1st Year Pollinator Being Taken Over by Grasses

[Barker]

I planted a pollinator mix in May of this year. While I can see that a number of the species has germinated, the foxtail, crabgrass, and barnyard grass have really come on this past week. I am worried they will take over and choke out the native forbs I have planted.

I am trying to decide if I should spray the field now with a selective herbicide like Quinclorac or let it go.

I do have a little bit of NWSG mixed in with the pollinators so I'm trying to avoid clethodim if possible.

Anyone ever had to address this before in their 1st year pollinator?

 

[omicron1792]

How big of an area?

 

[Hoytvectrix]

The silver lining is that each of those are annuals. You have the right idea with the quinclorac, though:

https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/agg2.20204

I think it is just a question of if you want to risk quinclorac affecting any of the forbs that are also germinating. Given that these grassy weeds are annuals and likely already have an abundant weed seed population in the soil, I would be nervous about wiping out the other forbs that were in your mix for something that is going to die in a few weeks. You can cross-check your forbs list on google scholar by checking herbicide tolerance with the active ingredient (quinclorac) used and the species planted.

When in doubt, call your local NRCS office. This is a very common scenario for spring plantings of pollinator mixes.

 

[SwampCat]

I have been very disappointed in the lethality of cleth on established nwsg

 

[Barker]

How big of an area?

About 7 acres total. Most of the acerage is effected.

 

[Barker]

The silver lining is that each of those are annuals. You have the right idea with the quinclorac, though:

https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/agg2.20204

I think it is just a question of if you want to risk quinclorac affecting any of the forbs that are also germinating. Given that these grassy weeds are annuals and likely already have an abundant weed seed population in the soil, I would be nervous about wiping out the other forbs that were in your mix for something that is going to die in a few weeks. You can cross-check your forbs list on google scholar by checking herbicide tolerance with the active ingredient (quinclorac) used and the species planted.

When in doubt, call your local NRCS office. This is a very common scenario for spring plantings of pollinator mixes.

Good info. That's exactly my thought process. Just worried I might lose a fair bit of the forbs being choked out by the grasses.

I called the NRCS and explained what is going on since this a CRP contract. They were unsure, said they'd have to do some research and get back to me. That was over a week ago and the grasses have really shot up.

 

[Barker]

I have been very disappointed in the lethality of cleth on established nwsg

Good to know. I figured quinclorac would be less risk on the new switchgrass seedlings

 

[omicron1792]

I would consider taking a day or two and walking through and spot spraying with gly. Can make a big difference with a couple of hours of work.

Read some posts by @Native Hunter. He uses spot spraying a lot.

How old is the NWSG? If established boradcast spraying 8-12oz/cleth per acre can control some grasses and not affect the NWSG to badly.

 

[FarmerDan]

This is going to be a half-formed opinion derived from very little experience. Couple years ago I got interested in creating some pollinator habitat. I got some free seed and no matter how you figure it, the seed is expensive even if it is free!. What are the plant varieties in the pollinator mix? My list was extensive. Then I found out there are different wildflower mixes for different environments and different purposes. I found it impossible to understand and/or create a care strategy. At the end of the first year I was disappointed. I saw nothing I recognized. Remember what I said above. But, at the end of the second and third years I had a decent - not great - mix of flowering plants.

I am a mower. What I did for weed control (LOL) was to mow/string trim what I recognized as weeds to keep more weed seeds from falling into the plot. Did it work? I don't know. I wasn't unhappy about the outcome but I guess it could have been better.

If it were possible to chemically or by some other method remove the existing weeds from the pollinators all that happens is to open the field to more weeds suited to germinate and make seed quickly. The pollinator plants seem to be much less competitive and aggressive. Maybe all that one can do is beat back the weeds and give some space for the flowers to wake-up and mature.

Maybe a rope wick applicator has a place here.

 

[Barker]

I would consider taking a day or two and walking through and spot spraying with gly. Can make a big difference with a couple of hours of work.

Read some posts by @Native Hunter. He uses spot spraying a lot.

How old is the NWSG? If established boradcast spraying 8-12oz/cleth per acre can control some grasses and not affect the NWSG to badly.

The NWSG was planted at the same time as the forbs

 

[omicron1792]

The NWSG was planted at the same time as the forbs

Then I wouldn’t do cleth.

Wick only works with things taller than the stuff you want to keep. Not good for crabgrass.

I used my atv sprayer and drive around holding the wand. Just spray the bad stuff. You don’t have to get it all, just the bad areas. The NWSG will take over and dominate if given the chance.

 

[BenAllgood]

In my experience, you'll need to control the NWSGs more than worry about the foxtail or crabgrass. The only major problem I had was with johnsongrass which was taken care of with Plateau. If I was to do it over again and wanted a lot of forbs, I'd leave out the NWSG completely and just mow periodically until the forbs establish to keep the grasses from going to seed.

 

[SwampCat]

In my experience, you'll need to control the NWSGs more than worry about the foxtail or crabgrass. The only major problem I had was with johnsongrass which was taken care of with Plateau. If I was to do it over again and wanted a lot of forbs, I'd leave out the NWSG completely and just mow periodically until the forbs establish to keep the grasses from going to seed.

100%. There was small component of nwsg seed in my pollinator mix. I have decided to not worry about the nwsg - spray with cleth and there will be enough nwsg to always be some there. In my area, nwsg becomes so thick it chokes out the forbs. Much easier to grow nwsg - here - than forbs. In addition, in my opinion - forbs provide a lot more valuable component than do nwsg. My new plan is to manage for forbs and not worry about the nwsg - there will be some no matter what. I dont see deer feeding in my nwsg - they spend as much time feeding in the native forbs as they do my food plots

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

FWIW. We did a 37 acre NWSG/wild flower/forb mix about 15 years ago. For the first two years we mowed it down to about 8” every time it got about 18”-24” tall ( about 3 times the first year )

The second year we mowed it about 2 times.

The third year we burnt it off in the spring.

From there on out we have broke it into 3 sections and burn one of them off every year on rotation.

The outcome: We have WAY more forbs growing in that 37 acres than we do grasses.

do with that info as you wish.


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