Prairie Cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) Yield Response to Nitrogen On Marginal Land.

Prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) is a high yielding warm-season grass that grows naturally in low lying marginal land throughout the United States.  Previously established plots of ‘Red River’ Prairie cordgrass (PCG) at two locations in South Dakota (SD), and ‘Atkins’ PCG near Manhattan, KS, were fertilized with 0, 56, 112 and 168 kg N ha^-1 (in South Dakota 2008 and 2009, and in Kansas in 2009).  Each site had four replications.  The PCG was harvested around a killing frost in October 2008 in SD.  Subsamples were taken from each plot for dry matter determination and chemical composition analyses.  Biomass production at the two SD locations averaged between 7.72 and 11.17 Mg DM ha^-1 in 2008.  There was no difference between N application rates at either location in SD, although yield in N-treated areas tended to be higher than the 0-N control.  This experiment will continue for several years at each location.