Need Help Identifying some Invasive Weeds in Pasture

[Mark460]

I live in Gulf coast area, southwest of Houston area, I think some seeds must have come from some bad hay. What is it and any ideas for controlling it? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Faster horses]

I hope someone can help you. I can't as I'm not familiar with your area.
Do you have a County Extension office? If so, I'd go ask them, if no one here knows.

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

Nutgrass?

 

[Texan]

It looks to me like some type of sedge. I can't blow the pic up well enough to see the stem, but sedges have distinctive three-sided stems - sort of triangle-shaped with sharp edges. Look at the stem and/or search for sedges to see if that's what you have.

Assuming it's a sedge, spot treating with generic glypho will be the cheapest control if you insist on trying to get rid of it chemically. Other than that, grazing hard and mowing before it goes to seed will eventually get it. If it's a sedge, it will be worse in wet years, but in your area, that will be most years.

I have a lot of sedge in hayfields in wet years and I never try to control it, other than trying not to let it go to seed. The cows can't identify it in a bale of hay, so I just roll it up and let them eat it.

If a cow can be forced to eat something, I usually try to make them do that and save my chemical dollar for the things I can't make them eat. But, grazing sedges is similar to grazing sandbur and sage grass - you've got to make them get it early and stay on top of it or you'll get a lot of f-you looks from your cows.

Once it gets away from them, sticking it in a roll of hay is the only way to make them eat it. They swallow some of that finicky cow pride when January gets here.

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

It looks to me like some type of sedge. I can't blow the pic up well enough to see the stem, but sedges have distinctive three-sided stems - sort of triangle-shaped with sharp edges. Look at the stem and/or search for sedges to see if that's what you have.

Assuming it's a sedge, spot treating with generic glypho will be the cheapest control if you insist on trying to get rid of it chemically. Other than that, grazing hard and mowing before it goes to seed will eventually get it. If it's a sedge, it will be worse in wet years, but in your area, that will be most years.

I have a lot of sedge in hayfields in wet years and I never try to control it, other than trying not to let it go to seed. The cows can't identify it in a bale of hay, so I just roll it up and let them eat it.

If a cow can be forced to eat something, I usually try to make them do that and save my chemical dollar for the things I can't make them eat. But, grazing sedges is similar to grazing sandbur and sage grass - you've got to make them get it early and stay on top of it or you'll get a lot of f-you looks from your cows.

Once it gets away from them, sticking it in a roll of hay is the only way to make them eat it. They swallow some of that finicky cow pride when January gets here.

Isn't nutgrass (nutsedge) a member of the sedge family? We have Yellow Nutsedge that grows along the irrigation ditches in these parts. It is plentiful in the western part of Oregon, but only in irrigated places here in desert country.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Sedges have edges, If it's the grass like material you are asking about the leaves are triangular in shape.
That flowering thing in the middle looks more like a Hemlock.
Water hemlock is poisonous to livestock and shouldn't even be handled with bare hands

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

Yellow Nutsedge (nutgrass) photographed 7/1/2023 8 AM on the banks of a ditch, Umatilla County, Oregon by an old has been rancher, now just an eccentric recreational ditch walker.

 

[Texan]

Isn't nutgrass (nutsedge) a member of the sedge family? We have Yellow Nutsedge that grows along the irrigation ditches in these parts. It is plentiful in the western part of Oregon, but only in irrigated places here in desert country.

Yes, from the picture you posted, that looks like a variety of sedge. I've never called it nutgrass, and never heard it called nutgrass. However, the fact that I've never heard it called nutgrass might just be because I don't go to county agent meetings and I don't normally talk to anybody about stuff like that because I don't like people and I'm not very likeable. (And don't care, so kma.) {See what I mean?}

Very good pic, though. That's clearly a variety of sedge and looks very similar to what the OP posted. Although, the zone difference would almost make you suspect it's got to be a different variety.

Not sure how many varieties of sedges there are, but I've got some varieties of sedges that grow in overflow bottomland that get freakin' huge - like chest high. There are some really interesting plants species in different environments if you take the time to look at them and study them, but that makes me sound like a native plant society wacko.

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

Nutsedge isn't a grass, so the nutgrass thing is really incorrect, just what I remember my Texas great aunt calling it since it fit into her love of silly ranch poetry. The height you describe certainly go with her verse and what I remember seeing, as a child, when I spent a month, one summer, with her among the chiggers, copperheads, water moccasins, snapping turtles, opossums, sunfish, tarantulas, and lightening bugs.

Nuts and Johnson grass
It grows higher than
And chaps the farmers ass

Here is an article showing both the OP's nutsedge and what I have here along the ditch. Several varieties grow in Texas since everything is bigger there .

According to the map, Montana and Wyoming are the only states that don't have nutsedge. Is this true, FH?

