Tall fescue had become one of the most important forage grasses in the eastern United States—but its remarkable persistence came with a hidden cost. Once researchers connected livestock problems to a fungus living inside the plant, they began searching for ways to preserve the grass without sacrificing animal performance.

In Episode 2 of the tall fescue series, Dr. Joe Bouton helps me trace that search. From improving toxic fescue pastures with red clover, to removing the endophyte, and ultimately replacing it with a nontoxic strain, this is a story of persistence, failure, and extraordinary natural variation—and of the researchers who found a way to separate the wondergrass from its curse.

Resources and acknowledgments:

• Archival oral-history recordings courtesy of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.

Tall fescue transformed agriculture across the eastern United States. It covered eroded hillsides, filled gullies, and provided farmers with a tough, dependable forage that seemed able to survive almost anything.

In Episode 1 of our tall fescue series, we meet up with Dr. Garry Lacefield to trace the discovery of Kentucky 31 in the hills of Menifee County, Kentucky, and follow its rise from an overlooked patch of grass to the celebrated “Wondergrass.” It is a story of soil erosion, agricultural change, and a plant whose extraordinary persistence would reshape farms throughout the region.

But the same qualities that made tall fescue remarkable would eventually reveal a darker side—one that farmers and researchers were only beginning to understand.

Resources and acknowledgments:

• The Wonder Grass: The Story of Tall Fescue in the United States, by Don Ball, Jimmy Henning, Garry Lacefield, and Carl Hoveland: Auburn University

• Archival oral-history recordings courtesy of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.