Hay-making with local resources in Pennsylvania, USA

Background:

Our land is on a rocky ridge near the Susquehanna river in southeastern Pennsylvania. The soil is thin and it’s not easy to grow vegetables or field crops here, but the land does make fairly good sylvopasture for controlled herbivore grazing. Over the past 70 years, we have pastured various kinds of livestock here in small numbers, trying to manage them in ways that help rather than hurt the land. Currently we have two milk cows and a 6 month old steer.

Figure 1: cows in “pasture”

In a temperate climate like ours, part of caring for livestock involves having enough hay for the non-growing season. In this area, there are no native plants that are commonly cropped for hay; instead, commercial hay is made from introduced grasses like timothy (Phleum pratense), orchard grass (Dactylis glomerata), and tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum); and legumes like red clover (Trifolium pratense); birdsfoot trefoil, (Lotus corniculatus) or alfalfa (Medicago sativa). These plants are also commonly used for pastures and I have tried to establish them in our pastures, but never successfully.  

A primary reason for my failure at establishing good pastures has to do with another native species, the white-tailed deer. European settlers not only removed the native plant cover when they settled in this area, we also removed the native predators. The deer have taken advantage of this to become very numerous, to the point that only plants that they don’t eat can grow unprotected.

Figure 2: Stiltgrass James H. Miller & Ted Bodner, Southern Weed Science Society, Bugwood.org licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

About “stiltgrass”

One plant that deer don’t eat is Microstegium vinenium, a.k.a. Japanese stiltgrass, Nepalese brown top, or “packing grass”. A native of Asia, this grass was introduced into the United States in the early 20^th century due to its use as packing material in shipping. M. vinenium is an annual grass that tolerates heat, low light, and dry soil. Each plant produces thousands of seeds that can remain viable in soil for five years or more. And whitetails don’t eat it unless they are starving. No wonder it has replaced the orchard grass, timothy, fescue and other grasses that I have tried to sow over the years. In many places in our pastures, it is the only ground cover besides moss.

Although wildlife don’t eat stilt grass, it isn’t toxic and I noticed that my cattle do eat it and in fact prefer it to (commercial) hay. I was curious to learn what kind of nutritional value it had. The following pictures illustrate my experiment with making hay from stiltgrass that has invaded our yard, where the cattle can’t get to it.

Figure 3:  Dexter cow in pasture.

Stiltgrass can grow 3 feet in “height” (or length, since it becomes prostrate before reaching that). Although it forms dense mats at the same time it looks soft and even fluffy.

Figure 4:  Scythe view.

In spite of its dense growth and prostrate habit, it is easy to mow with a scythe, partly because the lower stems are bare of leaves and somewhat wirey, allowing the scythe blade to penetrate easily.

Figure 5: The mown grass.

The mown grass dried quickly and was easy to handle with a fork and wheel barrow. After drying I moved the hay into a small shed.

Figure 6: Sample.

After a month of storage, I submitted a sample of the stiltgrass hay to a forage analysis laboratory. I also sent samples of purchased mixed grass and alfalfa hays from a local farm for comparison.

In every tested value, the stiltgrass sample was intermediate between the commercial alfalfa hay and the mixed grass hay samples.

This table shows selected values:

Value	1. alfalfa	2.mixed grass	3. stilt grass
Adjusted crude protein	15.10	8.88	13.52
Lignin	7.18	8.54	7.30
Ash	8.32	8.21	7.53
Sugar (WSC)*	8.35	7.06	5.04
Fat	2.49	2.57	2.80
Total fatty acids	1.04	0.81	1.09
Ca	0.35	0.38	0.51
P	2.33	0.20	0.32
Mg	0.27	0.18	0.22
K	2.33	2.38	2.46
S	0.22	0.19	0.20
Cl	0.54	0.92	0.20
TDN**	57.21	55.31	58.20

*Sugar (WSC) includes fructans

**TDN : Total digestible nutrients

I am not suggesting that stiltgrass is a desirable plant, or that any one would want to use it for hay or pasture if they have a choice. The species does have a few good functions in ecology:  it is at least a ground cover that can live through the increasingly hot, dry summers that climate change is bringing us, and it apparently provides good habit for amphibians like toads and frogs (according to Wikipedia). In any case, I’m not able to get rid of it without using herbicides, so I am stuck with it for now. Knowing that it is doing my cows some good has made me look at it with less dismay.

Figure 7–13: Slideshow of additional harvest photos.

Prepared by Barbara Corson