Nebraska native grasses grow strong after 50 years

The program required planting a mix of native grasses.

Grasses that once covered Nebraska have now spent another 50 years growing and flourishing in Wagner's pasture, the Norfolk Daily News reported .

With patience, Wagner said, the grass eventually began to grow and would produce its own seeds to help the pasture expand and thicken.

Despite the program ending, he kept the native grasses and managed them through grazing.

The native grasses include a mixture of warm- and cool-season grasses.

At 88 years old, Wagner still grazes cattle on the native grasses and rotates them through his other pastures as well.

[...] they'll be in the next pasture about three months and then they'll come back over here toward fall, and then I'll sell the calves and the cows go out to the cornstalks.

The farm has seen cows and calves, horses, fattened cattle that were marketed in Sioux City, and even crops like corn and oats.

[...] with all that has changed in agriculture, in Nebraska and in the world over the years, Wagner still has his resilient native grasses from the centennial seeding.