The warm-season grasses do not start growing until late April to early May in Ohio (Bartholomew et al., 1994). They basically mature one month later than the cool-season grasses. These grasses make 65 to 75% of their growth in mid-summer (Jung et al., 1978), mid-June to mid-August in Ohio.
Many warm-season grasses were once native to Ohio. They died out due to crop harvesting and continuous, close grazing. The perennial warm-season grasses that are normally discussed are switchgrass, big bluestem, indiangrass, and little bluestem. Even though they are native, the warm-season grasses are hard to establish. It may take as long as two to three years to establish these grasses in a field. However, the native grasses have no natural pests and are resistant to rusts and insects. They are also adapted to a wide range of soil and fertility conditions (Morris et al., 1982; Rasnake et al., 1990). Morris et al. (1982) reported that switchgrass and indiangrass produce well on soils with low moisture-holding capacity and low phosphorous, compared to the cool-season grasses. Warm-season and cool-season grasses cannot be grown together in continuous grazing systems because the earlier maturing cool-season grasses crowd out the warm-season species.
In southwestern Missouri, switchgrass and caucasian bluestem (an introduced warm-season perennial) are used by beef producers to supplement the tall fescue (Roundtree et al., 1974). As a side note, some people feel the planting of caucasian bluestem or any nonnative warm-season grass should probably be avoided in existing native stands. However, most all forage species in Ohio are introduced varieties from other parts of the world.
Ohio has somewhat better summer growing conditions for the cool-season grasses, with generally higher rainfall and somewhat cooler summer temperatures than in southern Missouri. However, the warm-season grasses may have a place in livestock operations as suggested by Pennsylvania researchers (Jung et al., 1978). Steers gained 1.45 lb/day on switchgrass and 1.38 lb/day on smooth bromegrass in Iowa studies (Barnhart and Wedin, 1984). Roundtree et al. (1974) reported daily gains of yearling Holstein heifers ranging from 0.8 to more than 1.5 lb/day on native grasses in Missouri.
Producers interested in using the native perennial grasses may wish to use them as mid-summer pasture. For summer pasture usage, plan on 0.33 to 0.5 acre per cow-calf unit. From 0.9 to 3.2 acres of summer pasture per cow-calf unit are needed in Ohio (Van Keuren, 1985). Warm-season grasses will be especially useful on drought soils that are low in fertility. Reclaimed mine soils would be one example.