Is it possible to improve the soil fertility across an entire property…..therefore changing the forage quality and quantity……in turn increasing the quality and quantity of deer? Has anyone ever gone out and tested the soil in any other areas besides your food plots? Are the OM percentages in the soils across the property declining due to using fire? How much could the soil be improved if the carbon we burn up using fire were instead incorporated back into the soil….. increasing OM%......The soil is where it all starts.....Its the foundation

Fire provides other benefits and the trade off in lost carbon is meaningless. The ability to set back succession trumps all. Besides, fire is a natural process.

What if I set the succession back across the property using mob grazing instead of fire?.....Is the loss of OM really meaningless?? Its sure not in my field of sand....it makes a huge difference on forage production

What’s the comparison on a per sq/ac basis of the quality and quantity of forage if you did a long term side by side test on fire vs mob grazing??.... How would that translate to wildlife carrying capacity and overall herd health/quality if we extrapolate that across the entire 200 acres……500 acres……2000 acres??

I dont think there is enuff grazing going on to compare to fire. Timber would take over in a few years in most every area here. If you could bush bog the place every year to keep the trees from shading all the low browse out, then maybe.

I think you could rotate the cattle frequently enough to really minimize the woody species......You dont see many trees growing in cow pastures......That's not to mean that we plan to take the vegetation back to the point of looking like a cow pasture but I believe they would control a lot of the sweetgum type succession.....Still though, If I were managing a property for deer I'd want some areas that started getting into that third successional stage before I reset it.....deer love those high woody stem count areas for cover

Cattle maybe but deer no. Also most pasture are cut. The cleaner ones may even be over gra,zed and the soil compacted to ware trees wouldnt be a factor.

Fire is very important in wildlife management

do your questions sound good to you before you ask them in print for all the world to see??? Asking for me.....

Yes

This is the question that needs answering before being able to really form an opinion

I bet fire would win.

Not this chit again.

I'm not sure it's possible. I think you could toil your whole life and be confined to a narrow window. There are places where you can drive 2 miles and go from growing 150 bushel corn, to growing 280 bushel corn. I don't think the poorer soil can ever be the good stuff. I think you can maximize your current situation though.

Why would you give the edge to fire?.....1) I would think that fire would cause you to lose most of your above ground carbon through combustion instead of it decomposing and turning into humus and increasing soil OM% like through mob grazing…..2) I would suspect that cattle hooves would stimulate the seed bank more than what fire would….and 3) You have significant amounts of organic fertilizer being added to the mix with mob grazing….

You got it with that last sentence......


Now lets say we get a parcel in the good dirt area and we maximize its potential through the same manner.....Now we're talking about sumpin......

Don't forget to factor in compaction from the mob grazing. Especially if stocking rates are high. Ever notice those sheepfoot rollers on dirtwork sites ? We mimic nature a lot.

I'd rather follow the Southeast model regarding fire over the west coast (California) model

I dont see it as favoring one over the other nor as a "southern model" and a "Californian model"......I see fire and cattle both simply as management tools in the tool box.....and I dont throw tools away

This may seem far fetched to some but I dont believe it is......I believe you could have an impact on the soil of a property in this manner and improve the productivity for the wildlife as a result.....I believe you could set up a small scale experiment and prove this one

Stop talking about it and do the experiment on your land, CNC. Let us know how it turns out... in less than 100 words.

I could sum it up in two words but it wouldn't be enough to convince folks simply by saying "it worked"

With your theory of OM, is that not what soil is? Trees, shrubs, grasses, leaves, all decayed into a mass? Seems like they only way to improve that would be fertilizer. Burning just helps clean out and begins the process that takes years to do.

Yes, soil is a combination of a few things......its the finely ground up rock that comes from the subsoil.....this is the base of our mix......combined with the decomposed organic litter that's deposited on the surface.....your shrubs, leaves, grasses, etc.......we also refer to this as "carbon".......That is a huge component of rich properly functioning soil.....With fire most of your above ground carbon is gonna be released into the atmosphere through combustion.....so therefore you've taken away a large percentage of the soil carbon it would have gotten through decomposition......That's what I'm suggesting mob grazing would give you in comparison.....It would recycle that carbon back to the soil instead of releasing it to the atmosphere......AND.....AND....it would be applying "fertilizer" on top of the vegetation through cow manure/urine.....I'm suggesting that the end result would be a more fertile soil which would produce a more productive understory.....which equates to an increased carrying capacity

