By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star in May 2006
With the price of our gasoline almost catching up to what my English and Spanish friends have been paying for years, some US politicians seem to be ready to seriously consider supporting alternative fuel sources. Ethanol made from plants may be a viable alternative to gasoline.
According to a recent Dateline report, Brazil no longer has to import oil from the Middle East or anywhere else, largely because most Brazilians pump ethanol instead of gasoline into their cars. Their ethanol is made from sugarcane (Saccharum sp), which is a big grass.
Perhaps one of the least expensive ways to grow substantial quantities of grass for fuel in the US would be to restore the grass prairies, now tiny remnants of their former extent. One of the speech writers for the last State of the Union speech was aware of the fuel potential of at least one native grass, switchgrass. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) grows in large, tall clumps and can produce large volumes of vegetable matter annually.
Switchgrass is one of the major components of tallgrass prairies in the US. It is native to much of Texas, even some of the TransPecos area. A good place to see switchgrass in its native habitat is at Cibolo Nature Center (CNC), where one of the four ecosystems is a fairly large remnant of a tallgrass prairie.
The CNC prairie also has several other notable Texas native grasses, including another important component of tallgrass prairies in the US, little bluestem (Schizacchyrium scoparium). The other two of the “big four” of tallgrass prairies, yellow Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) and big bluestem (Andropogan gerardii) grow at CNC, too. My favorites in the CNC prairie are eastern gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides) and the Central Texas endemic Lindheimer muhly (Muhlenbergia lindheimeri). Another favorite, bushy bluestem (Andropogon glomeratus), grows on the wetter margins of the prairie.
No plants have been introduced into the tallgrass prairie at CNC; all grow there naturally. Long-term monitoring and experiments with burning and mowing are being done on this prairie to see which management practices will produce the healthiest stands of prairie grasses.
Bill Neiman of Native American Seed in Junction, Texas, has advised several Texas landowners on prairie restoration. The grass seeds he plants are harvested strictly from Texas native plants. This is an important part of his strategy of restoration. Neiman is careful not to introduce exotic plants or not even the wrong Texas natives. For example, he found that eastern gamagrass taken from one area in Texas and planted in another did not fit into the plant community of a restored prairie as would have the locally native eastern gamagrass.
An easy-to-use field guide to grasses of this area has just been published as part of the Texas A&M Nature Guides series. “Grasses of the Texas Hill Country” by Brian Loflin and Shirley Loflin is made for grass dummies like I am. It has nice color pictures and practical guides to identification that give me real hope of learning to recognize more native grasses.
Incidentally, all species of the large native bunch grasses that grow at the CNC make good accent plants in home landscapes, and they are more interesting than the exotic pampas grass. We have several spots of native bunch grasses in our yard, and they are going to look even better if those are the prairie-grass species that bring down the cost of filling the gas tank.
