Promoting native plants
Revegetating With Native Grasses is the title of a technical manual published by Ducks Unlimited Canada.
The manual could prove helpful to ranchers, pipeline firms, coal companies, highway engineers, farmers, parks people, conservation agencies and anyone else who has started growing native plants or is using them to reclaim land.
The 133-page manual covers every aspect of growing native grass, including objectives, seed selection, seedbed preparation, seeding equipment, weed control and management.
“We’ve dealt with native plants for well over a decade, and while there are some similarities to the introduced species, there are many more differences,” said Brent Wark, chair of Ducks Unlimited’s native plant materials committee.
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Wark said Ducks Unlimited published the manual because they observed mistakes people were making while trying to revegetate with native plants.
Native grasses have been gaining attention for environmental as well as economic reasons.
Native prairie plants evolved over the past 10,000 years in response to factors found naturally on the Prairies, such as grazing, fire, drought, flooding, salinity, extreme temperature, soil texture and fertility.
Returning a plot of eroded land to native plants means the land has the potential to become self-sustaining without fertilizer or pesticides. That means reduced financial input along with continued productivity.
The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration has provided Ducks Unlimited with snowberry root stock and has recently signed an agreement to propagate seed for Wood’s rose, western snowberry and cinquefoil, three shrubs commonly found across the Prairies, for Ducks Unlimited.
PFRA is also conducting applied research to find the best method of direct seeding shrubs into a grass stand. If PFRA can provide shrub seed and direct seeding technology, native plant growth will take a giant step forward.
– Ducks Unlimited Canada
Vitamin E reduced deaths
In Montana, 19 percent of lambs fail to reach market age. Verl Thomas and others at Montana State University studied whether giving ewes vitamin E in late pregnancy would reduce lamb mortality.
Thomas followed 470 Rambouilet and Targhee ewes bred to lamb in April. After shearing on March 18, ewes randomly received supplemental vitamin E. All ewes received 45 pounds of alfalfa hay. The supplement was fed until lambing.
The group receiving the supplement had similar condition scores and number of lambs born. However, lamb mortality from birth to turnout on summer range and total mortality were lower for those that lambed early in the season and were given vitamin E . There was no difference in lamb mortality for ewes lambing in the second half of the season, perhaps because stress was greater in the early season.
Due to lower lamb mortality, ewes fed supplemental vitamin E reared and weaned more lambs and pounds of lamb than other ewes.
– Montana State University
