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Effects of prescribed burning on gulf cordgrass, Spartina spartinae (Trin.) Merr. ex Hitchc.

Victoria Haynes,J. S. Avila-Sanchez,ra Rideout–Hanzak,D. Wester

Published 2018 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

Gulf cordgrass (Spartina spartinae (Trin.) Merr. ex Hitchc. [Trin.] Hitchc.) is a highly productive, C4 warm season perennial bunchgrass able to tolerate a large range of climatic conditions in both hemispheres.1,2 It is found in the United States along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas (Figure 1), and south into eastern Mexico. It also can be found, although less commonly, inland in marshes and seasonally–flooded prairies. Additionally, it grows in South America along the Caribbean coasts and inland in Argentina and Paraguay.3 Also known as “sacahuista” (from the Nahuatl, an Uto–Aztecan language indigenous to Central Mexico, “zacahuitztli,” from “zacatl” meaning grass or hay and “huitztli” meaning thorn4), gulf cordgrass grows 1–2 m tall with short peripheral subrhizomes; true rhizomes are absent. Culms are numerous, up to 2 m long and 2.4 mm thick, broad at the base, and closely involute essentially the entire length. It has 10 to 75 spikes per panicle, closely appressed and overlapping, and 16 to 40 spikelets per spike. The lower glume is nearly as long as the spikelet and hispid on keels.5,6 Gulf cordgrass thrives in various soils that are typically above sea level, but occasionally submerged.7 It has been reported to occur in soils ranging from sandy loams to clays and heavy clays with its greatest standing crop yield in fertile clay loams and clays because of higher moisture–holding capabilities in these soil textures.8,9 Oefinger and Scifres10 reported that cordgrass occurs on soils relatively high in sodium on the coastal prairie, and that its dominance in areas of high salinity may be attributable to the fact that other halophytes are unable to successfully compete with it. In southern Texas, the greatest herbage yield for gulf cordgrass occurs during rainy spring months and during September and October when tropical storms bring additional moisture.11 Gulf cordgrass can maintain green tissue year–round in coastal prairies, 1,8,12 making it an important range forage species in the Coastal Prairies and Marshes ecoregion of Texas since the beginning of cattle raising there in the mid–1880s.13 However, although gulf cordgrass can maintain green tissue year–round, mature plants are not grazed to an appreciable extent by livestock if other forages are available. Mature growth produces coarse, stiff, and spine–like leaf blades with low palatability and nutritional quality, making it less valuable for livestock and wildlife.8,12,14

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