Warm-season Native Grasses and Forbs for Wildlife

Help restore quality habitat and food sources for wildlife

There is a growing desire by individuals and conservation agencies to help diminishing wildlife populations. Each year, thousands of acres of wildlife habitat are destroyed or altered to no longer support wildlife. Native warm-season grasses and forbs can help provide the high quality habitat and food sources necessary for most species of wildlife. WATER: All wildlife requires water within their home range. Grasses do not provide water, but their sod can then allow the seepage of excess moisture through soil and root channels into free-flowing streams or depressions. Big Bluestem plants often have roots that extend 12 feet more into the soil. Such root structures, along with the mulch afforded by stands of Little Bluestem can purify water and help reduce erosion. FOOD: A food source must be available year round. Winter seed sources are particularly important to many birds and animals for survival and for building up fat reserves to carry the animal through the stress of winter and through the rigors of the spring breeding season. An acre of warm-season grasses (e.g., Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indiangrass, Switchgrass and Sideoats Grama) and forbs will produce many pounds of seed during a normal growing season. Additionally, such plantings of native grasses attract insects, another source of food for upland birds. Persistent hard seed sources near heavy woody cover help insure survival for prairie wildlife during winters. Seasonal cropland food and post-harvest wastes offer additional supplement.

These mixes, or ones specially designed for other wildlife, can also give you the highest Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) score. See your CRP contract for details on mix ratios and maintenance requirements. Grasses (Make sure to choose local genotype species. For example, native Indiangrass is great, but some of the cultivars like Rumsey Indian Grass are inappropriate for quail.)

• Little Bluestem
• Sideoats Grama
• Indian Grass
• Big Bluestem
• Canada or Virginia Wild Rye
• Tall Nutgrass
• Eastern Gama Grass

Forbs

• Gray-headed coneflower
• Illinois Bundleflower
• Leadplant
• Partridge Pea
• Pasture Rose
• Purple Prairie Clover
• Roundhead Lespedesa
• Showy Tickclover
• Slender Lespedeza
• White Prairie Clover
• Purple Coneflower

Shrubs (Opportunity for affinity sales with Forrest Keeling)

• Hazelnut/American Filbert
• Blackhaw Viburnum
• Fragrant Sumac
• Gray Dogwood
• False Indigo
• Nannyberry Viburnum
• Roughleaf Dogwood
• Smooth Sumac
• American Plum
• Chickasaw Plum
• Green Hawthorn
• Serviceberry