ditto
Agreed.
I'm seriously considering using chemical applications to keep large sections of my timber cuts in grasses and briers. I could use fire, but that gets complicated, especially because there are still standing hardwoods in the cuts and I don't want to kill them with too hot of a fire. Plus all the logistics of burning.
That plan will work brother . Was on a lease in Lincoln Co. OK lease and I also had three other leases so I got off of that one , simply because the landowner ran cows and the fields were picked clean. My friend through conversation said he didn't know what had got into the landowner I said what has happened. He said he sold all his cattle and letting the fields grow up !! My first words were " please let me back on that lease " which was actually my lease I just let them have it . That made an ok lease into a killer lease . Deer will bed down in growed up fields especially bucks because they think they are hidden which they are . Grown up fields make great bedding areas from my experience.
I assume you're talking an aerial application (helicopter). I've been told that's what we need to do on some areas we had timber harvested about 10 years ago and let go. All saplings and no sunlight hitting the ground. I'd love to do it. I've heard it really isn't that bad price-wise (somewhat costly, but much cheaper than you'd think). If you pull the plug and go that route at any point, definitely keep us abreast.
Nope. Backpack sprayer. I'm not afraid of hard work. Planted 4,000 pines last winter.
Gotcha. Due to the lack of attention, ours got out of control (roughly 60 acres) and are 8-20 feet tall saplings. So, it's either aerial spray or a lot of hack and squirt with some fire mixed in. The areas we just had select cut, I won't let those go. Cant wait to have 40 acres of grasses/forbs/sage to hunt over. They will be killer! Your deer will really pile in there.
In my opinion, the perfect property would be 50% standing mature timber, 40% mixed types of cover, and 10% agriculture. As for the cover, I would want a mixture of native grasses, early stage successional hardwood regrowth, briers and vines, and young pine plantations (<15 years old). I would want no open fescue pastures at all.
You considered a forestry mulcher?
Best invention EVER! But jeez, $175 per hour is the norm (for an efficient operator with the biggest skid steer and mulching head).
Great idea!
I haven't but will definitely look into that. The problem is the steepness of some of these areas. I may be able to get a mulcher aligning the roads and down off the sides a little ways, then use a head fire from the bottom, then hack and squirt whatever survives. Thanks for throwing out that option.
