I hear you……I’d still like to see a side by side study that showed me the long term impacts of each method on soil organic matter % though........How frequently are we talking about using fire...every 2 years?.....4 years? ....Unless you take a look at the comparisons just to see then I don’t think you’re making a truly informed decision on the matter….I’m saying that I don’t know what the comparison would show but I do know that soil organic matter has a significant impact of forage production….especially in sandy soils…..Can you lower soil organic matter % by burning too frequently?

I hear what you are saying on the aspect of forage quality too…..I listened to a seminar not long ago by Dr Craig Harper on just what you're talking about…….The way in which I suspect that this method could have an impact on quality is through species diversity….More abundance of higher quality plant species…..I have seen through my T&M food plot tests that species composition changes as the soil organic matter % changes…..as the conditions change the plants change…..Could we promote a better plant community through improving the soil? Like I said previously, I think it depends on what impact you’re currently having on the soil by setting succession back using fire….Do we even know?....How does that vary from one soil type to another? Let's not bury our heads in the sand the same way we did with farming practices

What was the takeaway from that talk by Dr. Harper? Wasnt it basically that the better deer areas were a result of an increased quantity of better food sources?.......Where does our plant community come from?.....The soil......Impact the soil and you impact the whole system......the plant....the deer....the yote...


Ok dammit Goatkiller you got me.....you might have been right about the beans and such to a degree....

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…..You used pokeweed in your post saying that the pokeweed here had the same nutrient content as a pokeweed anywhere…..True…..So how much pokeweed total does your land produce ….that’s where its at as you know……Better yet, what are the highest quality plant species and how many tons of those is your land producing?? My field is around 6% organic matter now and producing a massive amount of diverse biomass as a result and this has changed as I've built the soil up….. How does you burn area soil compare? What is the OM% if you run a test? What is the total tonnage being produced and of which plants? Is the frequency and intensity of your fires effecting the soil and therefore effecting the plant community?? Is that even taken into consideration? Should it be?

I am going to ramble for a few! Cattle to me can grow side by side with wildlife possibly if controlled. After seeing cattle grow on an 80 acre tract with 90% woods and 10% fields I would say a few cattle in that condition is ok, but I would have an area closed off for agricultural production and prefer more agricultural land than woods. Also, I would like summer and winters plots fenced off for the deer and small thick wooded tracts for bedding for both animals along with a good water supply. There seem to be very little honeysuckle as mentioned on this particular tract I mentioning above and it provides very little food. Honeysuckle is one of the best winter foods for deer and I would want all that I could get. Turkey do like to be around cattle and could benefit from their presence. Cattle benefit more from grazing fields than woods for summer grazing. Now if the thick understory is opened up and area prescribed burned it seems deer would benefit more. However, on the above tract I would not spend much improving the habitat because the surrounding tracts are brown it's down. Now kudzu may be a cheap option not saying it's pretty, but deer seem to love to eat it and it makes a great bedding area. But, who would plant that on their property? 5 acres of kudzu in the middle of an 80 acre wooded tract, hmmmm.
Now as far as improving sanding soil I am not saying it couldn't be done, but there is a special clover I would use and ship in some chicken or cow poop to top it off. Now if the land is not really dry you could irrigate if feasible or plant peanuts for fall. Deer like the green from peanuts and if you could turn them over it could provide early winter food. If I had land with a majority of sandy soil I would probably just plant some post oaks and water oaks if feasible and call it said and done while keeping the deer numbers low. I am interested as wefigure out more about native grasses for deer and would like to see more of it if feasible in the near future. These are goals I would strive for and think would be more beneficial for deer than the cattle fertilizing soil method.

Here’s a pic I found from this time last year that helps show a little bit of what I’m talking about from an understory production potential…..Most of that is over your head…..Its producing more than your typical pine stand burn area that I see….It’s dense and its diverse…..Give me this understory on a landscape scale and lets see what kind of deer herd it produces.....You cant tell me that burning all of this up with fire doesnt have a different impact than if I recycle the carbon back to the soil....

Here’s something to consider too…..If frequent intense fire were to be having a negative impact on a property's soil then it would likely play itself out slowly over a long term period….maybe like a decade or something lets say……and here’s why……The soil organic matter is continually decomposing day in and day out…..it speeds up and slows down according to temp but it’s always gonna be in processes of decomposing…..Which mean you have to always be adding it back or you start running a soil OM deficit…..For example I said I have 6% right now and growing……the soil running a deficit would be 5.2% next year and 4.6% the next and so on and so forth……because its decomposing at a faster rate than its being added.....you took much of its above ground carbon source away through fire .....If you continue to run a deficit long enough then you end of with zero…..This is what has happened to many food plots and it’s the same thing that can happen to the rest of the soil if you slowly starve it of carbon. It would be very interesting to do some soil tests on burn areas and see if you’re growing the OM or running a deficit…..

Fire is a great tool but we should try to know all of the effects we are causing with the manner in which we use it...I would suspect a really hot fire would reek havoc on the soil microbes as well.....almost sterilizing it of life for awhile....most of the life exists in the top layers of soil....It would be extremely important to know if your soil OM% is growing or declining because it has a significant impact on the forage production....as soil OM% grows, forage production grows.....species composition also changes.....so as soil OM% grows then so does deer holding capacity....Correct?.....Which means as it declines then so does holding capacity.

