With the ongoing challenge of controlling invasive plants in native habitats, along roadsides, on working lands, yards, around businesses, schools, and in parks, we can all use some good news!
We hope that in reading these stories, you will have an added spring in your step as you carry your lopers, backpack sprayer, or other control tools to your work site. Many thanks to tree farmer Jim Ball for contributing the success story below.
While non-native, cool-season tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is an important forage grass in Missouri, its invasive qualities cause it to spread into native habitats where it can degrade native biodiversity. One reason tall fescue is successful at spreading is because it is allelopathic, meaning it produces compounds that can adversely affect the growth or germination of surrounding plants.
This trait makes fescue problematic not only in natural communities, but also on tree farms, where it is a bane to farmers growing oaks, pecans, and other valuable native trees for lumber, nuts, and other forest products.
At his tree farm in Caldwell County, Jim Ball killed the fescue over about 20 acres, between rows of oak and walnut trees. After the tall fescue was dead, he planted a mix of shade-tolerant native wildflowers and grasses through the CP-42 cost-share program to support pollinating insects, administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
In 2017, Jim and his wife Schatzi Ball were named the American Tree Farm System’s North Central Regional Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year and in 2024, the couple was recognized as the 2024 Missouri Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year by the Missouri Tree Farm Committee.
Learn more about how to control tall fescue here. Learn more about the CP-42 cost-share program here.
