Biodiverse Polyculture (USDA 8a Zone Pasture) - sounds better than "My Acres of Weeds"

U_Stormcrow said:

Dicanthelium Oligosanthes "Scribner's Panic Grass"- its a GREAT Thing
(also called Panicum Oligosanthes)

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Seriously. This is something I seeded "on a lark" - its a prairie grass from the southwest. It shades the ground without being so dense as to prevent other plants from establishing themselves, moves in quickly when I clear undergrowth, tolarates a little bit of shade, and (as you can see in the photo above) goes to seed mid season. Seeds are about half the size of a white sesame seed, and are very popular with both the chickens and the goats.

Before the establishment of the mulberry and similar, this was a popular place for the chickens to bed down as cover - the smaller birds continue to use it for that purpose, and further, its quite attractive to a number of insects they find tasty. Some concern of toxicity to horses, not clearly established.

Actually, I'm fond of all the Panic Grasses I've planted, some of which get considerably taller, though this one has performed best of those I seeded. Some of the ornamentals, while attractive, get very tall and produce few seeds.

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Badchickenpun said:

Strange, I will need to look at that compared to what I have. We have always called that crab grass. I looked up on how to compare the two and it is not simple. I guess witch grass is fuzzier that crab grass. but the way that it grows is very similar.

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U_Stormcrow said:

Blame the photographer. If you saw them side by side, there's no comparison (well, not much). But absent other references, the photos can be decieving. One of the easiest ways is to look at the seeds - crab grass has tiny, near invisible seeds held close to the seed stalk.

Scribner's Panic has individual, readily visible (though still tiny) seeds on its panicles.
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and witchgrass looks a lot like scribners panic grass, except that it has more panicles and smaller seeds at each bundle of seeds/cluster

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Badchickenpun said:

The crab grass around here gets massive and lays flat for quite a bit before growing upward. The grass itself sends out roots into the soil at the places that the leaves send out more shoots... I am not sure how to describe it. but when you try to pull up a mat, there are roots all over it, not just at the center of the plant.

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U_Stormcrow said:

Muscadine Grape - Seasonal Caution

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Picture is from one of the vines I deliberately planted, but my choice to do so was informed by both the local vinyard and the fact that this native grows wild throughout my forested area, some vines thicker than a broom handle. The leaves on this are largely ignored by the chickens (though the goats will browse on them), but the fruits (still ripening - at least another month and another doubling in size) are quite popular with the chickens. Assumedly, the goats, too.

Skins on these are quite thick, and they are seeded. Makes them popular for wines and jams/jellies, not a "table grape". Given the chance, chickens will gorge on the fruit, potentially impacting dietary balance. Thankfully, fruit are more individual than bunching and the vines can be carefully pruned or otherwise controlled to reduce density.

From a nutrition standpoint, the fruit is (not surprisingly) mostly water, about 84%. Roughly 1% protein, 0.5% fat, 3.5% fiber, and about 13.5% carbs. They aren't a good source of any particular amino acid -in fact, the quantities Threonine, one of the limiting amino acids for poultry, drop rapidly as fruit sets.

That makes grapes firmly "treats" - useful like scattering scratch to encourage them to range where they might not, but otherwise of limited value. The vines are good for covering trellises and otherwise offering dappled shade, but grow slowly and will be seasonally bare. At two years of age (the first year of fruit production), my vines are barely 8-10' in length. Plan accordingly.

I also have vines of Thompson and flame seedless grapes (first year). Those are for my wife an I, now that its established that the chickens won't destroy them before they are productive.

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