I'll admit, there was a point in time when I thought that farming should be the fate of any large piece of property and that 'farmers' were experts of their environment and could do no wrong. After all, farmers devote their entire lives to working outside, "improving" the land and making a living off of their efforts to tame Mother Nature. Not to mention, I grew up in an old farmhouse and later helped to resurrect an even older farmhouse along with the surrounding farm land which was an ideal environment to groom me for this type of mindset. As I got older and started to actually create my dream of having a working farm, I spent endless hours cutting autumn olive and buckthorn shrubs to restore the overgrown fields on the property and make way for animal pastures and cultivated crops. In retrospect though, cutting the invasive shrubs was really the only positive aspect of my efforts and it turns out, farmers don't know shit about what's good for the environment, but they're out to grow food not wildlife. Picture above shows brush piles from newly cleared field, circa 2001?
With the old fields restored to their open conditions, I was ready to plant. One of the earliest plantings that I did was in an old field out back dubbed "the back forty", even though it was really only about an acre and a half. I remember thinking that it would make a good hay field due to the soggy conditions that were present after snow melt in the spring and after a heavy rain. Great, hayfields don't have to be worked in the spring. I also remember looking at the bare ground that was the result of years of autumn olive growth, which provided heavy shade and thinking that I could easily plant this field to a grass/legume seed mix without any site prep. The seed mix that I bought for this area was a pre-mixed blend of non-native hay grasses, clovers and alfalfa for hay plantings and pasture renovations. At the time, I was employed by Highland Feed, a local farm supply store, making it easy to purchase the seed mix for this little site. I believe it was called "pasture mix". Anyways, the problem I'm having now is knowing exactly what was in that particular seed mix. If I were a little more organized at the time, I would have kept the tag off of the bag or wrote down the species list that made up the pasture mix. Picture above from 2004, when management was mowing and keeping the place "nice and neat".
This old field, "the back forty", is now known as "old mesic" and is our highest quality remnant prairie. After a few years of mowing that soggy old field (and a little knowledge gain), I began noticing something significant that was occuring there and nowhere else. Without the thick brush that once covered the entire area, the site received lots more sunlight, spawning the growth of plant species that had been suppressed for decades. Along the edges of the field, I noticed a vibrant array of wildflowers and sedges growing where my mower failed to cut. The following year, I didn't mow the field at all and was amazed at what I had discovered. A diverse collection of native wildflowers covered the entire field. Nowhere else on the property did I find the plants that were growing in this old field. This area was most likely always used as a pasture due to the soggy conditions that made it hard to plow for crops in the spring. As a result, the native plants have for the most part remained intact over time, waiting for the chance to once again flourish in the absence of human activity. Since about 2005, we have assisted "old mesic" in it's recovery by removing invasive plants and reimplementing the historic fire regime that over thousands of years has shaped it into the diverse prairie it now is. Picture above from 2006, when I stopped mowing.
Going back to my point though. If I had better records of the pasture mix that I planted a decade ago, then I would know if the switchgrass that's growing out there is native or not. Something is telling me that it's not native and that it was a component of the pasture mix. For starters, native switchgrass is the first native warm-season grass to produce seed heads in the summer, usually in late June or early July. It develops quickly in the spring and is mature by the 4th of July. My switchgrass develops slowly in the spring and doesn't produce seed heads until early to late September. This is not at all common of the native switchgrass. After a little googlin', I found a cultivar of switchgrass known as 'Trailblazer switchgrass'. This is a crop that is utilized by ranchers in the central US who need a drought tolerant plant that will withstand the long dry periods of late summer and extremely cold winter conditions in the upper great plains. One of the key features, this cultivated variety grows slowly and consistently throughout the entire growing season, maturing in late summer. Aha@!! Exactly what I'm experiencing! While it is not native, I have been watching it for the past several years and noticed that it is not spreading, so I'll leave it. I would like to get the native strain established though as switchgrass would have been a perfect fit for Old Mesic! Picture above shows the fresh seed heads from this strain of switchgrass that just developed in September (2 monthes after the native strain).
