An Abundant Food Source

A natural stand of Plains Grass on the side of the road at Yando

Plains Grass is a native grass that can grow up to two metres tall. There are stories of early selectors having to get on their horse to look over the top of the grass in the Yando and Canary Island districts. When the native grasses were ripe through Yando and Canary Island the Aboriginal ladies used to cut the stalk with a piece of sharp quartz and build hay stacks 100 metres long and 2 metres high. Early explorers saw these stacks or windrows and wondered what they were for. The seed eventually worked to the bottom of the pile, the same principle as working through your sock. Eventually all of the seed is at the bottom, protected from the elements especially rain. For 12 months of the year they could collect the seed from the bottom of the pile and make their flour. This took very little work, they didn’t have to resow the grass as native grasses are perennials. 

Harvesting the grass with a hedge clipper instead of quartz.  

The grass stacked in a miniature haystack and the seed starting to work through the pile to the bottom.