The impacts of organic matter is dramatic…..especially on sandy soils……I think the soils could be managed much more productively in this manner while still keeping fire in the toolbox…..There will still have to be some woody control I’m sure…..I see it here at my place even though I’m not technically mob grazing…..I’m recycling the vegetation back the soil though with my tractor and I’m getting a more vibrant productive understory from it than what I see fire alone causing in the places I go…….Add manure to the mix and it would be a dense jungle of diverse understory growth…..Granted I’m just measuring with my eyeball….but I believe an actually study would show this to be true

Just to add to this……I think SMZ management is one place where we really have a lot of room for improvement and managing the understory in this manner would transform those areas…..Think about this…..if you look at the map…..where is the best soil moisture??......Well, let’s manage those areas then to produce the best understory vegetation since that’s where our best soil moisture is located…..instead of shading it all out and letting the top soil erode away during annual flash flooding events

That's more than 100 words.

--“I have just about tripled my grass production and started growing new species like eastern gamma grass, Indiangrass, and big and little bluestem – all those species now have time to go to seed,” he said.


--Totemeier will receive financial assistance through USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) to offset some of the conservation practice expenses.


--For example, Totemeier likes to graze his cattle in 50 percent timber and 50 percent grassland paddocks during the summer heat. “They spend the days in the woods eating high protein leaves from invasive honeysuckle,” he said, “then move to grasslands in the evenings to eat mixed grasses and legumes



https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/ia/newsroom/stories/STELPRDB1186272/


The deer come from the soil.

Just skip all this madness and airdrop in 10 tons of peat and potting soil per acre.
That ought to do it.

That's not a bad idea but dont you think that seems a little unrealistic?

Almost as unrealistic of your above ideas.
I know you mean well, but the thing is that no one has the time or money to do any of those things.
And no one is going to import cows to eat everything on site. Nor would they want to. Nor could 99% of people even do that.
And the deer wouldn't want all their food eaten by cows either.
Nor would people want cows to wipe out their fall and summer food plots.

The best management tools are fire for pines, strategic thinning of hardwoods as well as pines, and planting as many fall and summer food plots as possible and liming them. As a practical matter doing those things would amount to doing the maximum possible for improving land for wildlife. Other then hauling in massive amounts of peat and dark rich top soil with dump trucks for food plots.

I disagree with you.......Several of those things you listed are not really accurate.....Y'all arent thinking big enough

There are actually people who are already putting these ideas into practice to give proof to the theory.....

You say that people don’t want the cows eating up all of their deer vegetation…..but by that same thinking fire would be consuming it all……In actuality both methods are just setting back succession. However, cow are grazers and deer are browsers…..While there are some plant species that both animals will target….the cattle are for the most part using different plant species than the deer….You also have the ability to move the cattle off of a parcel to control how much of the vegetation they consume....they are rotated around in small temporary paddocks using electric fencing......You're simply using them as a tool to bring succession back down.....recycle carbon to the soil.....deposit manure on the land.....and turn a portion of the veg into beef.....which tastes better than carbon dioxide (combustion)

It costs around $17 an acre I believe to have someone burn to set back succession……What if someone brought in cattle and did it for less and the land produced more??? Would there be incentive for landowners to do it?

This one isnt overly entertaining but if you'll listen to what they guy is saying he'll explain how to use the cattle to help in managing food plots

Do cows eat gum trees? Fire is a quick and effective method of mgmt. And, it's something a land mgr could do on a large scale. If there is enough farming acreage, you could really turn up the tonnage of food produced by improving those acres to produce much forage for the deer. On a large scale (and not that large), I just don't think you can make a difference in a given piece of land like you're talking about CNC. I suppose a lot of things are possible... physically speaking... but all things cost money and time and usually one or the other runs out!!

Oh man at the new herbaceous growth after a fire (given temp is right) and fertilizing your natural growth makes a difference. Any given acre of land could have an enormous turn-around in a matter of a few days with fire. That given acre could be thousands of acres which could be improved QUICKLY!!!!!! At not a lot of costs to the landowner.

I vote for fire.

