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➤ Marlena - Documenter
➤ Miles - Editor
➤ Ember - Visual Director
Background Information
Background Information
The question that we answered at the prairie was “How do the Indian grass and forbs in each of the different treatments affect each other?”. In short, and we will go into this more in the data collection section, what we did was we basically went around numerous of the plots and measured the length of the Indian Grass (Andropogon nutans L.). For reference, the average height of the Indian Grass is 66 inches.
Native to the United States, Indian Grass is a perennial grass. It prefers clay-like soil to sandy soil and grows best in deep floodplains. It is classed as tallgrass prairie grass. It is consumed by a range of domesticated and wild grazing species since it is a very nutritious plant. It's also a fantastic plant for soil stabilization. Because of all of this, it is a vital tallgrass prairie plant, and its widespread distribution is a positive thing.
The Tallgrass Prairie of Free State was established in 2014. The grassland consists of 18 plots with three treatment types: grasses, grasses with wildflowers, and prairie grasses with twice as many wildflowers. From the greenhouse, 40 different plant species were transplanted. The weeds began to grow out of control throughout the summer, with prickly lettuce being the most frequent. As the weeds died out over time, other plant species emerged. The prairie has now become a valuable resource for both students and instructors.
Data Collection
Data Collection
First, we chose the plant species to measure (Indian Grass). Then, we went between different plots and measured the average heights of the Indian grass in the different kinds of treatments. We then did the same for the tall boneset. With the recorded data, we compared the plant heights and came up with possible answers to our question. The data showed us how interspecific and intraspecific competition affect the growth of plants. There were some unexpected results with the grasses and 2x forbs treatment because both the tall boneset and the Indian grass decreased in growth.
Data
Data
In the treatment with the grasses only, the Indian grass reached a height greater than average because there was very little interspecific competition.
In the treatment with grasses and forbs, the Indian grass didn't grow as much because it was competing with the forbs. In the last treatment, grasses and 2x forbes, both the Indian grass and tall boneset decreased in height because the interspecific and even intraspecific competition (for the tall boneset) were too strong.
Conclusion
Conclusion
After recording and analyzing all the information, we found that indian grass in plots with less forbs were a lot taller than in plots with more forbs. In the plots with grasses only, the
average height was 77.5 inches. In the plots with grasses and forbes, the average height was 70.5 inches. In the plots with grasses and 2x forbs, the average height was 66 inches. This data shows that the amount of forbes makes a big difference in the growth of the indian grass. The forbs are shown to compete with the indian grass for nutrients more than the other grasses in the plots because even though the plots are the same sizes, the forbs created much more of an affect on the height of the indian grass.
The forbes actually had less of a growth when there were more forbs, so this could mean that interspecific competition between the different types of forbs is stronger than with the Indian grass.It was pretty hard to answer the research question this time because the plots had different densities, and even a plot with only indian grass would be hard to use for this because of the intraspecific competition. However, this data was still able to prove the effect of forbes and the indian grass on each other.
Discussion/Next Steps
Discussion/Next Steps
This project wasn’t that accurate because we didn’t consider the other types of grasses and the amounts of them in each of the plots. We could only take a guess about the cause of the data results, but there could be something else causing the decrease of growth from the different treatment types. We also got limited data, so the averages weren’t that accurate because the heights of each were so different.
Doing this project made me wonder if intraspecific competition was stronger than interspecific competition. It seems that the forbs weren’t affected as much, so it looks like interspecific competition is stronger with the forbes. Because we didn’t measure the grass it’s hard to tell, but we could do something like this in the future.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Brakie, M. 2017. Plant Guide for Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans). USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, East Texas Plant Materials Center. Nacogdoches, TX 75964
Utah State University. (2017). Indiangrass. Extension.Usu.Edu. https://extension.usu.edu/rangeplants/grasses-and-grasslikes/indiangrass
Free State High School. (2021, October 14). Tallgrass Prairie. Free State Prairie . https://freestateprairie.wixsite.com/mysite/ecology
The prairie is located in the northwest corner behind the football stadium. You enter through the main athletics entrance and follow the sidewalk behind the stadium. At the end of the sidewalk, head across the lawn to the northwest toward the shelter and shed.
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