Bahiagrass: Alternative Forage or Invasive Weed?

For those of us that are in bermudagrass country in Southeastern NC, bahiagrass is all too familiar a sight in our pastures.  Like bermuda, bahiagrass is a warm season perennial grass that grows in sandy soils.

If you're not sure if you have bahiagrass in your pastures or not, it is most commonly identified by the black "V" seed head it puts up every 12-14 days during the summer.

Bahiagrass, also referred to as Pensicola bahiagrass, was commonly used by the highway department as an erosion control several years ago.  It certainly offers some advantages to bermuda.  It establishes quickly, it stands up to hoof traffic well, and thrives much better under dry conditions and low soil fertility.  It also is more tolerant of continuous overgrazing.

So why is bahiagrass not used more than it is?  The answer is nutrition, yield, palatability, and ascetics.  While is does come pretty close to matching feeding values of bermuda in a low fertility (fertilization) scenario, if we compare bahiagrass to well fertilized, well managed bermuda pastures, it is clearly inferior.  While Pensicola (and especially the improved variety, Tifton 9) bahiagrass will out yield the older, unimproved common bermudagrasses, the newer, improved seeded varieties (Wrangler, Mohawk, etc.) and especially the hybrid bermudas (Coastal, Tifton 44) have much greater capacity for growth.  Finally, due to its capacity for seed production, (the prevalent seed head mentioned above) bahiagrass is not a  very attractive grass in a pasture setting.  The grass sends out a seed head all summer, and if you've ever tried to mow bahiagrass with a mower or bushhog, you know how difficult this grass is to mow.  Given a horses grazing behavior of skipping over mature, tougher grasses in favor of more lush, tender grass, bahia certainly does not match an equine's grazing habits very well either.

So why would you want bahiagrass in your pastures?  If you have very infertile soil. or if you are not going to fertilize your pastures every summer, then bahiagrass will have a much better chance of surviving under these conditions than bermuda will.  If you're like most of us though, then bahiagrass has unfortunately gotten into your pastures through bird droppings, deer, or even through purchased hay.  Once bahiagrass has gotten into a bermuda pasture, it will (over time) out compete the bermuda and basically take over your pasture if left to run its course.  Can you do anything to stop this from happening?  You can.  There are a few pasture herbicides that can control bahiagrass in a pasture quite well.  Any of the herbicides containing metsulfulron (such as Cimmeron Plus or Pastora) will do a good job of containing the growth of bahiagrass.  If you have a significant infestation, you very well may have to spray several years in a row to fully control the bahia. 

Before you decide to use these products, however, you need to take time to walk your pastures and make sure you want to remove the bahiagrass.  If the grass mix in your pastures is 50% or greater of bahia, then it's debatable if its worth the time and expense to first kill out the bahia and then wait for the bermuda to fill back in.  This can be a slow process and you will have a lot of dead spots with very little vegetation on them during this time. 

While the equine industry in Florida and Louisiana depends on bahiagrass for their main forage source in their pastures, in NC, more often than not, most animal operations prefer to keep it on the roadside and out of their pastures and hayfields.

Written by Randy Wood