{"id":190987,"date":"2016-02-18T09:31:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T09:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=190987"},"modified":"2016-02-18T09:31:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T09:31:28","slug":"australian-town-overrun-by-hairy-panic-weeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=190987","title":{"rendered":"Australian town overrun by &#8216;hairy panic&#8217; weeds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">A fast-growing tumbleweed called &#8220;hairy panic&#8221; is clogging up homes in a small Australian town.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Extremely dry conditions mean the weeds pile up each day outside a row of homes at Wangaratta, in Victoria&#8217;s northeast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Frustrated residents are forced to clear out the weeds for several hours every day, with piles of hairy panic at times reaching roof height.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A nearby farmer is being blamed for failing to tend to his paddock.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s physically draining and mentally more draining,&#8221; resident Pam Twitchett told Prime7 News Albury.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"story-body__crosshead\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">What is hairy panic?<\/h4>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Also known by its Latin name Panicum effusum, it is a grass that is found in every Australian state<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">It&#8217;s called &#8220;hairy&#8221; because while there are a number of other Panicum species, none have long hairs along the edges of their leaves<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">It grows rapidly and can form tumbleweeds which are dead grass with seeds inside designed to disperse them for reproduction<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">It can cause a potentially fatal condition called &#8220;yellow big head&#8221; in sheep if eaten in large quantities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/799C\/production\/_88323113_baggs.png\" alt=\"Frustrated residents are forced to clear out the weeds for several hours every day\" width=\"601\" height=\"338\" \/><br \/>\n<\/span><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Wangaratta veterinary surgeon Richard Evans told the BBC the weed would lose its toxicity once it dried up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The important thing is it&#8217;s not going to kill people&#8217;s dogs and cats, it just makes a hell of a mess,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Authorities are unable to help with the clean-up because the tumbleweeds do not pose a fire threat, reports say.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fast-growing tumbleweed called &#8220;hairy panic&#8221; is clogging up homes in a small Australian town. Extremely dry conditions mean the weeds pile up each day outside a row of homes at Wangaratta, in Victoria&#8217;s northeast. Frustrated residents are forced to clear out the weeds for several hours every day, with piles of hairy panic at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}