Graze First-Year Native Grass Plantings

Native grass plantings usually require two or more growing seasons to become established sufficiently to fully occupy a site by vegetative spread and occasional thickening by volunteer, whether uniform seedling distribution and favorable growing conditions occur or not, Historically, newly seeded areas have been protected from grazing during that period in the belief that livestock might injure developing grass seedlings or even destroy the stand, When the requirements for germination and emergence have been met, competing plants quickly become the major deterrent to rapid seedling development into mature plants, Competing vegetation, a highly aggressive and variable mixture of annual broad leaved weeds, annual grasses, preparatory crop volunteer, and trace amounts of weedy perennial grasses and broadleaved plants, usually emerges and develops much more rapidly than planted native