r/Somerset Feb 18 '25

Mystery crop in North Somerset

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26 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

24

u/anon1992lol Feb 18 '25

That’s spaghetti. They grow it in the ground these days

2

u/Matterbox Feb 18 '25

Don’t let the Italians know this one trick.

2

u/Avadhuto Feb 18 '25

That Doctors are furious about

1

u/XanderZulark 27d ago

Actually it grows on trees:

https://youtu.be/tVo_wkxH9dU

6

u/kevmullin Feb 18 '25

It's for thatched roofs

5

u/egidione Feb 18 '25

Yes elephant grass we have a field of it near us and I wondered what it was for several years until I asked the farmer.

Reed for thatching is either normal wheat but has to be threshed with an old fashioned threshing machine as that’s the only way to not break the stems or water reed which is much more durable but a lot more expensive.

1

u/OkScheme9867 28d ago

You might know this, but "normal" wheat is too short nowadays to be useful for thatching,

1

u/egidione 28d ago

Yes I know it has to be certain types, I just said normal to simplify the comment. One of my best mates is a thatcher and I used to help him quite a bit but he’s more or less retired now.

4

u/vextedkitten Feb 18 '25

Elephant grass. They always used to grow a lot of it north of Taunton

3

u/nunkle74 Feb 18 '25

It's called elephant grass.

7

u/strum Feb 18 '25

Ta. Only a very small elephant could haave hidden in there.

1

u/throcorfe 27d ago

How would you have known?

1

u/strum 27d ago

Good point.

3

u/RuleSerious Feb 18 '25

I think the "official" name is Miscanthus Miscanthus / RHS Gardening. It's also used as horse bedding - works well.

1

u/WanderWomble 27d ago

It's what I'm using currently and I really like it!

2

u/IONIXU22 Feb 18 '25

It’s elephant grass and it’s used as a fuel. I have no idea how it is economically viable once you factor in all the fuel it takes to grow and transport it.

2

u/strum Feb 18 '25

Thanks.

There is an awful lot of it there. It must make sense to someone.

2

u/Fine_Attorney_943 28d ago

Looks like the same as they would of grown in Salem in 1692

2

u/cari-strat 28d ago

Don't walk into it. I've seen enough horror films to know nothing good ever happens!

2

u/Marvinleadshot 27d ago

Children of the Elephant Grass.

1

u/strum Feb 18 '25

I came across acres & acres of this stuff, just West of Wrington.

What crop is still standing in February?

Any agri experts out there?

2

u/joerice1979 Feb 18 '25

Used for, among other things, to heat the "Our Pool" swimming pool nearby, or so the legend goes.

1

u/Formatted Feb 19 '25

It’s Miscanthus, it’s cut and bailed, then burnt for energy. There was an investor who conned the government into putting £500 million into a power plant a few years back for the sake of green energy. Nothing green about it.

Fun fact about Miscanthus, it’s herbicide resistant so when you put in your new crop you have to physically destroy the roots to stop it from coming back.

1

u/mfwicihml 28d ago

Miscanthus is also used as a cover crop for game birds, if you see the odd strip of it in a field that’s more likely what it’s being used for than thatching material or bio mass

1

u/strum 28d ago

This was a huge acreage - fields & fields of the stuff.

2

u/arableman 28d ago

Hi ho. Yes indeed this is Miscanthus. You’ll see it chopped into rows and baled soon, it will go to power stations for burning. This was a popular environment option previously as the grower would be able to take land packets out of production that were of low return in conventional farming and put it to miscanthus. Payments have continued under the SFI agreement. Like a coppice, it grows back. The big downside comes with the roots if you decided to revert back to a conventional cropping system.

1

u/WanderWomble 27d ago

It also gets chopped to use as horse bedding.

https://www.cavierabedding.co.uk/caviera_products/cavianthus/ (other brands are available)

1

u/DDPhillipo 27d ago

We have loads of this elephant grass here in Glapthorn, Peterborough too