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Re: Prairie restoration

Thank you for your helpful reply.
Ridlon Kiphart

Brett Roberts wrote:

> 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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