Native Plants

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Tuesday - September 08, 2009

From: Wichita Falls, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Grasses or Grass-like
Title: Native grasses for horse grazing in Wichita Falls, TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

What are the best horse grazing grasses to plant in the Wichita Falls, Texas area?

ANSWER:

Because we are into horticulture, not agriculture, we needed to first research what kind of plant horses could eat. To educate ourselves, and for anyone else who is interested, we found these websites with information we thought was useful: Life 123 What do horses eat?, a previous answer on this subject, and Safergrass.org Are you feeding your horse like a cow? We learned that our contribution should be grasses native to the Wichita County area.

When we went to our Recommended Species section, we couldn't decide if Wichita Falls is in the North Texas area or the High Plains, so we selected grasses native to both. Follow the links to the individual webpage on each grass to get more information.

Native grasses native to the Wichita County, TX area:

Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem)

Bouteloua curtipendula (sideoats grama)

Bouteloua dactyloides (buffalograss)

Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama)

Poa arachnifera (Texas bluegrass)

Sorghastrum nutans (Indiangrass)

Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem)