DeLange Seed

• Home • Up • Financing • Search • Feedback • Acknowledgments/Links •

 

bullet

INDIANGRASS:  Sorghastrum nutans

    Indiangrass is a major range grass species in the eastern one-half of Kansas.  It is widely distributed throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.  Indiangrass is a tall vigorous bunch grass with wide leaves and a striking bronze or yellow plume-like seed head.  Indiangrass forms rhizomes from which four to six feet tall stalks arise.  The species is highly regarded as an excellent quality forage utilized for pasture or hay.  Indiangrass, of all the tall warm-season native grasses, has the greatest potential to be utilized east of the Great Plains states.

     Indiangrass thrives on deep, moist soil varying from heavy clays to coarse sands.  It tolerates moderate soil acidity and moderate salinity.  While tolerant to flooding, it is perhaps the least tolerant of the warm-season native grasses to drought.

USE AND MANAGEMENT:

    Indiangrass is an excellent quality forage used either for grazing or haying.  It is also routinely utilized for erosion control, game-bird cover, and grass-lined water channels.

            Indiangrass can tolerate close grazing much better than the other grasses of the tall-grass complex, and responds well to fertilization under irrigated or high rainfall conditions.  For these reasons, indiangrass is often planted and managed in pure stands.  In an intensive grazing study conducted in Bourbon County, Kansas, steers grazing pure indiangrass averaged daily gains of nearly 3 lbs. from mid-June through mid-September.  (Bourbon Co. SCS 1984).

            While indiangrass is grazing tolerant, it never-the-less is one of the first species to go if grasslands are mismanaged.  Because indiangrass remains palatable for the entire growing season, livestock tend to search it out and consume it in preference to other grasses in the association.  On sites that have a high percentage of indiangrass in the plant community, it is the key management species.  On less productive sites, its presence indicates that the range is in good to excellent condition.