Guinea grass and the Licorice JellybeaN BY DR. MEGAN CLAYTON AND DR. BARRON RECTOR, Extension Range Specialists, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
A
s we find ourselves in the Easter season, my mind often goes to one of my favorite kind of forages, jellybeans! These colorful small beans look great in a candy jar and offer many fun flavors that may even take you back to a certain place or family gathering. I enjoy all but one – the licorice jellybean. It’s hard for me to see why someone would prefer licorice to all the other fruity flavors, although we all know a small handful of people who claim to love licorice or have learned to tolerate it in the jellybean mix. I liken Guinea grass (Megathyrsus maxima) to licorice jellybeans. Although there are a handful of people who may wish for more Guinea grass or consider it to be one of their premier livestock forages because it works well for their operation, many people would either like to eliminate it from the “jellybean” mix or have learned to live with it. Far from its homeland of Africa, this tall, awkward grass with straight stems adorned all the way up with weeping leaves thrives in our drought-prone lands of South Texas. Experimental plantings of the grass have been documented in Kingsville during the mid-70’s, although its presence was noted in Hitchcock’s Manual of the Grasses of the United States in 1935. Could this silent creeper be the cattle forage or hay producer
6
Ag Mag THEAGMAG.ORG
that keeps our livestock operations profitable, as much of tropical America has discovered? Alternatively, will this grass eventually spread throughout native rangelands, decreasing plant diversity necessary for wildlife species to thrive? There is a good chance you have run into the subject of this story, whether in an open field or underneath a shade tree of a service station. Guinea grass has adapted to many different environments, especially southern Texas. In Shaw’s Guide to Texas Grasses, he documents Guinea grass occurrence in 23 counties, Dallas being the furthest north, although its cold tolerance is not completely understood. Not only can the grass grow up to 8 feet tall, but it also uses rhizomes, or underground stems, to create new plants and quickly dominate an area. A leafy, highly competitive grass could easily be viewed as a hero, especially to those ranchers who face many challenges when trying to produce forage for livestock in dry regions. Like many grasses, livestock prefer Guinea grass when it is regularly grazed to maintain high digestibility. Some ranchers hay it, creating a lasting resource for their cattle when the rain stops or when other grasses in South Texas lose their nutritional value. Other ranchers have noted Guinea grass to encroach on areas previously established with buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris), another introduced South Texas forage grass for cattle native to India and Africa.
