Natural Revegetation of Abandoned Plowed Land in the Mixed Prairie Association of Northeastern Colorado

Abstract

The abandonment of cultivation on thousands of acres, beginning soon after settlement started in the Great Plains, has resulted in all stages of secondary succession from nearly bare fields to areas which have almost, if not entirely, returned to the original condition. Many of these areas should never have been plowed and their best use may still be had only when they have been returned to a productive cover of native forage plants. Consequently, information on the rate and nature of natural revegetation is basic to a practical approach to the problem of accelerating the rate of vegetation recovery which now appears to be retarded by grazing and other influences. Investigations of secondary succession on abandoned plowed lands in the Great Plains have not been numerous. Shantz ('11) described for various Great Plains associations the characteristic stages of vegetation that develop when land is left without cultivation and in a later report ('17) discussed the succession that occurs on abandoned roads in eastern Colorado. More recently, Savage and Runyon ('37) have reported on the rate and manner of natural revegetation of abandoned farm lands in the Central and Southern Great Plains. The stages which must be recognized as a requisite to proper grazing management have been enumerated recently (Costello, '43) along with recommendations of grazing practices which will hasten the return to a native forage cover. Various other aspects of this problem of grass restoration on abandoned lands