How Did Invasive Plants Get Here?
Many invasive plant species are introduced unintentionally. For example, during the drought of 1996, hay was bringing a premium price in the livestock industry. Many bales of hay were sold which contained just about anything that grew in the hay pasture or meadow. Goosegrass (Eleusine indica), an introduced annual grass with no forage value, occurred in some of these hay fields and was cut and baled. Unsuspecting buyers who just needed hay to get by, bought the contaminated bales and introduced goosegrass through feeding the hay into their pastures which had large areas of open bare ground conducive for a new weed to survive. This grass helped fill the weed niche after the next rain but also lowered the grazing value of the pasture. It is advisable to know your hay producer and what is growing in his/her hay fields. Successful invasive plants have strategies for survival or self-preservation. Exotic invasive plants are also successful on Texas lands because the biological or ecological
