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[OM] : Re: (E-1) pages re-done

Subject: [OM] : Re: (E-1) pages re-done
From: "Brian Swale" <bj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:22:39 +1300
Chuck asked the quite reasonable question

Are these hills green at other times of the year?

and Andrew gave some of the answer

> That IS green! Well there's a bare hint of green which is more than  
> we've got.
> Remember, summer is the dead zone. Native grasses die off. Growing  
> season is spring and autumn. Australia is worse.

The short answer is yes, and, it depends.

The longer answer is
Those slopes are north facing, into the mid-day sun. Most of the rain comes 
from the south, and there is a rain-shadow effect from the hills.
The soils are loess - wind-blown dust from glaciers thousands of years ago, 
with no clay colloids, so they do not retain moisture well, and in any case 
the slope implies fast drainage. The soils are often shallow which is worser !!

The dominant grasses are native tussocks of the genus Chionochloa which 
are pretty tough especially resistant to dessication in all seasons. Apart for 
the youngest leaves for a brief while, their narrow wiry leaves are silver or 
brown or red.  Also, the green component of the pasture apart from weed 
such as dandelion, and other herbs, comprises clovers, and introduced 
grasses such as browntop and cocksfoot.

In normal pasture management, grazing would prevent the development of 
flower heads. In this case, the City Council took over this land (a large 
tract, 
for a city park) in exchange for the area lower in the photos some of which is 
now approved for (expensive) residential subdivision. They lease the grazing 
to a farmer whose home farm is 50 miles away. It has been a wet year, and 
nobody has enough livestock to graze the grasses hard, so they have 
developed the normal brown seedheads. A myriad of them.  A dense sward 
of flowering/seeding browntop is like a covering of the finest velvet, coloured 
purple-brown. Absolutely delightful to see.

A couple of browntop seedheads can be seen at
http://www.tope.nl/tope_show_entry.php?event=21&pic=18

Maybe I should have adjusted the colour of those hills to be more silver - but 
the photos were nearly all into the light, so I'm not sure. That's what the 
camera recorded, mostly.

Brian

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