VERMILION, Alta. – Everything needs an advocate, including grass.
Robin Lagroix-McLean, an instructor at Lakeland College, has made it her mission to promote and protect rough prairie fescue, Alberta’s official grass.
The native grass that once covered the Prairies and sustained bison for thousands of years, is in danger of disappearing.
Only five percent of the former range of rough prairie fescue remains in the central parkland area of the Prairies.
“I love the Prairies and feel strongly we’re losing too much of it. A lot of people don’t realize what it means,” Lagroix-McLean told a group at a Grazing School for Women.
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The women left the classroom to explore Vermilion Provincial Park, one of the few remaining sites where rough prairie fescue can be found, to learn more about native grass identification and its role in grazing.
The park on the north side of the North Saskatchewan River was historically a winter grazing area for bison.
“Bison really depended on prairie fescue,” she said.
Even though the grass is now protected within the borders of the provincial park, it could still disappear because hardier grasses, shrubs and trees have moved in. Rough prairie fescue needs the trampling of hoofs and an occasional fire to get rid of the dead grass and create an environment to thrive.
“It’s one grass you really have to take care of.”
Lagroix-McLean said the grass shouldn’t be grazed more than once a year, but it makes good winter pasture or native hay. Too much grazing weakens the fescue stand and other less productive plants will take over.
“It’s not well suited to fancy systems that come through three times,” she said.
Often mistaken for Kentucky blue grass, the telling sign of rough prairie fescue is that it is the only grass that rolls easily between your fingers. The leaves are long, slender and pointed. Kentucky blue grass has a folded leaf and won’t roll.
There has been little success trying to reclaim rough prairie fescue land disturbed by oil and gas activity or on rangeland, she said.
“That’s why there’s a push on to preserve what we have. If you’ve got native prairie, preserve it.”
