{"id":4516,"date":"2010-08-25T15:54:59","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T23:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=4516"},"modified":"2011-08-10T08:20:18","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T16:20:18","slug":"cows-cops-and-orchids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/25\/cows-cops-and-orchids\/","title":{"rendered":"Cows, Cops, and Orchids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk\/news\/wildlife-habitats-exceed-national-average-by-20-per-cent-under-waitrose-scheme-1726.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Native British orchids have found allies among UK dairy farmers.<\/a> Many farmers are setting aside more than a quarter of their farmland for wildlife habitats. Native plants and animals are returning, like the beautiful Orchis pictured in the article (that British Orchis is a relative of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/21\/orchis\/\">the Japanese Orchis that I grow<\/a>.) The farmers are following sustainable practices to encourage biodiversity, and they&#8217;re demonstrating that &#8220;nature conservation and serious commercial dairy farming can go hand in hand.&#8221; Sustainable practices can provide many benefits, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/15\/beneficial-insects\/\">encouraging beneficial insects<\/a>, which allows farmers to reduce their pesticide use.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/local\/northwestwales\/hi\/people_and_places\/nature\/newsid_8905000\/8905728.stm\" target=\"_blank\">Wild orchids are also flourishing in Wales because of changing mowing habits.<\/a> Conwy County has curtailed grass-cutting in local parks and other public lands until late summer to encourage wildflowers. It&#8217;s been a great success, and now even the local police department is finding native orchids on its grounds. &#8220;Some people see grassland as tidy, regularly mown lawns,&#8221; said Anne Butler, a local Biodiversity Project officer. &#8220;But when they see what grows in meadows, their perceptions might change.&#8221; It&#8217;s heartening to see rare orchids return when people make a little room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Native British orchids have found allies among UK dairy farmers. Many farmers are setting aside more than a quarter of their farmland for wildlife habitats. Native plants and animals are returning, like the beautiful Orchis pictured in the article (that British Orchis is a relative of the Japanese Orchis that I grow.) The farmers are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4516"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4547,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions\/4547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}