NATIVE PLANTS

[SWAG]

What are some native species that you would like to see selected for, increased, and put into production? It takes a "few" years for something like that to happen, just wondering what species you would most like to see available in a sack of seed?

[Double R 2]

barnyard grass (native crusgalli) at <$1.00/pound pls

chiwapa millet at $0.75/pound pls or less

wooly croton

[Tgrindlay]

Wolly croton is that this stuff?

http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/pansca.html

[SWAG]

Which Croton is the one you were referring to Ramsey? Anything in short supply will dictate a higher price in the beginning. I am sure production will catch up to the demand on Chiwapa. Not sure, just asking, but what would be more desirable about the crus-galli than the already released barnyardgrass selections?

[Double R 2]

Terry, wooly croton (Croton capitatus), also called goat weed or dove weed, is upland. Hot damned but would I like to get it started in a few areas for dove! It loves highly disturbed - overgrazed and disced - areas. Might be cheaper to just cut a truck load and dsic them into the soil where desired.

SWAG - I'm just thinking native. Jump start areas that haven't been managed in decade +, and then moist soil manage thereafter. Crusgali is available but expensive 2x that of bulk-purchased jap millet. I like the Chiwapa's maturation time. In addition to applications to soybeans, I appreciate the opportunity to plant about a month earlier in shallow water areas prone to drying or getting primrose infestations. The market may catch up one day, but I know of only a single outgrower for next year (I bought the other guy's inventory at cost and planted it myself this year)!

[SWAG]

You plant for seed production or duck habitat?

[SWAG]

Ramsey, sent you an e-mail.

[Wingman]

Tgrindlay, I'll try to remember and take a pic of some wooly croton around the edges of my dove field tomorrow.

That stuff grows in abundance on the MS river levee...it likes well-drained soils. Got a bluish green, velvety leaf.

Sorry, forgot to take my camera, but here is an internet pic. Photos by Ted Bodner:


SWAG, reckon there's any chance of getting some red rice produced in bulk without getting hung from the nearest oak by the rice farmer's association?

[jdbuckshot]

I would love to get my hands on some red rice!

[Wingman]

You know why red rice is such a problem in rice? It's rice just like ag rice, but the seed has a dark color to it, and when red rice is in the bag at the grocery store, the women won't buy it because it looks like rat pills amongst the rest of the white rice grains.

Weird, huh? Why can't they just market it as "dirty rice"?

[SWAG]

Always a lot of interest in red rice for seed purposes, but will not ever happen. The seed dormancy and nature of the plant makes for a good one in the market, but it comes no where close to out weighing the downside. I think the MS Crop Improvement Association is doing the right thing by keeping red rice a noxious weed seed. Between competition in the field, lower grades in the sampling, and now the threat of cross pollinating with herbicide resistant varieties, there is way too much to be lost by allowing red rice to be increased.

[Double R 2]

SWAG, didn't get the email. We planted for ducks, not production.

[acornman]

Croton loves drier upland type sites. I have seen it on some sandbar type habitat near the MS River and it forms a stand that is almost a monoculture. When it is like that on fairly isolated sites (free from hunting and human activity), you can walk through it late in the summer and flush doves like quail. They will come to it in masses. Of course, close to the river, you have a perfect situation with the proximity to water, grit, and roosting sites.

I have seen it in moist soil areas that were dried up too early in the season.....out near Shreveport.....on that Western Gulf Coastal Plain soil (red dirt) it will come in early on like cockle bur does in the Delta.

And overgrazing does promote it as Ramsey stated.

I would guess that broadcasting it and harrowing or disking lightly would be the trick for growing it; disking it too deep would not be a good idea. If overgrazing is a good enough distrubance, then scratching or harrowing might be better than disking. Some folks don't understand light disking in this part of the country.


Acornman

[SWAG]

The PMC staff will be collecting wooly croton seeds this growing season from different sites across the state. They will be planted and evaluated. Hopefully there will be seed available in the not so far off future. If you know of some sites, list them here if you like:________________. Will keep us from driving so much.