Nutsedge

A blog is about the wild edible and medicinal plants of Texas and North America. It is run by chemist herbalist Dr. Mark Merriwether Vorderbruggen.

www.foragingtexas.com

 

[Faster horses]

Nutsedge isn't a grass, so the nutgrass thing is really incorrect, just what I remember my Texas great aunt calling it since it fit into her love of silly ranch poetry. The height you describe certainly go with her verse and what I remember seeing, as a child, when I spent a month, one summer, with her among the chiggers, copperheads, water moccasins, snapping turtles, opossums, sunfish, tarantulas, and lightening bugs.

Nuts and Johnson grass
It grows higher than
And chaps the farmers ass

Here is an article showing both the OP's nutsedge and what I have here along the ditch. Several varieties grow in Texas since everything is bigger there .

According to the map, Montana and Wyoming are the only states that don't have nutsedge. Is this true, FH?

Nutsedge

A blog is about the wild edible and medicinal plants of Texas and North America. It is run by chemist herbalist Dr. Mark Merriwether Vorderbruggen.

www.foragingtexas.com

I don't recall ever seeing it in MT or WY.
But it will probably show up somewhere, sometime.
I hope not.
We have enough leafy spurge, we sure don't need more weeds.

 

[Texan]

Several varieties grow in Texas since everything is bigger there .

Thank you for admitting that. Most yankees from up north are too conceited to admit that Texas is far-superior to the other 56 states.

We probably share some similar embarrassments as well, though. We have our Austin that appears to be populated with a two-legged species similar to your Portland.

In fact, the dirty hippies in both places have likely smoked various varieties of sedges. Hopefully, that keeps the discussion somewhat on topic.

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

Thank you for admitting that. Most yankees from up north are too conceited to admit that Texas is far-superior to the other 56 states.

We probably share some similar embarrassments as well, though. We have our Austin that appears to be populated with a two-legged species similar to your Portland.

In fact, the dirty hippies in both places have likely smoked various varieties of sedges. Hopefully, that keeps the discussion somewhat on topic.

Well there Tex, first let me address your statement about not going to County Agent meetings and your request to KYA.

I am wise to that old reverse trick and will take that as a confession that you probably attend County Agent meetings because if you were the unlikeable and unsocial character you claim, then you would call it nutgrass. Only those of social importance call it nutsedge and demand others calling it nutgrass smooch their patoots.

You must have missed that I live in Greater Idaho and have no connection nor suffer embarrassment over the insanity of Portland.

I know nothing about hippies smoking sedge, nut or otherwise. Just because I play guitar , wear flowers in my hair , cowgirl sandals , and go braless those facts alone don't make me a hippie. I have never sang Kumbaya but rather about the tumbling tumbleweed.

I did pull one of the yellow sedges by the ditch and yes, it sported some nice cajones, so yes, it is a nutsedge. I propose that such a Greater Idaho sledge is a Bullsedge as opposed to the long tall TEXAS nutless root variety that should be called the Longhorn Steersedge.

While I have inhaled the smoke from the ditch rider burning weeds, including sedge, along Colorado irrigation ditches, I have never climbed a windmill wearing a skirt, well maybe once but that was in Texas as a young foolish teen. What happened under the Lone Star flag, stays in Texas!

And that completes todays Sedge Report with MC.

 

[Texan]

Hey, I enjoyed that immensely. No matter what you're smoking, it has really unleashed the creative artiste in you.

You're clearly an asset to the site, and had you only been here in the old days, I think we could have gotten you and HAYMAKER fixed up.

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

What's up with trying to match me with Haymaker? This is the second time this has been suggested. Do you all hate Haymaker that much

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

What's up with trying to match me with Haymaker? This is the second time this has been suggested. Do you all hate Haymaker that much

See I'm not the only that that thinks you and old Haymaker would be a match, maybe not made in heaven but a match.

Matches are made with Sulphur? Right?

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

See I'm not the only that that thinks you and old Haymaker would be a match, maybe not made in heaven but a match.

Matches are made with Sulphur? Right?

So you want to strike a match made in hell, eh? Don't you boys have some fences to repair, horses to shoe, cattle to sort, or maybe wash and wax the ATV.

 

[Texan]

See I'm not the only that that thinks you and old Haymaker would be a match, maybe not made in heaven but a match.

Matches are made with Sulphur? Right?

I think it would be worth a try just for the spectator view when Connie finds out the new girl is after old HM. She's always kinda claimed HM for herself, so I don't think she's gonna like that. Should be interesting to watch.

 

[Faster horses]

Who is Connie?

 

[Mountain Cowgirl]

I think the OP got his answer, so since this thread is about sedge, best to dredge up another thread on old HM.

So Mark460, pull up one of the plants and if it has nuts on the roots, then it is nutsedge or nutgrass.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Who is Connie?

Delorme I imagine lol