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<blockquote data-quote="Idaman" data-source="post: 766208" data-attributes="member: 14119"><p>The most famous grass for this lower country was the native blue bunch grass or Idaho Fesque. It was uniquely suited for winter grazing as its' feed value increased when it matured and dried. When it was growing the feed value was pretty low. This article outlines the characteristics of the grass very well.</p><p></p><p><a href="http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/1933/1/95.pdf" target="_blank">http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/1933/1/95.pdf</a></p><p></p><p>There was also a lot of needle and thread grass but almost no planted or improved grasses. The provincial BC government had a big program to no-till in crested wheat grass and at first it looked very good but within 5 years it was totally gone. That was a very big disappointment to everyone and I never heard the scientific reason why it failed so completely. We didn't have any of this done as most of our lower country looked like the Churn Creek Flats grass or was just too steep and rough to plant mechanically.</p><p></p><p>The higher elevation grasses were mountain brome, pine grass but mostly native short season summer grasses. The pine grass was almost totally unusable except when cattle were starved to it in the snow. The mountain brome was great and grew mostly around the birch tree meadows. The down side to the mountain brome was that wherever it grew there seemed to also be a lot of timber milk vetch. Timber milk vetch was pretty lethal to milking cows but their calves were unaffected.</p><p></p><p>We were able to graze out between 9 and 10 months of the year. Gang had a winter pasture on the other side of the river that would graze 800 cows all winter but our side was just enough higher and more snow covered during January and February to require some feeding. We put up about 1500 tons of hay that was mostly alfalfa with some brome and timothy mixed in. Maytags had purchased a lot of hay there but the problem was always the trucking to that side of the river. Whenever we were short we sent the weaned calves out to Kamloops or Armstrong to back grounding lots. This way they were already out and available for shipping if the market cooperated.</p><p></p><p> You could grow corn, for silage, there as some of the neighbors did for a while but they didn't keep it up very long, because it was a bit dicey. The gardens would grow everything but melons. There was even an abandoned tomato processing plant near Kamloops. The growing season was pretty short in the 70 day range but you must remember that in the frost free period the days were very long so that made up some for the short season. There were some apricot trees planted there but one six week -55F degree winter spell wiped them out. There were a lot of grapes grown around Kamloops and now a lot of ginseng is grown there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Idaman, post: 766208, member: 14119"] The most famous grass for this lower country was the native blue bunch grass or Idaho Fesque. It was uniquely suited for winter grazing as its' feed value increased when it matured and dried. When it was growing the feed value was pretty low. This article outlines the characteristics of the grass very well. [url=http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/1933/1/95.pdf]http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/1933/1/95.pdf[/url] There was also a lot of needle and thread grass but almost no planted or improved grasses. The provincial BC government had a big program to no-till in crested wheat grass and at first it looked very good but within 5 years it was totally gone. That was a very big disappointment to everyone and I never heard the scientific reason why it failed so completely. We didn't have any of this done as most of our lower country looked like the Churn Creek Flats grass or was just too steep and rough to plant mechanically. The higher elevation grasses were mountain brome, pine grass but mostly native short season summer grasses. The pine grass was almost totally unusable except when cattle were starved to it in the snow. The mountain brome was great and grew mostly around the birch tree meadows. The down side to the mountain brome was that wherever it grew there seemed to also be a lot of timber milk vetch. Timber milk vetch was pretty lethal to milking cows but their calves were unaffected. We were able to graze out between 9 and 10 months of the year. Gang had a winter pasture on the other side of the river that would graze 800 cows all winter but our side was just enough higher and more snow covered during January and February to require some feeding. We put up about 1500 tons of hay that was mostly alfalfa with some brome and timothy mixed in. Maytags had purchased a lot of hay there but the problem was always the trucking to that side of the river. Whenever we were short we sent the weaned calves out to Kamloops or Armstrong to back grounding lots. This way they were already out and available for shipping if the market cooperated. You could grow corn, for silage, there as some of the neighbors did for a while but they didn’t keep it up very long, because it was a bit dicey. The gardens would grow everything but melons. There was even an abandoned tomato processing plant near Kamloops. The growing season was pretty short in the 70 day range but you must remember that in the frost free period the days were very long so that made up some for the short season. There were some apricot trees planted there but one six week -55F degree winter spell wiped them out. There were a lot of grapes grown around Kamloops and now a lot of ginseng is grown there. [/QUOTE]
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