Giant Miscanthus

[Plottin'booners]

I am thinking about trying a couple half acre plantings of Giant Miscanthus next spring instead of more trees. I don't know much about it and any pointers would be appreciated. First question would be where is the best place to get it? How to plant it? Cost? Weed control? Deer usage for bedding? Does it go flat with a heavy snow or good thermal bedding? If you already have it established how do you like it?

Thanks Scott

 

[Bill]

Lot of good info in the habitat section. And most of your ?'s will be answered.

I don't think you'll regret a field of it and if you do gly will kill it.

http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/miscanthus-giaganteus-propagation-from-cuttings.480/

 

[scott44]

Here's were I've bought my rhizomes.

http://www.mapleriverfarms.com/

 

[Steve Bartylla]

Scott,

I attempted to do what you are describing this year. I'd rather not list the source, as I had great results the first 2 years, have found the owner to be very accommodating and have yet to talk to him about this year's results. I ordered 20,000 and got appear to have gotten a "bad batch" this year, as it only worked acceptably on 1 property, growing conditions were good on all of them and we planted them the same way we did the 1st 2 years purchasing from that source (tree planter, with very minimal prep.....sprayed where we were planting and merely rand the planter through and dropped rhizomes)

Edit: I'm NOT counting my results where I tried to use it as bedding. that was different than what I have done in the past in all but 1 previous test I did. I'm basing the "bad batch" statement on where I used it for screening, as I did it the same way in previous years. My survival rate on the new screens I tried to establish was really bad this year.

Because it was a first year and it appears to be a failure, I can't say if this would have worked great or not, but here's is what I did:

Last year, I planted cereal rye in the 3 locations I wanted to try miscanthus bedding. This winter, I also frost seeded a combo of switch, big blue and indian in those areas.
This spring I sprayed generic round up to kill the cereal rye and very few weeds and grasses present, well before the NGs germinated.
When the miscanthus shipped after their harvest, I essentially planted it in concentric half circles, putting them in at every 3ish feet, spacing the rows about 10' apart.

The thought was that the miscanthus would at first help the NGs stand tall all winter, only to eventually completely take over 6-10 years from now. My plan was also to mow/maintain trails (which happened to concentrate and dump out by low impact stands) and open pockets within, for deer bedding.

I "think" it would work incredibly well, but can't say for certain either way. I know I will be trying it again next year, as I did supplement a switch screen I made with miscanthus and the miscanthus has been doing great in it for 3 years running now, despite the switch also doing great...I do believe the miscanthus will eventually win that fight, though

 

[Steve Bartylla]

P.S. Bill is right. He has a great thread on miscanthus and is about as close to a miscanthus "expert" as I know. I know I've went to him for miscanthus ?s more than once and found his advice to be rock solid on the topic.

 

[swat1018]

I reserved some last fall. Never heard from this spring when I thought I should have, so I emailed again. Never got a reply or the rhizomes. Did anyone else have that problem this year?

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

 

[Bill]

Never had a problem with maple river but I didn't order anything this year.
Something tells me if you call and talk to Don he'll try and make it right. They shipped a 1000 to my home once instead of the farm and got a replacement order out as soon as we figured out what went wrong.

 

[Bill]

I'm very interested in anyone's projects for bedding and cover.

I've often threatened it but never actually pulled the trigger. Since I'm sure my 500 Norway spruce are a nice golden brown in the drought and heat this summer. I may have to try that next spring.

 

[Steve Bartylla]

Never had a problem with maple river but I didn't order anything this year.
Something tells me if you call and talk to Don he'll try and make it right. They shipped a 1000 to my home once instead of the farm and got a replacement order out as soon as we figured out what went wrong.

I purposefully didn't mention Maple River as I agree with you on your take of Don. Sometimes things just happen through no one's fault and I suspect he'll do something to make it right. I just want to wait to see if a decent % somehow miraculously springs into life. Not holding my breath on that, but I do want to give it every chance to succeed before contacting him.

 

[Steve Bartylla]

I'm very interested in anyone's projects for bedding and cover.

I've often threatened it but never actually pulled the trigger. Since I'm sure my 500 Norway spruce are a nice golden brown in the drought and heat this summer. I may have to try that next spring.

If I can remember to drag a cell phone or camera with me, I'll take some pics of the miscanthus growing in about a 5 yard wide strip of NGs. It's not for bedding, but it is what gave me the idea to try what I did in the failed attempt at creating a NG & miscanthus bedding combo. I am pretty confident it will work out incredibly well. I think I was just shooting blanks this year, based on the failed new screens I tried to establish with the same batch.