Are cattle pastures overrun with sweetgum? I'm being serious....there's obviously some type of sweet gum control going on at some point in the process there. That isnt to mean that we plan on making everything look like a cattle pasture.....only pointing at the fact that there IS the possibility for woody control there.....just not sure how it would play out

I just don’t think fire is the end all-cure all to wildlife management even though IT IS a big part of it….Now don’t get me wrong as this is easy for folks to do in these discussions and think that I am somehow suddenly against fire….no……I just recognize that there are other tools that can be used as well and may be better in some situations. I think fire CAN have a negative impact

I’m thinking of one property in particular that I’ve been on a good bit in the past that’s managed with fire. I’ve even helped to burn the place myself….Its in a very poor soil area and the understory forage just really isn’t that great despite being burned and getting sunlight…..I think part of the problem may be that the soils are too thin from hot fires too frequently. Ideally you probably want to set back succession every couple of years but doing so is basically burning up all of your above ground biomass and keeping it from the soil…... That biomass has a big impact on poor soils....As you add it or remove it from my throw and mow test field....the quality and quantity of the vegetation changes.....species composition also changes ....The same principles play out across the rest of the land that is playing out in my test field.....soil organic matter and how we manage it has the same impacts

As far as scale is concerned......there's a lot of small hunting properties being sold now in the 200-500 acre range.....How hard would it be to manage a property that size in this manner if you rotated the cattle around in 50 acre parcels or something of that nature?.....Its just a matter of figuring out how many cattle it would take to reset 50 acres of understory vegetation in a timely manner so that they could be rotated to the next 50 ....Fire is $17 an acre.....for easy math lets just say I bid $10 an acre to reset the succession with my cattle.....That's $5000 for the whole property.......Can I move cattle in and temporarily fence it off 50 acres at a time with hot wire for $5000 and make a profit?......Its certainly cheaper than buying or renting my own land to raise cattle on

Not hard if you build sanctuaries

Soil quality has no impact on forage quality. If we take pokeweed (for example) from Iowa and pokeweed from the sandhill region of North Carolina the nutritional content is the exact same. Soil quality does have an effect on forage quantity, the fertile soils in Iowa produce more forage but of the the same quality.

Moderate grazing does have some benefits if you're managing pasture or grasslands. If your management goal is for white-tailed deer I would strongly consider controlled burns. Burning will lower the soil acidity level by releasing phosphorus, nitrogen, calcium, etc.. and promote herbaceous plants and grasses.

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?

Messicans LOVE goats.

Several years back I had a masonry crew laying brick on a house I was building which backed up to wooded property with a few goats. When the goats walked down the fence line one day the crew noticed them, got very excited and started to come down from the scaffolds. One of them had a big smile on his face and pulled out a knife.

I told them dont even think about it....

CNC, that greenfield really looks bad. Not sure if due to over grazing or what. I like the idea of letting a field sit for natural soil replenishment if the space is there. The area surrounding the greenfield provides great bedding just don't see any food value there. Not sure if you have other food sources, but if not the area would probably be put to better use planting year round crops or honeysuckle.Mow it all down, throw out some fertilizer, cover thick with honeysuckle seed before a rain in the spring and let it go. Honeysuckle is high in protein and would provide tons of food for you and bedding. I just don't think cattle is a viable resource to improve the soil unless it is like a pen. The cattle operations I see poop is here and there and don't concentrate in one area. That poop can contaminate a water source or even nearby lakes and streams due to high N content and cause green algae growth. Just not enough poop to help the soil and l cows stomping down potentially good browse. Now large cattle operations it seems animals could both thrive in a better manner, but small acreage I just don't see a viable benefit for deer, but beef taste even better than deer to me, so I would probably have some cows if I wanted beef.

You kinda lost me on that one Outdoors.....that's not a field in the pics.....it's just an example of what the understory looks like across my property.

Of course cows can be used to improve the soil.....We are doing nothing more than recycling vegetation back to the soil. The cows are simply the tool being used. Goats would also be a good idea to throw into the mix.....Again they are not eating up your deer food.... They are resetting succession. You don't hear anyone talking about fire eating up all of their deer food do you?.....The concept is no different

One thing in all of this that doesn’t seem to be recognized is that the understory vegetation is designed to not only supply the animals with food…..but its designed to supply the soil with food as well in a recycling process. When I look the pics I posted I see a massive amount of biomass being fed to the soil….which will make it rich and fertile…..You know a lot of those plants are nutrient miners that are bringing different nutrients to the surface that it brings up from the subsoil….….This recycling will then give rise to a new flush of vibrant, diverse growth for the deer. You cant just try and manage the plant community but completely ignore the soil management…..They are one unit tied together

Why do we not recognize the value in good soil? Here’s an example of what I mean……Let’s take two identical parcels of farmland sitting side by side…..One farm has been using traditional methods for decades and their soil organic matter tests 1% or less…….On the other farm they’ve been building topsoil for years using no-till and cover crops and have a black layer of soil that tests over 6% OM……Shouldn’t that rich topsoil have an associated value with it??.....Those parcels are not equal….One has an asset that the other one doesn’t…..I don’t think we take this into consideration now but we will in the future.







