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Native Warm-Season Grass News
A Landowner’s Guide To Wildlife-Friendly Grasslands
Cover types from left to right are:
patch-burn grazed rangeland; continuously,
severely grazed rangeland;
conventional tillage; no-till with
regular duff it would have; and no-till
cover crop.
Rainfall Simulator One of the
most remarkable presentations
on the field trip was the Natural
Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS) Rainfall Simulator demonstration.
NRCS soil conservationist
Stan Boltz exhibited five
three-inch thick cover type samples—cover-crop,
conventional
tillage, minimum tillage, severely
grazed pasture, and moderately
grazed native pasture. Each cover
type had two jars—an outer jar
to capture runoff and an inner jar
to collect infiltration water. The
simulator released 1.5 inches of
rainfall as shown in a rain gauge.
The conventionally tilled sod
filled the runoff jug with dirty
water with little water in the infiltration
jug. The minimum tilled
sample had less and cleaner runoff
water and moderate infiltration water. The cover crop sample
had virtually no runoff water, but overflowed the infiltration
jug. The continuously grazed pasture sod filled the runoff jug
with dingy water and not much infiltration water. The moderately
grazed native sod had virtually no runoff and half a jug of
infiltration water. The jars speak for themselves!
It was amazing to see the amount of runoff from the continuously
grazed rangeland and conventional tillage cropland.
The other three cover types had very, very minimal runoff
amounts and the infiltration was phenomenal. The prairie
results shouldn’t be too surprising to prairie folks—good prairie
holds huge amounts of rainfall with little runoff.
Chris Helzer, TNC, will host the 2014 meeting on the
Platte River Prairies between Kearney and Grand Island,
Nebraska. Missouri will be the host state in 2016.
Pasture Rent
Photos Aimee Coy
Pasture rent inflated by double digits through 2013 across
the West Central Plains (Kansas, western Missouri, and
Nebraska), and by single digits elsewhere, according to the
Federal Reserve. Pasture values were up an average of 15.7 percent
compared to a year ago, but still nowhere near prices paid
for grassland that was converted to cropland.
Ask Steve:
Question: Dr. Bill Browning, a Kansas Flint Hills landowner,
called me about problems he is having with Caucasian bluestem
(one of several species of Old World bluestem) in his rangeland.
He has been frustrated with efforts to control it with glyphosate
(Roundup is the brand name) and asked if I knew of any other
means or chemicals that worked better.
A colony of Caucasian bluestem in a native
prairie pasture in Kansas, which cattle have
avoided grazing.
Answer: There are
a lot of Caucasian
and other Old World
bluestems in Kansas
and Missouri. They
are real problems,
and certain to
get worse. So far,
Caucasian bluestem
has not been found
on any public prairies
in Missouri, but
it has shown up as
a seed contaminant in CRP, highway right-of-way, and other
plantings. A colony will get larger over time because it will suppress
and replace most other native grasses whether idle, grazed,
or hayed.
I’ve had limited experience controlling it, but have been
fairly successful using glyphosate and know of nothing that
works better. It takes diligence and follow up to ensure all seedlings
are treated and killed. There’s no window of opportunity
in which other warm-season species wouldn’t be vulnerable so
treatment is likely to cause dead areas for a time. I talked to
Dr. Walt Fick, Kansas State University, and Keith Harmony,
Ft. Hays State University, who researched Old World bluestem
control. They said imazapyr (Arsenal or Sahara) also worked,
but tended to sterilize the site for a while.
Question: Can I plant buffalograss for pasture in Missouri?
Answer: Buffalograss works better for sunny lawns that are
mowed once every week or two in Missouri than in pastures.
We get too much rainfall for buffalograss to work well in
pastures. Buffalograss will tolerate the moisture, but other
plants will get taller and shade it. Buffalograss doesn’t tolerate
shade. Severe grazing can keep some of the competing plants
down, but many like ragweed, goldenrod, and ironweed aren’t
palatable and so will get much taller than the 4- to 6-inch
buffalograss. Even other native grasses like big bluestem,
indiangrass, and eastern gamagrass will get too tall for
buffalograss except in high trafficways such as vehicle trails or
tops of pond dams where the traffic helps control competition.
Steve Clubine
26 Missouri Prairie Journal Vol. 35 No. 1