Nothing can seem to illicit a tempered response more than the site of thistles in grass for many a producer, or hunter for that matter. Not that I advocate for thistles everywhere but to go after the old man “get off my lawn” response of “this is how we have done it for 50 years;” what has going after them with nukes gotten us? We have been spraying them for 50 years (or more) and they are still here. At a certain point we can’t just blame it on the neighbors, not controlling theirs and maybe spraying because that is what we have always done, isn’t working.
Weeds by definition are plants where we don’t want them, my definition of a weed out on grasslands may differ from yours. This is where I want to plant the seed (pun intended), that maybe your weed isn’t a weed. Most of us don’t have a problem boom spraying a pasture as pastures are grass right? Well, if we want a healthier grassland that is more balanced for our livestock then no. Of course it’s easier to just manage for grass. This is where the farmer mentality of just farming for one plant species bites us on the keister, as what we do on cropland doesn’t mesh well with managing diverse plant communities with dozens or hundreds of species.
The same methods don’t apply at least if we want to get the most out of our grasslands, i.e. the most profit. Yes, we have gotten by for decades this way, but why when it comes to our grass are we so resistant to changing how we do things? If there was a product that got us 2 more bushel an acre on our soybeans we sure are interested. Changes on your grassland like rotational grazing and increased plant diversity would be a lot more profitable than a 2 bushel increase on your soybeans without buying another input.
Besides overgrazing, herbicide use is the biggest reason for the loss of plant diversity on our grasslands. Like I said I’m no advocate for invasive introduced species but if we want to look at the main reason we have these weeds we need to start looking at them as a symptom of a disease instead of the disease. The disease is soil disturbance. The reason these plants exist is to quickly respond to soil disturbance. The earth wants to be covered. This is why in farming there will always be weeds no matter how clean we keep our fields. We are fighting something as certain as gravity. Even the introduced species had the same function where they are from originally. They just exhibit their nature here like they are on steroids.
We conjure up nightmares about these monsters, placing the blame for all our lost grass production on them or in a habitat situation they are going to kill our switch grass. Just like our fear of the monsters in the dark, we are afraid of a phantom. Our problems exist the same in the light or the dark. Soil disturbance is the reason that these weeds are presenting themselves not because they are some great evil, terrorizing you for fun. If we can change our focus from, “how do I kill these plants” to “why are they here,” then we can do something about them.
Overgrazing is going to be the most common culprit on our pastures, on our CRP or other “hunting” ground it’s probably it’s idle state. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Even if you do and have been doing a good job of not overgrazing your pastures, season long grazing (traditional grazing) still has areas that get over grazed. Once your Smooth Brome or Kentucky Blue grass has matured out the cows keep hammering where they had that grass grazed down before. Thus, creating overgrazed pasture. This is a soil disturbance, I know you don’t necessarily see black dirt, but weeds don’t need black dirt to sense a disturbance. Our pasture plants, whether native or introduced, get weakened by the constant grazing, roots aren’t as robust as they were, and space opens up in that soil for another plant to come in. Spraying herbicide does nothing to address the problem. It’s just creating an opportunity for more plants to keep coming.
This topic makes me think of my niece when she was very young. She would get knee pains that weren’t serious, but she didn’t think so. It was quite a production when it happened. So, to make her feel better (emotionally) her parents would put band aids on her knees and within a little bit of time she was over it and moved on. Turns out the problem occurred after she sat on the potty too long and her legs had fallen asleep. By having her get off the potty sooner her legs stopped falling asleep and the problem was solved. If she had just kept getting the band aids the problem would not have been solved.
Are you going to keep putting on an emotional support band aid (herbicide)? Or are you going to dive into the real problem?