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Arizona
Range Grasses Back to the Table of Contents
Description Growth habit: A perennial bunchgrass that usually
grows in rather small dense tufts. Occurrence Spike trisetum is a high-altitude grass that occurs from 10,000 to 12,000 feet elevation on Mt. Baldy in Apache county and in the San Francisco mountains of Coconino county. It is most common in open meadows or boulder-strewn areas near or above timberline. It rarely occurs in pure stands but is often an important constituent of high-mountain summer ranges.
This grass is rated as moderately good to good forage for grazing animals. It begins growth early after the snows have melted and remains green throughout the summer. The seedheads seem to reduce its palatability somewhat with the result that it is grazed most readily early in the season before the seeds have set or later in the summer after they have matured and dropped. Grazing Management Because of the short grazing season at the high altitudes where trisetum occurs, management is difficult. Care should be taken, however, to see that grazing is not so heavy as to break down the grass sod and expose the soil to erosion from the relatively heavy precipitation typical of these high-altitude areas.
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Extension,College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, The University of
Arizona