Evaluating Two Grasses Native to Southwest Virginia

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.