Not to mention the increase in nutrient holding capacity....So therefore an increase in the soil resources would result in an increase in the potential amount of forage able to be grown correct?...AND an increase in forage equals an increase in carrying capacity...Correct?

From the link below.........

"Each percent of soil organic matter in the top 6 inches (15.2 cm) of a medium textured soil releases about 10-20 pounds of nitrogen, 1 to 2 pounds of phosphorus, and 0.4 to 0.8 pounds of sulfur per acre per year. "


......so if I raised the SOM from 1% to 6% then that would be good right??.....Wouldnt that make a difference on forage production?



https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_053264.pdf

My father in law has around 250 head of cattle already up in Marshall Co......I if dont pick up and move I'm gonna see what he'll sell me 5 calves for and I believe right after hunting season I'm gonna take the next step in this experimenting process and see what I can make happen next summer......Just to get a feel for what is and isnt possible. I believe I can sell 5 cows to individuals around this time next year to have processed. I may even process up one for myself.....If I could convince them to let Shana process them for whoever I sold it to it would be even all the easier since she's just right down skreet.

I have the potential opportunity to manage 1400 acres in this same fashion for a well known hunter in Louisiana. I'm supposed to take a trip down there and talk to him sometimes this winter about it......Its a little tough to think about up and moving though after you've been somewhere for so long. I say this for the purpose that y'all will recognize these ideas are not just far fetched but are actually being put into practice and being tested.....Just imagine how far along your food plots would be if it wouldnt have taken me 10 years to convince you of that part....just saying.

BigCountry speaketh the truth. There was a study done on what you said about quality and quantity of forage/browse and nutrient content. You are right on!!!

Of course I was kidding about the gum trees and cattle... I think they'll consume a gum tree sapling in a second but I would not think cattle is the answer to a gum infested stand of pines. But I'm not poo-pooing your ideas and I look forward to your taking these thoughts further and hearing about your success.

I'm really not focusing on controlling sweetgums as being the main issue here.....Managing soil organic matter is the heart of what I getting at......What is the average percentage of OM in the soil across your property in the top 8-10 inches of soil where deer forage is being produced?.......What if you go out there and measure it and find out that you're actually running less than 2% or something of that nature and I tell you that you have the potential to triple your potential by growing that OM to 5-6%.......That is the whole idea here.....We are managing the soil on a landscape level....It is true that you cant change the base component of each soil type.....sand is gonna be sand and clay is gonna be clay.....However, you can drastically change the amount of humus or soil organic matter that is present in the soil which has significant impacts on forage growth

Talking about the area around your food plot in pic... I wonder what the tonnage of "palatable" (key word) production of deer browse is from January-December in situ. To further clarify, this area has been left to develop naturally for a few years. OK... now, let's say you prescribed burned it in February... now, measure the same data in the same timeframe. How would they compare in palatable browse for deer? IDK. Conventional wisdom would suggest that you'd have more tonnage of palatable browse production AFTER the burn. But if there IS more palatable browse production after the burn, is this production limited in time after X # of years burning it and such will decrease as OM decreases?

Also, fire and heat rises so what is the soil temp .5", 1", 1.5", etc... deep in the soil during a burn? And, what is the amount of time under heat/temp such can sustain its positive qualities? Does soil offer substantial protection from heat and how much OM in the soil would you lose because of heat?

So many questions to answer and I'm not schooled in ag or soil. I just like habitat mgm, food plots and managing for deer and try to learn as much as I can from ppl like you.

BTW, I did a Throw-N-Mow in IL this early fall in a VERY grown-up old field area between two very tall ridges that the other guys I was hunting with didn't want to plant. I asked them if I could plant it but I only was going to bushhog it. They said yes and that they didn't see bucks in that areas anyway. LOL! I did and I put a Spartan Cell Cam on the plot and oh my!!!!! When I started, herbaceous growth up to my neck... so, I walked fertilizer, seed and Glyphosate it and gave it three days (I had to lv on 3rd day) and then I bushhogged it. The plot received a good rain on the 4th day and wow... talk about a production growth within a few days!! I planted BuckBusters seed and Berseem Clover and it exploded. I had pix of four different shooter bucks visiting everyday and lots of does and man-alive did that little 1/4 acre honey hole produce some browse and bucks!!!!! Of course, I got the idea from you, so thanks!! My son killed a 5 yr old 11 pt off this little hiddy-hole food plot - a great buck.

