Biodiversions: Bluebunch Wheatgrass

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 26, 2009

Crossposted from Yips and Howls

I hate lawns.  I dug up most of mine on a city lot in Portland, Oregon and replaced it with fruit trees, berries, vegetables, and flowers.  In the parking strips, I planted drought tolerant species.  Now on our property in Northeastern Oregon, I’m battling a much larger swath of smooth brome and other introduced pasture grasses to establish an orchard and kitchen garden.

Bluebunch wheatgrass grows in dispersed tufts.  Other bunchgrasses, such as Idaho fescue, and many herbaceous plants grow in-between.  It’s a wonderful example of how diverse native grasslands can be.

I once thought my battle against lawns and runner grasses invading garden areas meant I hated grass.  But the move to Eastern Oregon has reminded me how important grass is to grazing animals and also introduced me to native bunchgrasses, particularly Bluebunch Wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata or Agropyron spicatum).  I’m so enchanted with the beauty, usefulness and adaptability of this species, I’d like to see more rather than less of it.

Bluebunch Wheatgrass carpets the slopes of many arid regions of Western North America.  It spreads by seed rather than runners and like the herbaceous plants that grow among it, it times its growth cycle to take advantage of snowmelt and spring rainfall.  In our part of the country, it greens up and sets seed by early June and then turns brown precisely when the ground begins to dry out.

Bluebunch wheatgrass is a favored spring food for elk and provides nutritious forage for cattle and other livestock.  It also supports diverse plant communities that shelter and feed songbirds, grouse, and rodents.  These in turn provide food for raptors and other predators.

Although the land has been fallow for at least twenty years, the line between the old cultivated field and healthy bunchgrass communities on the slopes above and below is still distinct.

On our property, like many others throughout the West, homesteaders plowed up the native grasslands on flat areas to grow grain and hay.  Some farmers in our area continue to grow wheat and hay.  The fields on our land have been fallow for at least twenty years, but have not reverted to native bunchgrasses.  In fact, lack of grazing and cultivation has led to domination by poor forage grasses and sulfur cinquefoil - a species on noxious weed lists throughout the West.  The land is in a kind of limbo now - not great for either livestock or native wildlife.  We’d like to expand the bunchgrass habitat, but have heard it’s challenging and perhaps impossible.  We may find that the best we can do is provide a more diverse and nutritious mix of non-native grasses and legumes.

The largest intact native bunchgrass prairie in North America is about 50 crow miles from us on Zumwalt Prairie.  The Nature Conservancy bought 33,000 acres several years ago and may expand with new acquisitions.  Over twenty years ago,  Marcy Houle carried out a study on raptor populations in the area.  She assumed she would encounter overgrazing, degraded habitat, declining wildlife populations, etc.  But instead she found thriving buteo populations, healthy ecosystems and ranchers who loved the land and carefully timed their grazing on it to protect the life cycles of the bunchgrasses.  She published the story of her findings in Prairie Keepers.  It is because of the good stewardship of many of these ranchers (and also because the land was unsuited to plowing) that the prairie has been preserved.

Over the next few years, I’ll be learning a lot more about grasses - both native and introduced - to decide the best course for different areas of our land.  It’s an ironic twist in the path of a lawn-hating kitchen gardener.

Wildflowers and bunchgrasses

For more information:

Montana State University, Animal and Range Sciences

Range Plants of Utah

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

If you’d like to see more photos of wildflowers and our attempts to establish a home and garden in Flora, Oregon, click here.

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Note:  I’ll be taking a break from my column next week.  Limited internet access has made research and communication very difficult, and like the bunchgrasses,  I need to get my seeds in before the ground gets too dry.  A brief trip to Portland later next week will allow me to catch up some on my virtual and writing life.  I’m hoping that by the time we return to NE Oregon the following week, we’ll have scheduled installation for a satellite dish and I can achieve a healthier balance between my on- and off-line lives