For Release September 19, 2004

The After Effects of a Drought

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

I've talked before about the old saying that a drought has a long tail. Many times this long tail is connected to problems. Whether the drought is actually over or not is hard to say. But we are still seeing many of the lingering effects, primarily on perennial plants like trees. The accumulated stress of four years of drought will result in the decline and death of trees for several more years.

But on the plus side we do see some interesting effects that are not negative, if anything they are neutral or positive. Most everyone, and especially pasture owners, remember this time last year when the pastures were covered with those pretty little yellow flowers, annual broomweed. There was a hue and cry of doom that this little plant was taking over all the pastures. We have to spray for it!

The truth is that this little weed, while certainly obvious, was not a problem, but rather a mere symptom of dry weather and overgrazed pastures. I encouraged pasture owners to ignore the yellow haze across their pastures and simply adjust their stocking rates down a bit. This year, thanks to the extra rain and stocking rate adjustments, you don't see very much annual broomweed. Certainly plenty of goldenrod and a fair amount of curlycup gumweed, but not much annual broomweed.

But what a lot of folks have commented on is the native grasses, especially the seed stalks of the native grasses and how high they are. I have seen big bluestem seed stalks this year that are over 8 feet tall. Journals written by the early pioneers talked about the grasses in the Flint Hills being as tall as a man on horseback. One can see why they wrote this after a year like we've had. A recent drive through the county showed that a lot of pastures showed a great improvement over last year. Most are probably still not back to 100% but they look far better than 12 months ago.

Most people just assume that the great grass growth is simply due to the rainfall. Well, that's only half correct. Native prairie plants are incredibly well adapted. They thrive in soils with low natural nitrogen and phosphorus. Like all plants they will certainly show an increase in growth if fertilized, but the increase in growth from fertilization is small compared to our high yield annual crops like wheat, sorghum and corn.

When we go through a drought year or two or three, we do not have the normal rate of organic matter decomposition. This decay releases nitrogen and phosphorus into the soil. This spring, once we finally started receiving rain, we ended up with three or four years worth of nitrogen and phosphorus being released into the soil. With the added rain, the grass plants could utilize the extra nutrients. The result is the awesome forage seed stalk production that we are seeing in the pastures.

When you have a muli-year drought, many plants are reduced in size, some just die. So you end up with base spots and thin stands. Then after the drought breaks, the plants produce an abundance of seed to help start the process of fixing the damage. Not a lot of seed every sprouts and takes root in that natural setting, but with so many seeds being produced, even a small fraction will make a difference. Sure a drought has a long tail. But Mother Nature also does an amazing job of protecting her own!

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