Recently the switchgrass moth (Blastobasis repartella) was re-discovered in a grass seed farm, destroying a good percentage of the switchgrass “crop”. The agronomist are surprised! South Dakota State University Professor Paul Johnson said in a Biomass Magazine article “Before these recent discoveries, the mantra in the national biofuels and biomass circles was that there were no significant pests of concern and that growing native plants as crops would be environmentally benign if not beneficial. Our basic insect natural history work here at the Severin-McDaniel Insect Research Collection has shown this presumption to be false and that native prairie plants are just as vulnerable to insects as other crop. A major concern in the near future, then, becomes designing pest management programs. When you start encouraging large monocultures, it’s like there’s a Thanksgiving feast laid out for them.”

Wouldn’t having a “real” prairie be its own pest management solution? I contend that you may have less yield than souped-up swithgrass, but you won’t be spending lots of money on special seed, on fertilizer (yes, there are fertilizing switchgrass to increase yeidl), or pesticides.