Browsing by Author "Tracy, Benjamin"

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    Evaluating Two Grasses Native to Southwest Virginia
    Golding, Dillon (Virginia Tech, 2024-12-10)
    Most agricultural grasslands in the southeastern United States are made up of cool-season nonnative species. This is due to a variety of factors such as familiarity of farmers with those species, their ease of proliferation, and an extended growing season. Some literature has indicated the presence of savannahs and meadows made up of native grass species in the southeast, including Piedmont and northern Virginia, but no research has been performed focusing on ecotypes from Southwest Virginia. A remnant native grassland in Carroll County, VA containing the native grasses little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and splitbeard bluestem (Andropogon ternarius) formed the basis for this project. Seed hay was collected from these species for the purpose of testing the viability of establishing these local ecotypes and comparing them to more distant ecotypes of the same species. A hay transfer experiment tested the effects of a low and high rate of seed-hay biomass transferred on establishment, as well as a pre-transfer glyphosate application. An establishment experiment tested the establishment of little bluestem and splitbeard bluestem under Southwest Virginia field conditions. Establishment was poor across experiments and across ecotypes, affected by drought and heavy weed pressure. Local ecotypes performed the best in the variety trial, but the impact of this performance is hindered by low establishment over the whole experiment. There was no significant evidence that a higher rate of hay transfer or a pre-hay transfer glyphosate spray had an effect reducing weed populations in the hay transfer experiment. This suggests that the weed control methods used in this experiment would be ineffective for producers under similar conditions.
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    Evaluation of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) and Sericea Lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata) to Improve Animal Performance in a Tall Fescue-Based Grazing System
    Tracy, Benjamin; Fike, John H.; Brennan, Kelsey; Blackmon, Tianna; Kaur, Sukhmanpreet (MDPI, 2022-04-01)
    Tall fescue [Schedonorus arundinaceous (Schreb.) Dumort. nom. cons. Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.] is the dominant pasture grass across much of the southeast of the USA. The species is productive, but grows slowly in summer. Plants also harbor an endophytic fungus (Epichloe coenophiala), which produces alkaloids that are toxic to cattle. Adding summer-productive forages to fescue-based systems may benefit animal production by providing extra herbage and diluting fescue toxins. A three-year study was conducted in Virginia, USA to determine animal and vegetation responses when alfalfa (Medicago sativa) or Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata (Dum. Cours.) G. Don) swards were established into tall fescue pastures. Average daily gain (ADG) of steers and seasonal herbage mass dynamics were monitored from 2016 to 2018. Forage and weed species composition measurements were collected to address a secondary objective that sericea might suppress weeds through allelopathy. Steer performance was acceptable (0.73 kg d−1 ADG), but interseeded legumes did not improve weight gain. Steers avoided sericea plants, and this resulted in greater herbage mass accumulation in summer compared with other treatments. Alfalfa was selectively grazed and cover decreased to almost zero by year 3, while sericea cover increased to over 82%. We found little evidence that sericea was allelopathic against weeds. Neither summer-productive legume species proved to be satisfactory in improving summer animal performance in this tall fescue-based grazing system.
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    Site Preparation and Planting Strategies to Improve Native Forb Establishment in Pasturelands
    Bellangue, David; Barney, Jacob; Flessner, Michael; Kubesch, Jonathan; O’Rourke, Megan; Tracy, Benjamin; Reid, John Leighton (MDPI, 2024-11-14)
    Increasing the diversity of native forbs in pasturelands can benefit insect pollinator populations, which have been declining widely. Establishing native forbs into existing pasturelands can be challenging, however, and information about effective planting strategies in these systems is lacking. In this study, we evaluated several planting strategies to improve native forb establishment. Two field experiments were conducted in Virginia, USA in 2021 and 2022. Experiment 1 evaluated how six herbicide treatments and tillage affected establishment success when forbs were planted in summer or fall. Experiment 2 investigated how different seeding rates from 2.2 to 56 kg/ha and pre-seeding cold stratification affected forb establishment. In experiment 1, treatments using Roundup/glyphosate and tillage resulted in the most forb establishment. Planting in summer improved establishment with Roundup/glyphosate application. In experiment 2, native forb plant establishment was positively associated with seeding rate (p < 0.001), with a rate of 56 kg/ha resulting in almost 3x more forbs compared to the lowest seeding rate. Cold stratification also increased target plant establishment (p < 0.01), but these effects were inconsistent among species. Our results suggest that effective native forb establishment can be achieved through intensive site preparation with Roundup/glyphosate or tillage to suppress vegetation and planting at rates no higher than 11 kg/ha.