Blue Grama Types from West Texas and Eastern New Mexico

Abstract

From the eastern edge of the Rolling Red Plains of Oklahoma and Texas westward across the High Plains, the Llano Estacado, the upper Pecos valley and lapping high up into the mountains of New Mexico is a broad expanse of natural grassland dominated to a large extent by blue grama. Southward from the New Mexico line into Texas, blue grama is found in islands at the upper elevations of the hills and mountains but seldom on the valley floors. Scattered throughout the area are several million acres of marginal and submarginal land that had been plowed up at one time and then abandoned. Attempts are being made to return this land to native grassland vegetation. Blue grama is the basic bread-and-butter grass for reseedings of this type. Blue grama seed has always come from wild harvests, none of it being produced under cultivation. Sources of seed vary from year to year, depending entirely on the rainfall patterns of an erratic climate. It is important, therefore, to characterize the natural stands of blue grama in the region and obtain some idea of the relative agronomic value of the various sources.