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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1164
Indiangrass
Sorghastrum nutans
Indiangrass is a native tallgrass prairie grass that stays low and leafy most of the growing season, then throws up a golden bronze plume in late summer that turns deep orange to purple as autumn goes on. It thrives in the hottest part of the year, grazed and cut for hay, and keeps producing through heat and dry spells that stall cool-season pasture grasses. Its seed feeds birds and small mammals, and stands give nesting cover to gamebirds, songbirds and native bees. Sensitive to overgrazing, it needs a rest between cuttings to keep producing across its typical ten-to-fifteen-year stand life.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moderate · Dry · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 4.8–8
- Plant type
- Grass
- Mature height
- 3–6 ft
- Mature spread
- 12–24 in
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Both
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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