Eastern Gamagrass

[Lbass]

Early this spring I noticed some clumps coming up. To dark, wide leafed and bunched together to be johnson grass. Now that its headed out I'm certain it is Eastern Gamagrass. I'm liking what I see so far, and hoping this rotational grazing system i'm installing will help it spread. Anybody know anything about it? Good, Bad, indifferent.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

It makes huge stools. You need to get pretty well established before grazing it. You can't graze it to short. Would work better in a mix with big bluestem and little blue stem. It loves fire. Burn it early spring.

 

[bigbluegrass]

Eastern Gammagrass is one of my favorites! The cows love it also. It starts earlier in the spring and goes later in the fall than most NWSG. It does need to be rotationally grazed or it will be grazed to death. I have not seen mine really spreading much over an area, but the bunch will get larger and larger. I have only been messing with it for 10 years, so I still have quite a bit more to learn about it. It is hard to get established, but once it is going it is very productive. I did learn that it is fairly easy to transplant. I noticed after the cows graze it, there is always a few pieces they uproot and separate from the bunch. If it has some root on it, you can transplant that piece and it will start growing. I imagine you could go out and separate the bunch and transplant larger pieces, but I have not done that yet. Transplanting the pieces the cows pull off is the most dependable way, to me, to get it to spread. Takes some time. The seed is very expensive on a per plant.

 

[Banjo]

Eastern Gammagrass is one of my favorites! The cows love it also. It starts earlier in the spring and goes later in the fall than most NWSG. It does need to be rotationally grazed or it will be grazed to death. I have not seen mine really spreading much over an area, but the bunch will get larger and larger. I have only been messing with it for 10 years, so I still have quite a bit more to learn about it. It is hard to get established, but once it is going it is very productive. I did learn that it is fairly easy to transplant. I noticed after the cows graze it, there is always a few pieces they uproot and separate from the bunch. If it has some root on it, you can transplant that piece and it will start growing. I imagine you could go out and separate the bunch and transplant larger pieces, but I have not done that yet. Transplanting the pieces the cows pull off is the most dependable way, to me, to get it to spread. Takes some time. The seed is very expensive on a per plant.

How much do you have and how did you establish it?

 

[bigbluegrass]

Eastern Gammagrass is one of my favorites! The cows love it also. It starts earlier in the spring and goes later in the fall than most NWSG. It does need to be rotationally grazed or it will be grazed to death. I have not seen mine really spreading much over an area, but the bunch will get larger and larger. I have only been messing with it for 10 years, so I still have quite a bit more to learn about it. It is hard to get established, but once it is going it is very productive. I did learn that it is fairly easy to transplant. I noticed after the cows graze it, there is always a few pieces they uproot and separate from the bunch. If it has some root on it, you can transplant that piece and it will start growing. I imagine you could go out and separate the bunch and transplant larger pieces, but I have not done that yet. Transplanting the pieces the cows pull off is the most dependable way, to me, to get it to spread. Takes some time. The seed is very expensive on a per plant.

How much do you have and how did you establish it?

I should clarify that I don't have anything that is 100% EGG. It is mixed in with other grass, mostly other NWSG with some fescue. I have it present on maybe 20 acres in varying density. I have maybe 1 acre that is over 50% concentration.

I started with seeds. Seed is around $20 per pound and 7,200 seeds per pound. Recommended seeding rate is 7-10 lbs per acre. That is not very many plants per square foot at a cost of $200 per acre to seed. I read 1 plant per square yard is considered acceptable, bearing in mind that a mature plant can be 4' in diameter. I did not plant with a corn planter, as is recommended, because of the hills and rocks. The best catch I got was by seeding stratified seed around the bale ring and let the cows work it in. That worked really well once, but since then I can't seem to get that to work near as well in other areas. Recently I have just been focusing on getting the seeds to germinate under artificial conditions. The seed has a very stubborn dormancy. The last batch of seed I received had something like 90% germination rate with 80% hard seed. It is frustrating.