h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I could do with the opinion of someone who knows about farming - you sprang to mind!

I've written a guide entry about a nearby farm that has been bought by the local wildlife trust to preserve, among other things, its 'traditional hay meadows'. Someone on peer review felt it needed a definition of 'traditional hay meadow'. I've found this difficult, this is what I've come up with;

Traditional hay meadows have a 'great diversity of native grasses and plants which characterise them,. . . (This is in contrast to a modern intensively farmed field predominantly growing a high yield grass species to be cut for silage or to fields which are grazed and not used for hay making.)'

Could you let me know if the bit about non traditional meadows is inaccurate?

PS this part of the entry isn't trying to imply criticism of the intensive methods just to explain why the farm is an SSSI.

Sorry Waz, I've only just spotted this, harvest pressure and all that. I think you've summed it up nicely. Untill a couple of years ago we grew Italian Ryegrass foe seed, That really was a complete contrast to a natural meadow. We've just received the wild grass mixtures for the conservation strips, an impressive list of names like Fescue and Timothy. Mike