

Nonnative cool-season perennial grasses are some of the hardest types of plants to get rid of on a property. If your property is made up of mostly old pasture or hayfield then there is a very high chance that you will have to come up with a way to deal with them. When designing a property for wild game getting rid of most of these grasses will likely be a high priority because the vast majority of wildlife will barely utilize them if at all and usually just during a short time of the year. And if you don't manage them they can spread and form a "carpet" of sod that will prevent more desirable plants from growing.

Some species of cool season perennial grasses you may encounter are smooth brome, timothy, meadow foxtail, Kentucky bluegrass, orchardgrass and perennial ryegrass to name a few. But there are many different types you might have on your property. The main problem with these grasses is that they tend to form dense monocultures over time with a thick sod "carpet" and prevent succession to more woody species if left undisturbed. We generally will want some open areas on most properties with meadow type herbaceous vegetation such as annual and perennial plants. It's ok to have some grasses especially if they are more of a bunchgrass instead of a sod forming grass. And a little bit of annual grass is ok too as long as it doesn't outcompete more desirable vegetation. But in general we will want a high percentage of our open areas to be dominated by a high diversity of beneficial non-grass type plants.

I've been doing a lot of research on the topic of how to get rid of perennial cool season grasses ever since I came up with the idea for my wild game meadow and for the most part there is no magic solution. Every method will have its pros and cons, but hopefully I'll be able to give you some ideas if this is something you find yourself having to deal with on your own property. So let's look at some of the ways to remove this nuisance plant on your property.

Mowing is the first method one could use to get rid of these grasses, but for most it probably would not be the best solution. Perennial grasses are adapted to being grazed over and over again so in order to kill them with this method you will need to cut them basically all the way to the ground or as short as possible and then do this continuously throughout the growing season. This method basically mimics the guy who always cuts his lawn way too low to try and get that golf course look, but ends up with huge dead patches and lots of weeds because most grass species isn't designed to be able to handle that much mowing at that short of height. This method is very time consuming and takes a long time to do. The one upside to this method is that the vast majority of people have access to a weed eater or a lawn mower. It's likely that you will have some dead patches in only a few months of mowing, but it is unlikely you will ever kill all of it especially after just one growing season. That is why I generally don't recommend this method.

The next method is controlled burning. This method pretty much won't work in the long term because the burn will only kill the aboveground portion of the grass. And unlike mowing once you do one burn and the grass sprouts you won't be able to burn again for at least a few years due to lack of fuel. This method however is pretty good at getting rid of the dead thatch layer and will expose bare soil providing an area where you could plant some seeds if you wanted to just overseed some variety into the existing grass. Alternatively you could burn first and then mow the rest of the season as the new grass started to sprout. Then by the end of the season the grass might be weak enough to where you could overseed some other plants to start growing and outcompete the grass during the fall. Just make sure to always keep safety in mind when doing a controlled burn and always use the help of professionals.

Another method that would be fairly easy for most people would be to buy some very large dark colored tarps or some black plastic that is used in some gardens in order to smother the grass and prevent photosynthesis by shading it out. I've read varying reports and it is said to kill grass in anywhere from 4 weeks to a couple growing seasons. I think it is likely that most would be dead after covering it for one entire growing season. The big downside for this is that it probably would only work efficiently on smaller properties unless you wanted to purchase thousands of dollars of black plastic.

Another, a bit more extreme, idea would be to set up an electric fence and put in some pigs. Pigs love to dig and root up lots of plants where they will eat the roots as well as insects and rodents they find. If you have a lot of pigs or someone who would let you pasture theirs on your property then you could set it up so that you put the pigs where you want them to dig up all the grass and then when that location is all dug up you move the whole pen over to the next section and continue doing this until all the grass has been dug up. This method could be time consuming because you would still have to supplement their diet as well as provide water and shelter so it could be a lot of effort, but could be a very rewarding experience especially if you were already wanting to raise pigs.

The next method is using a tractor and just plowing it up like you would prepare an agricultural field for crops. This one is pretty straightforward, but in order to do this you would need a tractor and the right attachments, which are generally pretty pricey as in at the very least a few thousand dollars. If, however, you have a very large property this could be the best method because it is definitely the quickest and easiest especially for a large area. Another option would be trying to make a friend who's a farmer and maybe asking if you could borrow their tractor or just have them do it themselves. If you could make a deal like this you could save a ton of money. It's probably also possible to rent a tractor and the right attachments, but I'm still guessing it would be fairly expensive. It also might be possible to rent something like a skid loader to just scrape all the sod off an area and pile it up on the edge into a huge compost pile. But the big downside to this is that you would probably lose a lot of good topsoil as well depending on your site. This would also possibly be somewhat pricey.

One last solution that might work would be renting a sod cutter. If your property is flat enough and there isn't any rocks or other debris and your sod is fairly even then a sod cutter could work pretty well. After the sod is cut you can just flip it upside down from the spot it was cut from and this will kill the vast majority of it and you can plant directly into the upside down sod.

Some people would also recommend using herbicides to kill grasses and while they may do a pretty good job I personally would not recommend this method to anyone. This is because I personally believe, based on evidence that I have researched, that herbicides are not healthy for people, wildlife or the soil and there is some good evidence that many herbicides can persist in the environment for a very long time. If you are thinking about using herbicides on your property I would strongly encourage you to do some research on the possible downsides of using them. If you still decide to use them I would strongly recommend using the bare minimum necessary and to carefully read the labels because a lot of people tend to use way too much and end up suffering some undesirable consequences.

So now you've finally got rid of all or the vast majority of that annoying cool season perennial grass. Now what? Well the most important thing to do is to have a seed mix ready that can start turning you pasture into a wild game meadow. If you are worried about the grass resprouting or other weeds coming up I would recommend first planting a type of weed suppressing cover crop. In most areas of the U.S. buckwheat makes an excellent warm season cover crop that grows very fast and can usually outcompete weeds. Buckwheat is also pretty good forage for a lot of wildlife so it will not only outcompete weeds and grasses, but also provide some food for wild game. For a cool season weed suppressing cover crop there are a few good choices including crimson clover, hairy vetch and various annual grains like wheat and rye. These all also make good forage for game. After a growing season or two of these cover crops then most of the remaining grasses and weeds will hopefully be dead or suppressed enough that they won't be a problem for awhile and you can start to plant your main wild game meadow plant mix.