I honestly believe that the NGs aren't required. I just went with the 1-2 punch combo because I really wanted to try it and figured taking 2 shots at establishing bedding (the NGs & miscanthus), at least one of them would likely produce the bedding cover I want, even if the other completely failed. Assuming the miscanthus doesn't come back, I'll likely try running the tree planter through those areas again next year. I'm betting that the miscanthus is aggressive enough to win the fight in even a fully established NG stand, as it did in the screen I added it too.

 

[Bill]

Steve here's the hard part about MG. last spring I planted a 300 foot double row screen. The first row did so so. The second row had maybe 15 plants come up. I wrote the whole row off. This spring 75% the darn things emerged. I did use weed control even though they weren't there. Kinda over spray from the good row.

I've never witnessed that before. If I were planting for clients I wouldn't take a wait and see approach. I'd get on the horn with Don and see what his experience/thoughts were.

Interesting on mixing it with native grasses. I always wanted to try a clover/MG mix. I know the MG would blow past the clover. The only down side might be there would never be a reason for a deer to leave the field until the rut.

 

[Plottin'booners]

Thanks for the info guys and thanks for the link Bill.....alot of good reading. Steve I was thinking about planting some in some say 30 by 30 clumps on a couple grassy hillsides. I have Spruce trees planted there as well but thought about filling in some areas that died out with it to give it a little diversity. Can this stuff be planted too deep? Just wondering if it can be like other things we plant where too shallow or too deep matters.

 

[Bill]

I am thinking about trying a couple half acre plantings of Giant Miscanthus next spring instead of more trees. I don't know much about it and any pointers would be appreciated. First question would be where is the best place to get it? How to plant it? Cost? Weed control? Deer usage for bedding? Does it go flat with a heavy snow or good thermal bedding? If you already have it established how do you like it?

Thanks Scott

I guess I should have also answered the ?'s so guys don't have to jump around and the link I provided is a pretty long thread.

Plant with a shovel, dibble bar, middle buster or tree planter. 3 to 4 inches deep is good. To shallow can lead to winter freeze killing the rhizome, to deep and it won't have the energy to push its way out of the ground.

Weed control pre plant and or preemergent. 2 to 4 oz/acre of Atrazine or Simazine plus glyphosate at 2qts/acre with crop oil.
(Then be sure to put the crop oil away and never use it on a growing plant.)

Weed control post emergent. Spray right over the plant with 2 to 4 oz/acre Atrazine or Simazine and 2-4,D per the label. Omit the use of crop oil and replace it with a teaspoon of dish detergent per gallon of water. Crop oil burns MG, trust me on that. :)

A note on simazine and Atrazine. The label says not to exceed 4oz per acre per year and not to use on corn after it reaches 12 inches tall. I spoke with a guy who does crop spraying for a living. According to him this is to protect against residual damage to the following years rotation to soybeans. Since our MG won't be rotated to beans I've never been afraid to use a bit more.

It will not go flat in the winter but it does loose it's leaf leaving only the stalk behind. I believe a thick enough stand would act as thermal cover but I've never actually tried.

If you don't mind I'd like to move this thread to the habit section.

 

[Bill]

And for the record this is a speculative statement.

. 3 to 4 inches deep is good. To shallow can lead to winter freeze killing the rhizome, to deep and it won't have the energy to push its way out of the ground..

I've never experimented with how deep is too deep. I have planted to shallow and my assumption is they died from winter freeze. I've always had good results at 3 to 4 inches so that's my recommendation.

 

[Plottin'booners]

Thanks.. And feel free to move this topic.
Scott

 

[homegrownbucks]

I will add my miscanthus has not done well in combo with switchgrass, I think a checkerboard patterned area of it would be great cover, basically you can put "swamp cover" wherever you want

 

[Steve Bartylla]

I will add my miscanthus has not done well in combo with switchgrass,

If you don't mind, how so? Not questioning your statement, trying to learn from it

 

[scott44]

I tried this a couple years ago and it appears the MG has a hard time competing with the switch, it does ok but not like the MG planted alone. Maybe it will take off but mine hasn't spread like the MG planted at the same time then again this hasn't got the fert. like my other so that may be it too. Just planted it and let it go. Couple pics from last week.

 

[homegrownbucks]

I had similar results to Scott, along an 8' wide screen area I planted rhizomes down the center with bad results. It grows thinly but doesn't compare to the stuff that was planted in the open without the ag competition. Also I have planted right along the edge of switch and the switch expands a bit and seems to compete with it too. I'll see if I can locate a pic

 

[homegrownbucks]

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