VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION OF GIANT CUTGRASS 

 FOR FRESH MARSH EROSION CONTROL 



Jack R. Cutshall 



USDA Soil Conservation Service 



3737 Government Street 



Alexandria, LA 71302 



Robert Glennon 



USDA Soil Conservation Service 



Federal Square Station 



228 Walnut Street, Room 820 



Harrisburg, PA 17108-0985 



Leo T. Biles 



USDA Soil Conservation Service 



P.O. Box 629 



Thibodaux, LA 70301 



ABSTRACT 



Giant cutgrass (Zkaniopsis miliacea) is being evaluated for revegetation potential in coastal fresh 

 marshes. As seed matures on the giant cutgrass plant, the stolon (seed stalk) lodges and eventually 

 lies down on the water. The nodes produce roots and leaves and the new plants anchor themselves 

 in the soil. Fifty-one accessions were collected and established at the Louisiana Marshlands Plant 

 Materials Laboratory at Golden Meadow, LA The nodes, rooted and unrooted, were cut and 

 planted. Potentially 400 nodes per 3-m row on mineral soils and 200 nodes per 3-m row on 

 organic soils can be produced. After 2 months, 80% of the rooted nodes survived and grew 0.6 

 m and 50% of the unrooted nodes survived and grew 0.3 m. 



INTRODUCTION 



Giant cutgrass (Zkaniopsis miliacea) (Michx.) Doell and Aschers is a warm season, upright 

 perennial grass. It reproduces vegetatively by stout creeping rhizomes and sexually by seed. The 

 seedhead is an open panicle. Spikelets are one-flowered unisexual with both staminate and 

 pistillate flowers occurring on the same panicle branch. The leaf blades are long, flat, and smooth, 

 but have a scabrous (sawlike) margin from which it gets its common name. Giant cutgrass is 

 typically 1-3 m tall. The leaf blades are 1-2 cm wide. It grows in moist soils throughout the 

 Southeastern United States (Hitchcock 1950). 



Ecologically, giant cutgrass is found in relatively small amounts (s 25% of total plants) in climax 

 fresh marshes of Louisiana. It is usually a sub-dominant plant associated with maidencane 

 (Panicum hemitomen) or paille fine, as it is known in Louisiana. As water depth increases on 

 fresh marsh sites, giant cutgrass will replace paille fine as the dominant plant. Water level 

 fluctuations from the soil surface to 0.3 m above the soil surface are optimum for giant cutgrass. 

 It can tolerate deeper water for short periods of time or when root-linked to plants growing in 

 shallower water. Constant water depths of 0.3 m or more are detrimental to giant cutgrass growth, 

 and it is soon replaced by bull tongue (Sagittaria falcata) as the dominant plant. 



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