smooth brome

Uploaded on May 30, 2011

Watch as we look at the stark differences between types of Bromes! We'll look ta Meadow Brome, Smooth Brome, Alaskan Brome, Mountain Brome, and Prairie Brome. This plot has been in for three winters and this is the third harvest year. I really like the MacBeth Meadow Brome! I think you will too.

Published on Nov 17, 2013

Jason Tronbak, Conservation and Food Plot Specialist and Certified Wildlife Biologist, of Millborn Seeds, talks about the steps and benefits of a Smooth Brome Grass Restoration project.

TRANSCRIPT:
Hi this is Jason Tronbak, the Conservation and Food Plot Specialist and Certified Wildlife Biologist for Millborn Seeds. I'm out here in a Brome Renovation Project we are doing. I just want to show you the initial steps and the first six months of growth we have on our native planting.

We started with a monoculture of brome. We had the guy hay it off. We actually sprayed it a couple times with RoundUp. And the last time he sprayed with RoundUp, we added Plateau at 4 ounces an acre. Plateau is a herbicide we use to establish native grasses.

In this mix we happened to use only grasses because he was worried a thistle problem he has in here. So he didn't want to add any wildflowers at this time. We used the common native grasses in this mix. There's some big bluestem, some switchgrass, some side oats, some western wheatgrass, there's a little bit of little bluestem...and there's some indian grass in this mix. Kind of your common six way native grass mix.

I will point out some of the main grasses here in a second. I just wanted to show you the first six months of growth we have here. It's pretty typical. You can kind of see behind me the first year of growth of native grasses going to sod. Not extremely ideal conditions. But you can grow the grass out. You got a really good stand for the first year. Again, just wanted to show you the initial steps in the growth of native grasses...and what you can expect the first year when you're changing a monoculture of brome to a native warm season grass.

Just wanted again to point out some of the main grasses we have. One of the main grasses that gets used in about every grass planting we do is Big Bluestem. Big Bluestem when it's fully mature will probably reach about four to six feet tall. This is about thirty percent of the mix.

The next grass we have in here is switchgrass. Another great warm season grass. When this grass is fully mature it will probably reach a height of about four to five feet tall. These two are about half the mix - big blue and switchgrass.

Other grasses we had in the mix was also a side oats grama. This is a short native grass. Being a max height of about two to three foot. But a really stiff stemmed, good short grass to use in native mixes.

Another grass we used was western wheatgrass. This is a cool season grass so it means that it will green up early in the year...kind of go dormant in the summer...then green up again here in the Fall.

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For more information, please visit http://www.millbornseeds.com/conservation.htm