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Re: Prairie restoration

Ridlon Kiphart wrote:
> 
> The Native Plant Society of Texas, Native Prairies Association of Texas
> and Texas Parks and Wildlife are in the beginning stages of a prairie
> restoration in Cedar Hill State Park, just south of Dallas.  The area
> for restoration is an  87 acre former cotton farm which is overgrown
> with Johnson grass.  Native grasses include little and big bluestem,
> Indian grass and some switch grass and wire grass.  There are some
> forbs--liatris, P. cobaea, gallardia, etc.  There are 2 small prairies
> in the Park that are available for seed collection.  We plan to start
> with a 5 to 10 acre site initially, and we have collected and cleaned
> forb and grass seed.
> We would like suggestions on preparing the site, with specifics on
> eradicating the Johnson grass and on how to go about seeding--drill it,
> cast it, put it in seedballs.
> Thanks for your help.
> Ridlon J. Kiphart,M.D.   NPSOT, Dallas Chapter
> 
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To get rid of the Johnsongrass youre in for a long fight.  This species
is a member of the Sorghum genus and is adapted to a wide range of
environments except for very wet sites.  It was originally brought to
the US from northern Africa and introduced in Mississippi for pasture. 
It is real good for this.  In fact there are only two major shortcomings
of this species when used for this purpose  (1)  Prussic acid
accumulation
in tissues when subjected to stress such as drought.  This is converted
into HCN in ruminants (not good!).  (2)  Will not tolerate overgrazing.
Cattle love the stuff and if left to their own vices will graze it into
oblivion.   This species escaped into cropland fields where it is very
competetive and prolific.  It reproduces equally well from seed and
rhizomes.  You have undoubtedly a very good Johnsongrass seedbank and
very healthy rhizomes.  I would take the ten acres that you going to
plant and do repeated tillage to kill seedlings, chop up the rhizomes
and deplete their carbohydrate reserves.  One alternative is to get a
good stand of Johnsongrass and apply Roundup.  This will kill a lot of
the rhizome tissues but not all of it.  I would then no-till drill your
seed.
Subsequent tillage will just initiate a new flush of seedlings and
surviving rhizome growth.  I would only plant species of praire plants
that are tolerant to Plateau herbicide.  This product is manufactured by 
American Cyanamid.  It will control johnson grass.  Many of the native
grasses and forbs are tolerant to this chemical.  Some however are not.
On the areas that will remain fallow for the time being until you get
enough seed to plant them, I would suggest repeated mowing and Roundup
treatments.  Roundup will translocate the most when applied to
Johnsongrass at the "boot" stage.  So the best strategy is to mow or
disc 
in the early part of the growing season then let the Johnsongrass grow
and treat with Roundup at the "boot" stage.   I really think your going
to need to apply Plateau to the 8-10 acres scheduled for seeding this
year.

Brett Roberts
State Conservation Agronomist
USDA-NRCS, Illinois

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