Guidelines for establishing warm season grass hedges for erosion control

Excerpt

Soil erosion is a major problem around the world (Brown and Wolf 1984). An economical method to slow runoff and reduce soil loss is stiff, erect, densely-tillered narrow grass hedges. Such grass hedges are widely used in India, the West Indies, and other countries to reduce soil loss (National Research Council 1993). The concept of using grass barriers for erosion control was proposed by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) about 40 years ago in the United States. For a variety of reasons the practice was not adopted.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the use of narrow stiff grass hedges as a conservation practice (Kemper et al. 1992). Research has been done on application of grass barriers to reduce water (Dabney et al. 1993) and wind (Aase and Pikul 1995; Siddoway 1970) erosion. Research has shown grass hedges to slow runoff, trap sediment, prevent gullying (Dabney et al. 1993; Meyer et al. 1994), and enhance terrace formation (Aase and Pikul 1995). They are an inexpensive, biological conservation technology compatible with current tillage systems (McGregor and Dabney 1993).

In 1991 the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), NRCS …