Thursday, January 14, 2016

On the Farm (part 2)

In the last post of On the Farm , I discussed my trip to Northwest Oklahoma and my wife's parents farm properties. The image above was taken from the Whorton place as I was more interested in this property since it was converted to the Conservation Reserve Program years ago.

As you can see the hay bales in the upper left the land has been use as a hay field. It was taken out of the of the CRP program a few years ago. Many Tallgrass species are still present from the original seeding while some more invasive volunteer species have spread into the field from nearby properties such as the Weeping Lovegrass -Eragrostis curvula pictured above. 
This image was taken from the low lying area towards the higher plain. In the lower area where moisture settles from rainfall is present, Weeping Lovegrass, Sorghastrum nutans-Indian Grass, and a lesser amount of Andropogon geradii-Big Bluestem. The higher ground pictured above has more of a rusty brown hue consists mainly of Schizachyrium scoparium-Little Bluestem.

My original intention to visit this hay meadow was to transplant some grasses and possibly forbs to my own prairie garden in Kansas. The images below represent my selections.

Eragrostis curvula- Weeping Lovegrass, and the native lovegrass Eragrostis trichodes-Sand Lovegrass.