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Welcome from NE TX

Hello from North East Texas. What a day to find this 
listserve on!

We live in Hunt County, about 4 miles North of Caddo Mills,
about 45 miles North East of Dallas, Texas, in what used 
to be the Blackland Prairie. I work as a consultant in Dallas
and do custom Oracle database system development. My wife, 
Jan, runs the ranch and sells Bison meat direct from our
ranch to stores and restaurants in Dallas. Jan has a BS in
Biomedical Engineering and an MBA, and a website - 
www.bisonranch.com. 

We have several hundred acres of Blackland which 
had been intensively cropped since the turn the century, 
mainly for cotton, and lately for maize and 
wheat. Aside from a few clumps of Broomsedge Bluestem,
E. Gamagrass, Illinois Bundleflower, and Maxmillian Sunflower,
there is not much left of the former Tallgrass Prairie that
dominated our area. Three years ago, in addition to taking all of 
our land out of crops and back to grass, we naively seeded 20
acres by hand of Switchgrass, and it did really well, even 
though we had a severe drought start right after planting.
( When I read about planting with tractors, discs, sprays,etc,
I think of our results and what a range scientist said about
our stand after seeing it: "Its not supposed to work this way." )
Since we have not plowed and leave grass standing year-round, the
response of the wildlfe, especially the birds, has been incredible.
We welcome visitors.

Anyway, because we have a livestock operation, and 
an aversion to spending money, we looked into least-cost
methods of running Bison. After visiting local prairie 
remnants maintained by the Texas Nature Conservancy and
local farmers, and seeing forage tests and yields, we have
decided to take our whole place to Native grass and forbs. 
This spring we will be burning and planting 145 acres. Just
today we found out about 200 round bales of native hay locally
cut in October of last year that is has E Gamagrass, 
Switchgrass, and Big Bluestem seeds!!

Our area is unique because of the soil and
weather - a very heavy clay that forms heaves and
depressions that cause microclimates - and every year
we get a three month drought or two in the late summer or mid-winter 
which seems to set everything back but the Gamagrass, but then 
in one month we can get 20+ inches of rain and floods.

We are really new to this restoration business, and would 
appreciate any advice we can find. The last year has been 
quite a learning experience for us about grass and the 
local history of the Blackland Prarie. Because we have 
a lot of land, and because of the response of our initial 
seeding and the colonization we see of Broomsedge Bluestem,
we think that low-tech methods of restoration are more
approporiate on our soil type (and our pocketbook), than
plowing, discing, and spraying. 

I hope what I have posted gives a good picture of who we
are. I have enjoyed visiting the web sites maintained by 
members of this listserv. 

-- 
Austin Moseley  
Texas Bison Co www.bisonranch.com  903-527-2325. 
amoseley@csac.com  work:800.225.6204.x245
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