled the flooding  but not this well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \ntrick now is to get it consumed while it\u2019s in this nutritious stage. \nEventually it will probably grow to about 8 feet and be unpalatable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for now it takes the pressure off our fescue which actually improves in nutrition and palatability after a good frost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With\n hay at $100 a ton this is a serious business and not a game. The basic \nidea is to lengthen the grazing season as much as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Church credits the unusually wet spring and more rigorous strip grazing for  this year\u2019s improvement. We\u2019re also considering seeding some winter  annuals including turnips and radishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can we make March 1st? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>David<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve never gone into the fall and winter with this much reserve grass. It\u2019s called stockpiling and Church is stockpiling about 70 acres which is just over half our total acreage. The best I ever managed was about 40 acres. This field was underwater the first part of the year. We think it\u2019s switchgrass&#8230;a native grass that does particularly well with \u201cwet feet\u201d. An adjacent pasture with reed canary grass handled the flooding but not this well. The trick now is to get it consumed while it\u2019s in this nutritious stage. Eventually it will probably grow to about 8 feet and be unpalatable. But for now it takes the pressure off our fescue which actually improves in nutrition and palatability after a good frost. With hay at $100 a ton this is a serious business and not a game. The basic idea is to lengthen the grazing season as much as possible. Church credits the unusually wet spring and more rigorous strip grazing for this year\u2019s improvement. We\u2019re also considering seeding some winter annuals including turnips and radishes. Can we make March 1st? David<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david","category-pasture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5789,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785\/revisions\/5789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}