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Johnsongrass: Friend or Foe? The Midwest Cattleman · August 11, 2022 · P7

By Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, OSU Extension
Johnsongrass is easy to ranean as a forage crop and bicides in pastures and hay- seeds and rhizomes, it is not
find in the entire region. It then dispersed in an attempt fields that are predominately tolerant of close grazing or
is a warm-season grass that to fight erosion in floodplains, grass swards. There are a mowing.
is related to corn. Unlike it’s which it can do effectively, greater range of options for Continually using animals
relatives- corn, sorghum, and but the problem is the ability effective herbicide use in le- to graze down johnsongrass
sorghum-sudangrass, which it has to swallow up habitat gume systems, which I will or defoliating it with ma-
are annual species commonly for native plants that rely on not elaborate on in this ar- chinery can prevent the de-
used for agronomic purposes, those environments to per- ticle. The best news for pas- velopment of seedheads and
johnsongrass is a perennial sist. ture and hayfield managers weaken the root system over
that has naturalized itself in Because johnsongrass is regarding this weed is that time, while also providing a
our environment. Johnson- a grass, it can be very chal- although johnsongrass is ag- source of feed for livestock,
grass begins actively grow- lenging to control with her- gressive and spreads both by with the exception of equine
ing when soil temperatures animals. Horses should not
reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit. be introduced to areas where
Whether we classify john- they would have the opportu-
songrass as a weed or as a nity to graze johnsongrass or
forage could be debated, but other sorghum type forages
it is formally listed as a nox- due to the risk of developing
ious weed in several states equine cystitis.
and therefore the debate is Alas, there are also other
resolved. Johnsongrass is a concerns with grazing john-
non-native, aggressive, nat- songrass which stem from
uralized weed that does pro- how the plant responds to
vide some value as a forage, environmental stress. Like
but by no means should be other members of the sor-
purposefully planted or prop- ghum family, johnsongrass
agated due to the threats it can cause nitrate or prus-
poses to our native species sic acid toxicity if plants are
and agronomic cropping overfertilized with nitrogen,
systems. It was initially in-
troduced from the Mediter- continued on page 19

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