DlO—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, May 16,1981
Johnsongrass rhizomes can grow up to 300 feet in a month,
robbing the crop of moisture and nutrients, according to the
USOA.
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Farmers battle ‘bankruptcy grass’
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Vz Mile South of Rising Sur,
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LANCASTER Around 1830,
when Johnsongrass first found its
way into the United States from the
Mediterranean farmers viewed it
as an invaluable aid to their far
ming operations.
Livestock producers cultivated it
as a hardy forage crop for protem.
In areas where the soil was sandy
and overworked, farmers sowed it
in hopes the fast-growing root
system would hold onto their
rapidly eroding land.
But, by 1900 farmers had
changed their tune. After wide
distribution as hay for cavalry
horses during the Civil War,
Johnsongrass ran rampant in field
crops. This problem led to the first
appropriation of federal funds for
weed control, and, in 1902, issuance
of the first report about clearing
fields of Johnsongrass.
Today, although it is still sown as
forage and cut and baled for hay in
parts of Tennessee, Alabama and
Mississippi, most farmers are on
the lookout for a way to control this
noxious perennial grass in row
crops.
Flanked as one of the world’s ten
worst weeds by the Weed Science
Society of America, Johnsongrass
infests some 10 million acres
nationwide in an area stretching
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from Texas to Missouri and from
New York State to California. It is
most heavily concentrated in the
cotton and soybean producing
states of the south, where it is
known as “bankruptcy grass.”
Although Johnsongrass is not as
common in the northeastern states
of Pennsylvania and New York,
agronomists and farmers are fully
aware of the weed’s potential for
destruction, and understand that
even a minor infestation can
create yield reductions and har
vesting difficulties.
“Johnsongrass is a relatively
minor problem in the state of
Pennsylvania, but it’s crucial to
contain it,” warns Nathan L.
Hartwig, associate professor of
weed science at Penn State. “If
you don’t do something about it, it
doesn’t take long for it to become a
more severe problem.”
Hartwig estimates that 2%
percent 30,000 acres of the
state’s total 1% million com acres
were infested with Johnsongrass
according to 1977 statistics. Where
infestations were solid, crop yields
had been reduced by 100 percent,
he says. Currently, Johnsongrass
flushes are predominately in the
southeastern region of the state
and the Susquehanna River Valley.
In New York, the Johnsongrass
problem is characterized as
“limited to modest” by W.B. Duke,
agronomist at Cornell University.
Heaviest concentrations are found
in the central and.southern por
tions of the state. Although yield
losses recorded in New York have
so far been negligible, the potential
for crop reduction is 50 percent,
according to Duke.
“More importantly, John
songrass has a bad effect on
harvest ability,” says Duke. “It
can make it unpossible to get
harvesting equipment through a
field.”
While Duke reiterates there has
been no great overall loss, he
concedes that fanners must stop
the spreau of any infestation,
because the seedlings are capable
of spreading and propagating
eventually leading to a full-scale
problem.
Johnsongrass poses such a
difficult control problem because
of its many methods of
propagation. It boasts one of the
hardiest, fastest-growing rhizome
systems of any weed, with a single
plant capable of producing 300 feet
of new growth in a month.
Combine this with an
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Contact
Allen B. Shirk
Seal Crete, Inc.
RD2, Ephrata, PA
717-859-1127