首页|Low weed and cool-season grass abundances likely necessary for warm-season grass, forb, and shrub establishment
Low weed and cool-season grass abundances likely necessary for warm-season grass, forb, and shrub establishment
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NETL
NSTL
Wiley
Plants seeded in degraded grasslands often fail to establish. In the Northern Great Plains, perennial cool-season grasses areeasiest to establish, and they sometimes competitively suppress warm-season grasses, shrubs, and forbs. Seeding cool-seasongrasses at low rates sometimes benefits other seeded plants but risks greater weed abundances. To identify grass seed rateslow enough to allow other plants to establish but high enough to constrain weeds, we varied cool-season grass seed rateswhile holding warm-season grass, shrub, and forb seed rates fixed. The first couple growing seasons after seeding, wehypothesized cover of other seeded plants and weeds would decrease with increasing cool-season grass seed rate. Duringlater growing seasons, we hypothesized weed cover would become independent of grass seed rates due to seeded plantsincreasing in plots seeded at low rates. Neither hypothesis was supported. Because weed abundances were high, warmseasongrasses, shrubs, and forbs apparently experienced similarly intense competition regardless of grass rate, so low ratesdid not increase seeded plant establishment. Regardless of seed rate, cool-season grass cover did not increase between thesecond and final (i.e. fourth) growing season, perhaps because of low precipitation. Increasing warm-season grass, shrub,and forb abundances will require controlling weeds in addition to lowering cool-season grass seed rates. Even these stepswill not always increase establishment because native plants sometimes died before controlling weeds with herbicidesbecame feasible and grass competition became important. Lowering grass rates without implementing weed control riskssites becoming weedy for prolonged periods.
NETL
NSTL
Wiley