I'll admit, there was a point in time when I thought that farming should be the fate of any large piece of property and that 'farmers' were experts of their environment and could do no wrong. After all, farmers devote their entire lives to working outside, "improving" the land and making a living off of their efforts to tame Mother Nature. Not to mention, I grew up in an old farmhouse and later helped to resurrect an even older farmhouse along with the surrounding farm land which was an ideal environment to groom me for this type of mindset. As I got older and started to actually create my dream of having a working farm, I spent endless hours cutting autumn olive and buckthorn shrubs to restore the overgrown fields on the property and make way for animal pastures and cultivated crops. In retrospect though, cutting the invasive shrubs was really the only positive aspect of my efforts and it turns out, farmers don't know shit about what's good for the environment, but they're out to grow food not wildlife. Picture above shows brush piles from newly cleared field, circa 2001?
With the old fields restored to their open conditions, I was ready to plant. One of the earliest plantings that I did was in an old field out back dubbed "the back forty", even though it was really only about an acre and a half. I remember thinking that it would make a good hay field due to the soggy conditions that were present after snow melt in the spring and after a heavy rain. Great, hayfields don't have to be worked in the spring. I also remember looking at the bare ground that was the result of years of autumn olive growth, which provided heavy shade and thinking that I could easily plant this field to a grass/legume seed mix without any site prep. The seed mix that I bought for this area was a pre-mixed blend of non-native hay grasses, clovers and alfalfa for hay plantings and pasture renovations. At the time, I was employed by Highland Feed, a local farm supply store, making it easy to purchase the seed mix for this little site. I believe it was called "pasture mix". Anyways, the problem I'm having now is knowing exactly what was in that particular seed mix. If I were a little more organized at the time, I would have kept the tag off of the bag or wrote down the species list that made up the pasture mix. Picture above from 2004, when management was mowing and keeping the place "nice and neat".
This old field, "the back forty", is now known as "old mesic" and is our highest quality remnant prairie. After a few years of mowing that soggy old field (and a little knowledge gain), I began noticing something significant that was occuring there and nowhere else. Without the thick brush that once covered the entire area, the site received lots more sunlight, spawning the growth of plant species that had been suppressed for decades. Along the edges of the field, I noticed a vibrant array of wildflowers and sedges growing where my mower failed to cut. The following year, I didn't mow the field at all and was amazed at what I had discovered. A diverse collection of native wildflowers covered the entire field. Nowhere else on the property did I find the plants that were growing in this old field. This area was most likely always used as a pasture due to the soggy conditions that made it hard to plow for crops in the spring. As a result, the native plants have for the most part remained intact over time, waiting for the chance to once again flourish in the absence of human activity. Since about 2005, we have assisted "old mesic" in it's recovery by removing invasive plants and reimplementing the historic fire regime that over thousands of years has shaped it into the diverse prairie it now is. Picture above from 2006, when I stopped mowing.
Going back to my point though. If I had better records of the pasture mix that I planted a decade ago, then I would know if the switchgrass that's growing out there is native or not. Something is telling me that it's not native and that it was a component of the pasture mix. For starters, native switchgrass is the first native warm-season grass to produce seed heads in the summer, usually in late June or early July. It develops quickly in the spring and is mature by the 4th of July. My switchgrass develops slowly in the spring and doesn't produce seed heads until early to late September. This is not at all common of the native switchgrass. After a little googlin', I found a cultivar of switchgrass known as 'Trailblazer switchgrass'. This is a crop that is utilized by ranchers in the central US who need a drought tolerant plant that will withstand the long dry periods of late summer and extremely cold winter conditions in the upper great plains. One of the key features, this cultivated variety grows slowly and consistently throughout the entire growing season, maturing in late summer. Aha@!! Exactly what I'm experiencing! While it is not native, I have been watching it for the past several years and noticed that it is not spreading, so I'll leave it. I would like to get the native strain established though as switchgrass would have been a perfect fit for Old Mesic! Picture above shows the fresh seed heads from this strain of switchgrass that just developed in September (2 monthes after the native strain).
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