Planting grass

The newly planted plot surrounded by a temporary electrified rope fence.

Last week I finished planting about an acre of ground with a native warm-season grass commonly known as eastern gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides).  This grass has a history of enthusiastic use by farmers in the southern United States for hay and grazing.  One account, written by someone in South Carolina and printed in an 1833 edition of the Farmers Register, boasts:

The green grass is not very succulent, and therefore does not lose much in drying; and when cured, the fodder or hay is very highly flavored, and eaten very readily, in both states, by both horses and cows.  Its roots being very large, and sinking very deep in the ground, enables it to resist the drought better than almost any plant I ever saw. 

I tend to take passages like the above with a grain of salt, but I thought I'd give it a try and ordered enough to plant one acre.  The seeds that arrived were massive, each being nearly the size of a kernel of corn.  

Like many other species of grass, gamagrass seed won't simply start growing as soon as you plant it in the ground.  This seed has a special dormancy designed to prevent it from germinating until after a prolonged period of cold temperature.  Several methods have been devised to help break this dormancy ranging from prolonged refrigeration to various chemical treatments.   I chose the refrigeration method for my seeds, which greatly annoyed my wife, Jess, as the seeds took up a lot of refrigerator space.  

About a week and a half ago I retrieved the seeds from the refrigerator and planted them mixed with an annual ryegrass nurse crop.  As the name suggests a nurse crop is a faster growing annual plant species that is planted to assist with the establishment of a slower growing perennial plant species.  Among the benefits of a nurse crop are decreased soil erosion potential and a reduction of weed plants. 

Another reason I chose to plant a cover crop is to reduce damage to the soil.  Over the past few years I've noticed that, in many parts of our ranch, recently bared soil will quickly change.  Where the soil would previously have absorbed rain water, it now would hold that water in large brackish puddles for weeks or months.  Also, where the soil had previously smelled like normal garden soil, it would begin to release a strong sulfur smell.  The standing water and sulfur odor (hydrogen sulfide) are good indicators of anaerobic soil, which can lead to excessive phytotoxic sulfides and rapid denitrification.  To combat this effect I now make it a habit to plant annual ryegrass in any place I have significantly disturbed with the tractor front-end loader.  When I plant the grass immediately after the disturbance, the anaerobic soil conditions are significantly reduced and I find it much easier to plant more permanent plants in that area at a later time. 

A side view of a portion of the newly planted area surrounded by the temporary electric fence.

Another preventative measure I took was to erect an electrified rope fence intended to keep the bison from trampling everything to death.  Bison seem to be attracted to disturbed areas and seem to enjoy rolling and laying in dry bare ground.  The fence itself is a very flimsy looking single strand of electrified rope supported by metal and fiberglass posts.  Though I would never use something as minimal as this for a boundary fence, it has worked well for the past week as a temporary internal fence.  It was interesting to watch the bison when they first encountered the new fence and I wish I'd had the camera with me.  All of them eyed the rope very suspiciously and appeared to understand that it was electric.  None touched it, but in several instances I observed a bison attempt to push her neighbor into the wire.  This kind of thing is not uncommon as they appear to enjoy making things difficult for each other.

A closeup of the newly planted area showing the annual ryegrass nurse crop beginning to emerge.