Guild member Sara Gregson has started blogging on her favourite topic – grass.
“This is a versatile and inspiring plant that we couldn’t live without,” she says. “Yet it largely goes unnoticed by most people.”
Through her TalkingGrass blog she hopes to start putting that right by providing an insight into all that is important about grass, whether used at home as a lawn, for recreation as a sports surface, or as a world-wide crop crucial to the cost-effective production of meat and milk.
“It is central to farming and food production, essential for many sports and an intrinsic part of gardening and horticulture,” says Sara. “Grasslands cover almost a quarter of this planet’s surface, acting as a larger carbon sink than the Amazon rainforest.”
Sara Gregson worked as an ADAS adviser before starting a career in agricultural journalism and PR, and in 2006 was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship to find ways to encourage UK farmers to make more of their grassland. From this she founded the BGS Grazing Partners Scheme, which matches successful grassland farmers with those less confident in their grassland management skills.
“The TalkingGrass blog will provide insight into this fantastically adaptable family of plants,” says Sara. “It will show how farmers can benefit from relying on it more – whether to bring down the costs of production, add value to their end products or help meet environmental requirements.
“It will also be of interest to groundsmen, environmentalists, lovers of good food and anyone else who relies on grass for a living or recreation,” she adds.
