Switchgrass

Soil conservation

Switchgrass is useful for soil conservation and amendment, particularly in the United States and Canada, where switchgrass is endemic. Switchgrass has a deep fibrous root system – nearly as deep as the plant is tall. Since it, along with other native grasses and forbs, once covered the plains of the United States that are now the Corn Belt, the effects of the past switchgrass habitat have been beneficial, lending to the fertile farmland that exists today. The deep fibrous root systems of switchgrass left a deep rich layer of organic matter in the soils of the Midwest, making those mollisol soils some of the most productive in the world. By returning switchgrass and other perennial prairie grasses as an agricultural crop, many marginal soils may benefit from increased levels of organic material, permeability, and fertility, due to the grass's deep root system.