We spot treated several areas with various chemicals and found some interesting results. Some chemicals will not harm certain native grasses, but they will torch others. A randomized complete block research design will be carried out by us to produce scientifically accurate results that should benefit us in the future. Once you get through the first two years of weed-control work, the game is over. It should not be necessary to treat it chemically again.
Thatch control is needed for native prairie grasses, just as it is for turfgrasses.
If left unattended for several years, the grasses begin to choke themselves out. For millennia, nature took care of prairie thatch and tree invasion with fire started by lightning. Prairie fires would rage so intensely that settlers, when trapped by these fires, would have to disembowel their horses and climb inside their carcasses to survive. Fortunately, we do not have to resort to those means. Your conservation department will gladly show you how to burn safely in your area if it is permissible.