Native Warm Season Grass

[dbltree]

I shared in the switchgrass thread that switch is very resistant to Oust XP herbicide and that this herbicide may prove to be an economical and easily obtained option comapred to atrazine.

I do not know at this point how Oust affects Indiangrass but it certainly doesn't phase Big Bluestem...

These pics are taken where my tree planting when right thru wild native big bluestem and the Big Blue was untouched!

I had used one ounce of Oust XP in my 3 gallon backpack sprayer but how much that translates into per acre is very difficult to say because hand spraying is not consitant...hard to control "ground speed" and "RPM's" when your stumbling around in a blackberry patch...

This pic was taken June 9th of established Indiangrass just to give an idea of plant growth early on.

Growth is always faster after a burn when the blackened soils warm quickly and speeds growth of NWSG's

This is an Indiangrass seed head forming on July 7 while another field was no where close to this height. The varieties are different however and after all these years I have no clue what they are.

Big Blustem seed heads in the same field

I have noticed that more frequent burning is better then less and waiting three years the difference in spring growth is profound.

After burning, NWSG springs to life and dominates but after only three years the soil is again covered with thatch and straw keeping the soil cooler which encourages cool season grasses and weeds to invade.

 

[tomt]

Dbltree,

Could you ever explain how to attach pictures on here. Seem to be having trouble figuring it out. Want to show you all some. I have this 3 year old CRP planting crazy with Canada Rye and flowers, but no signs of the switch, bb, indian, or little blue. Will take some pics tonight !!!!!

Thanks

 

[dbltree]

Dbltree,

Could you ever explain how to attach pictures on here. Seem to be having trouble figuring it out. Want to show you all some. I have this 3 year old CRP planting crazy with Canada Rye and flowers, but no signs of the switch, bb, indian, or little blue. Will take some pics tonight !!!!!

Thanks

I download them to my album on Photobucket

then just copy and paste the into your post here

Your more then welcome to email them to me and I will post them for you if your prefer. [EMAIL="[email protected]"][email protected][/EMAIL]

Usually Canada Rye last only a year or so and then fades away as the others take over so something doesn't sound right if the stand is three years old?? :confused:

 

[letemgrow]

I plan on spraying to kill some fescue in a big bluestem and indian grass patch that I have going into it's 4th year. I wanna get this done in the fall after the NWSG's go dormant so when would be a good time?? I was thinking in October sometime or maybe if there is a November warm up.

 

[tomt]

Dbltree,

I've read this thread and your switchgrass thread at least three times and have learned tons. I know you say you've never seen a WSG planting fail, but I think I may just have a failure. Will send you some pictures.
Like I mentioned, lot's of Canada Wild Rye and flowers, but none of the switch, big blue, little blue, or indiangrass that was supposed to be in the seed mix. This is the 3rd growing season on about 25 acres.
I did frost seed some switch and big blue into these fields this past March. Who knows, maybe some of that will work it's way in. I do plan on burning next spring. I'm limited on what I can do because of a CRP contract. My NRCS guy is pretty easy going and said we could try a few spots next year after the burn and drill in some, followed up with mowing all year. One lesson learned. Don't get your seed from the local mill !!!! Go with a reputable WSG seed source.
Will be putting in about 12 additional acres in CREP next spring. Aready have started the prep and spraying. Will do myself by your method.

Thanks,

 

[dbltree]

There is a first time for everything I and perhaps this stand is now the first NWSG stand that actually did not take? I wouldn't call it a total failure because the Canada Wild Rye and wildflower still provide great cover but not the same as the clumpy grasses.

Here are pictures of Tom's stand air seeded in Oct 06

No generally Canada Rye is considered a sort of nurse crop for the other natives and usually fades away after they begin to grow. Obviously the wild rye is still here and the natives are not.

Air seeding is a great method of seeding but I will say that I have found fall seedings to be less effective then late winter seedings. I think the seed lays there a little to long and is subject to problems thru a long winter but I'm just guessing.

I have seen several late November seedings do reasonably well but October seems a tad to early especially if there was some abmormally warm fall weather.

Mid March is my favorite time to sow fluffies and it's easy to do with a Truax drill on frozen soil or with the Truax fluffy hand seeder.

Fluffies however are not dormant seed like switchgrass so they could be drilled into that stand after burning in late spring.

Now something I would be inclined to do is pick up some switchgrass seed and frost seed some of it and see how that does.

That is an awesome stand of Canada Wild Rye though Tom! :way:

 

[tomt]

Thanks Dbltree,

The CREP 12 acres I'm doing next year the NRCS guy want's me to plant around "corn time" so I can spray the fields one more time next spring. They were in grass and brush the last 10 years. Will send you pictures. I plan on "supplementing" that with a frost seeding this next March with CIR switch. And yes, I will probably frost seed a little CIR switch in that Canada Wild Rye field as well.

Tom

 

[dbltree]

Keep us posted on how this all works out Tom both with the old planting and your upcoming new planting.

NWSG plantings are awesome and normally not that difficult to establish but in any planting there can be a "hitch"and some times "stuff" happens so I'll be curious to see what happens with this in the next few years.

Thanks again for sharing the pics...

 

[dbltree]

Tom sent a few before and after pics of preparing some pretty "wild" land for NWSG...

after

before

after using RR soybeans

Nice work Tom! Preparing is half the battle and should be at the forefront of plans to establish NWSG! :way:

 

[letemgrow]

Great pics Paul!!

