Going (un)Native! What does that even mean? Well when someone says, “I’m going Native!”, I usually envision a head dress, face paint, possible being European and not shaving certain body areas. Don’t worry none of those crazy ideas are happening here; well maybe the face paint (so I don’t scare the neighbors). We are doing the opposite. We have decided to take part of our Native grass hay field and rejuvenate it this year. I’ll be honest I really wanted it to stay untouched like it has been for about 30 some years, but the hay that came out of it this year was anything but quality. Now some would argue that its not supposed to be great, its native and pristine. And trust me I cringed when I saw our John Deere 7610 with a bottom plow ripping into it.  But for those of you who don’t have Native grass pastures here’s a little background from the pastures like this in Nebraska.

 

If you decide to look up Native grass for the state of Nebraska you would find all sorts or great resources! Among them is an informative paper from the University of Nebraska Lincoln Extension it lists all sorts of native grasses to our area. Be prepared for large amount of reading (which is awesome)! Here are a few that I know that were at one time present in our field: Big Bluestem, Sideoats grama, Purple lovegrass, Littlebluestem, Indiangrass, Johnsongrass, Purpletop, Orchardgrass, Quackgrass, Tall fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, etc. Now this is a small list and I’m sure there was more than even I know about, not to mention all of the native wildflowers we had growing.  This mix of grasses and wildflowers thrived nicely on our 40 +/- acreage. Of course though, over time woody stemmed shrubs, thistles, cedar trees, and other noxious weeds have invaded. What are we ever going to do to stop the advancing horde of non native invaders (sorry I had to go sci-fi dramatic)?!

RIP IT UP! What?! Wait, aren’t we a no-till farm? Yes, yes we are. We read over a various articles about overseeding, frost seeding, discing, broadcasting, and burning the original land in hopes that the seed or fire would kill out any of the weeds. In the end, we chose to first bottom plow, next disc the ground to level out, pack the ground to be firm, and finally drill/broadcast grass/legume seed mix to grow in place of the native grass. We are doing about 20 ish acres this way. The weeds and woody brush were just too numerous to make a difference with fire or overseeding. Plus fire, in March, in Nebraska just didn’t seem like a great idea (lots of wind and dry conditions).

But what about soil erosion! I had this fear as well, but after we made the first pass we realized that the ground underneath all those weeds was full of moisture. Also, the weed/brush roots had made a nice mat to keep the soil together. So we are finishing up the ‘rip it up’ stage and moving onto discing. Now this will, hopefully, even out the clumps we made and also recontour some of the land that gophers have decided to make underground burrows in which you could probably hide a car. Those ornery little critters have done damage to our field!

I know, cute and cuddly! More like a non stop eating demon from the underworld. Just kidding. I know they have their place in this world too and I’m sure they will migrate to the front yard in light of what we are doing to half of the hay meadow. (I digress)

After discing, we will have to pack it back down to give the ground some firmness as grass seed is small and if it doesn’t have adequate soil contact it won’t germinate or come up very well. And then onto seeding. We have decided to try and do a mix of grasses and legumes. What is a legume? Well it is a plant like alfalfa, clover, even peas are a legume. Legumes bring some much needed protein to the hay. Our hay feeds our sheep and cows; and if we have any leftover we sell it to other people for their livestock to consume as well. A little added protein to the fiber (grass) is good for the animals. As for the grass itself we plan on using a couple varieties that already can be grown here. It wouldn’t work out too well to plant grass that can only grow in Siberia! (oh that’s right nothing grows there..whoops) We are leaning toward a mix of Orchardgrass and maybe Timothy grass. They both have good nutritional value and are highly consumed by various livestock.  If everything goes well we will be harvesting our first cutting of hay in June!

There you have it a little history/plant science background lesson for you today on a native grass hay field in Nebraska! Hope you all enjoyed it, there will be a short quiz tomorrow morning. Just kidding.

Please go to our Facebook page or YouTube channel and you can watch our progress!