Are we "managing" the right things? We try to manage the deer.....we try to manage the plant......but do we pay any attention to managing the soil?

It may be long after I'm dead and gone that this is realized and proven with change being as slow as it is......but I'm gonna go out on a limb now and say that carrying capacity if a function of soil OM% + %sunlight.....and in it has the most dramatic effects in the sandier soils

100% sunlight to the ground with a soil organic matter percentage of lets say 6% or better for now since we know that's obtainable.....not sure where the ceiling is at on that number.....this is maximized potential or close....Dont tell me it doesn't natter or make a difference......I can show you ten years worth of experiments that says it does.......and if it does in my field then it does on the soil on the rest of my property too......and if it matters across the whole property then it matters on my neighbors as well......and so on,,,,,,,The principles and concepts are the same. Managing soil OM % matters

If we are managing for deer we can safely burn every 2-5 years to maintain our understory that will provide browse, forage, and soft mast. Low intensity fire will burn leaf litter, and allow desirable, herbaceous plants to germinate while increasing the quality of the soil. Following fire, the grasses, legumes, and other herbaceous plants beneficial to wildlife, are consumed by wildlife, and fertilized by wildlife. We know we can increase soil quality with low intensity fire but to what extent (if we are talking numbers/%) I'm not sure off top of my head.

As far as quality plants; Pokeweed, old-field aster, partridge pea, ragweed, sumac, beggar's-lice, and prickly lettuce can be found almost anywhere across the southeast. These plants will occur naturally after disturbance and often selected as browse for deer.

I don’t disagree….Again, I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t understand the good things that can be achieved with fire…..Its more like we’re comparing race cars lets say……

Just in real simple anecdotal terms……I’ve been on a LOT of land around here tracking deer for folks and seen how folks manage and the results produced…..I’ve walked for miles and miles through it…….I can measure with my eyeballs and tell you with pretty good confidence that I’m producing WAY more yield of forage per sq/ft or sq/ac…..however you want to measure it….than any of the rest of it that’s being managed by fire. While my place here is just a small test area…..the principle and such are just the same……I’m producing a much more vibrant understory than the other properties I go on and I believe its due to how I’ve been managing the vegetation. This pic series was from 2017…….I’ve gotten even more sunlight to it now through hack n squirt…..but just look at the amount of vegetation being produced…..it the same area in all three pics like a before and after……Can we produce forage like this on a landscape scale? I don’t know about thousands of acres but I believe you could take a small property of acres in the hundreds and make it top notch…..and do much of it with cattle that made money..........My tractor was simply the cattle for this grazing......one big difference being that it cost money......fire has a cost......cattle can have an associated income

That's definitely a big improvement

Thanks......It was simply just a round of setting back succession........same as with fire except I'm just putting the vegetation to the ground.....You're still recycling nutrients......you're feeding ALL of the carbon back to the soil though...

Edit: Where I feel like you would be the MOST productive for deer management would be a understory that was a checkerboard pattern of management units that were in different stages of succession…..More less you would have areas at all times that looked like both my before and after pics….This block in stage one of succession…….then next block in stage two……the next in stage 3 ready to reset back to 1 etc…..

The big problem I see Cnc is most of us can’t run a tractor through most of our property. You live in flat land I don’t and have no chance of running a tractor on 95% of my property.

That's where the cattle come in......I have only been using my tractor to simulate what a cow herd would do.....The next step is to do it with cattle and electric fencing.......How hard would it be to start off with 5-10 cows and some temporary e-fencing......You just use the cows as a tool that you move around to manage the understory....to produce the same results I just showed in the pics that I did with my tractor...In this stand for a few weeks and then moved to another stand for a month or just whatever regimen you decide on(boom your a farmer too when it comes to taxes).......It's just a matter of scale as to how big of operation were talking here.....less cattle would move less frequently and impact fewer acres.....you would just have to adjust the amount in you herd for how long in took them to manage the understory the way we want....Remember its just to bring the successional growth back down and managed.....not to make the place look like a cow pasture......For the guy that owns a few hundred acres or less I would think it would be a pretty easy thing to do if you have any experience with cattle

I believe providing them water would be one of the biggest hassles that would need to be thought about.....how to simplify that issue

What I have been thinking about is getting some cows in early spring.....running them during the growing season to manage the areas I want managed.....then selling them off during the winter for hunting season

You make it sound really easy. You’re not taking into consideration catch pens, loading chutes, trailer, etc. Also sounds like a good way to lose your tail with potentially buying high and prices dropping. Fire would be way easier

Yep. You don’t just buy cows and expect to sell them after they have fed on natural forage. Whole lot more to it. Goats on the other hand might work well and there’s a pretty good market for them in areas with decent size Latino populations.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the Caribbean for work and vacation. They use goats like we use bush hogs and tractors. Takes a little longer but it works really well.

Spoken like a true walker co native 😂

Tax write offs

How many cows does someone have to buy and sell to be considered a farmer and be able to write off equipment and such like tractors on taxes?? Can't you write off seed (cereal grains) and feed (corn) and fuel....and farm trucks, etc??....Could someone qualify for other land tax breaks by being considered a cattle farmer versus if they are only growing trees on a place?