 

[tomt]

Update on my "Too much Canada Rye patch"

Well, we just got home from a weeks summer vacation and of course one of the first things I had to do was tour and inspect the fields. I was shocked to actually find some Big Bluestem!!!! Not a lot, but a few plants here and there. I'm guessing I found about 30 or so on about that many acres. So the million dollar question, Maybe this planting wasn't a failure?

It will be interesting to see what shows up by the end of August ????

Will keep my fingers crossed!!!!!!!

 

[dbltree]

Maybe this planting wasn't a failure?

Keep us posted Tom...

 

[dbltree]

I'm going to re-post Phil's posts on Eastern Gamagrass and Prairie Cord Grass here in the NWSG thread so that more pople can be aware of these natives and perhaps draw attention to seed collection of true wild natives.

This is a great NWSG that gets pushed aside and most people do not know anything about the grass. It is a relative of corn with tremendous forage potential for cattle. Some stands can be chest to head high in high quality soils. I am in the process of collecting wild seeds from very vigorous plants in Northern MO to keep the genetic diversity alive. The only commercial sources for Eastern Gama are collections for Oklahoma and Kansas or farther south than that. I have pheasant hunted in gama grass and it makes great habitat for lots of wildlife. It grows in clumps as with other NWGS's and the seeds start to mature in July and are almost as big as corn and just as hard. The grass can be planted with a corn row planter and requires winter to break dormancy or some type of synthetic stratification. Here are some pics of this oft over looked gem. One plant can live up to 70 years.

Look how much better it grows on poor soils than the cool season grasses around it.

This plant is 2 years old on my farm and already starting to produce seeds.

Very vigorous gama that was chest high.

Shepherd Farms is a well known seed supplier and source of information about EG which is very much like corn and switchgrass in that it loves nitrogen and the seed needs to be stratified by cold wet chill much as switchgrass does.

Shepherd Farms - Eastern Gamagrass seed source

Phil also posted this on Prairie Cord Grass:

Here is another great NWSG.
This will stand up all winter long and provides great thermal cover for wildlife. It will grow in wet or dry areas. I have jumped many pheasants and deer out of this cover and wish I had more on my place.

Seedhead

Phil and I would like to encourage everyone to take a moment to gather wild native seed prairie seeds whenever you can and help spread these beautiful and very beneficial natives plants back to their original habitat.

If you can kill the coolseason sod this fall, even in small areas like a wild portion of a back yard or lot or an odd area on your hunting property or even a spot on hundreds of acres of CRP, it's easy to hand plant natives via frost seeding this winter or early spring.

These pics are from a friends place where I killed the sod and frost seeded a NWSG mix on part of it and CIR on the rest in an inaccessable field that required spraying and seeding by hand.

The second year the landowner was able to get some atrazine on part of it (safe on most NWSG the second year) but other then that it was just killed and seeded. It hasn't been mowed or anything and all of this on very poor pasture land, sorely in need of lime and fertilizer but...it still grew!

Mostly Big Blue and switchgrass right now

So regardless if you sow eastern gamagrass or big bluestem that you picked seed from in a ditch somehwere or buy a bag of seed, with a few bucks worth of roundup and a little sweat equity you can easily start some natives in your area!

 

[Sligh1]

Has anyone ever taken the time to pick seed from plants on a LARGE SCALE? Let's say you wanted 100 lbs of CIR switchgrass OR 50 lbs of big blue stem or WHATEVER, you think that would just be far too big of a task and hassle?? (let's just CIR switch is $10 a lbs so you'd save $1000 for example IF you could pick it yourself. Indian looks like it might be the easiest while switch seems the most difficult). Just curious if anyone has done this?

 

[letemgrow]

Switch would be tough to hand pick, but it is worth picking true natives to your particular area...the reason is...would we want to forest the midwest from 3-4 oak trees or use local trees that are made for that area. To me, it's the same principal using the cultivars of NWSG's. If we all planted CIR. then to me that is not much diversity to keep the species healty.

The easiest way to pick the seeds on most NWSG's such as switch, indian or big blue is to run some sort of screen fairly fast over the seed heads and have them fall into a container. Think about how many seeds end up in a radiator or on a hay conditioner when you drive over top the seeds.

I agree Skip that Indian grass is super fast and easy to pick along with big blue, little bluestem and side oats grama. I picked 5 pounds of blazing star last fall and spread that on my wildflower area.

 

[dbltree]

These are pics of wild big bluestem on the farm where I have never introduced any "fluffies"...

Lots of people think you have to work up the ground and spend a lot of time and money to establish native grasses but sometimes just fencing the cattle out and letting nature take it's course will do the trick! :way:

If you can burn fields late in the spring you will also encourage wild natives, especially if burns are done on a regular basis to set back invasive cool seasons.

That last pic shows where I used Oust XP on my oak seedlings but the Big Blustem is unphased and is in fact thriving.

Using glyphosate in early fall after natives have matured but while cool seasons are still green and burning in late spring are good combinations to help restore wild native grass habitat and...there is often cost share available to do restorative burns! :way:

 

[letemgrow]

Great stuff Paul!!

I recommend that before anyone buys NWSG's, see what you already have in the seed bank by doing a spring/fall burn or gly application and see what comes back. You may be suprised about what is already there.

 

[tomt]

Update on too much rye !!!!!!!!

Will try to post some pictures. I actually am starting to see some Big Blue and Indiangrass in my 3rd year planting. I even found two different shoots of switch.

 

[tomt]

Another picture. Will work on attaching skills.

 

[tomt]

I guess my parcel is good proof that it may take 3-4 years for a prairie to get established. Can't wait to burn next spring.

Granted I took these pictures in a area that had some "natives", But at least I know they were in the hopper when planted.