Well, regarding sweetgums in my planted pines areas... sweetgums and pine straw debris (and some other plants that don't benefit wildlife) on the ground reduces, significantly, the sunlight getting to the ground so I really don't have much herbaceous growth unless we burn. How to combat that? . I wanna learn!! Thanks for your time.

It would probably be something I need to look at in person to assess exactly what is going in but generally speaking its not a really complicated formula......you need to maximize the amount of sunlight you can get to the ground.......you need a little light soil disturbance to help stimulate the seed bank and reduce residue buildup......and you need good soil management practices long term that builds OM when setting back succsssion........Take a shovel and go out and dig a soil pit and see what you see.....Is there a dark layer of soil on top of the ground? How thick is it? Send a sample in and have the soil organic matter % tested.......

If it were me in this situation trying to manage with cattle I'd set the woody gum back through chemicals application probably or fire......thin the overstory.....run cattle through it during late winter or early spring to stimulate the soil and deposit seed and manure.....then I'd let it go and see what I had with the intention of rotation the cattle back through later on for another round of the same....more plant diversity should begin to arise....I would probably intentionally pull them from a vibrant diverse stand and run them through your biological desert in order to help bring in some seed. The manure also acts as an inoculant for microbial life...If the understory was really barren it might be a good idea to set out a few round bales of hay for the cattle to help supplement their diet and provide another seed source to deposit in their manure.....Also those areas where the hay bales sit are definitely gonna spring forth with plant growth that might help inoculate the area with seed as well....I believe they call those loafing areas maybe

The longleaf pine stand where I just went tracking is a prime example of what I’m talking about……There was virtually zero topsoil across a large percentage of this stand….Its was mostly just what folks call “sedge grass” growing in the understory too……Sure its great for cover but deer don’t eat native grasses….they eat mostly broadleafs….and in areas where there was a little OM on the surface then you saw more herbaceous broadleaf growth…..This stand is burned every couple of years the hunter said……How is it ever gonna build up any organic matter in the top layer of soil this way? Could it be managed for a more productive understory than this? I believe it could if the soil were managed differently.

There's lots of places like. What will grow in that pine thicket when its older a d shades everything out?

The key to managing timber and wildlife on the same property is to grow timber in a manner that will allow you to maximize the amount of sunlight you still get to the soil surface.....This is one reason why folks choose to grow long leaf.....They typically produce a higher end product that gets sold for poles and can produce the same or more income with less trees per acre long term.....therefore allowing for a wider spacing between them.......None of that really matters though if the topsoil is gone.....you may have the sunlight you need but forage production will still suck compared to its true potential with out soil organic matter.....humus......(see previous pic)


What was the natural frequency for fire in the southeast before Indians or white men tinkered with it? I'm guessing that were burning much more frequently than it did naturally.....Even still though, we can see the principles at hand and manage them in a different manner for better productivity if we choose to

I will agree with you on the burning too frequently. I have a large section of my long leaf stand that’s way too open after I got a good burn. I think I’ll stick with a 5 year rotation on that area for sure. After I burned it two years ago I lost most of my better deer. I use to be covered up in nice bucks every year but not anymore. It opened a large chunk up way too much.

Now take the picture of my understory and compare the two......There's more to it than just "Fire" as the answer to the question.....And dont say "Oh well you must just have better soil to begin with or something,....."........because I have pure chit sand like everyone else around here

This is just a little off the cuff in my thinking on this matter but…….doing only backburns would probably be a good idea…..slow low intensity fires that just skimmed the top of off ab duff layer to promote new growth……The concepts here are no different than what we’re doing in our food plots with “thatch”.....If you dont have any duff layer at all to skim off.....then I would think about holding up on even burning period.....

This is where cattle would really help things.....They would help us manage in a little different way to manage these type soils in a different long term direction.....with fire used as well.......just in the right manner.....you just got to use your eyes to see what tool needs using.......We are soil managers and just dont know it.....as a whole we are very poor ones right now too.

Burning with higher humidity levels would also cause less intense fires …….Burning when the fuel was a little damp would help as well……Maybe a few days after a rain when just the surface litter was dry…….Fire is used as a tool to manage the surface residue….not eliminate it……


Just like your food plots…….its biomass management


I’ve said this before but a very, very simple way of seeing it is to just go pull a soil sample and have them do a $5 test of soil organic matter……You don’t have to believe me……the numbers don’t lie…..You can just look and see it in the field though…..Is there dark, rich top soil across the soil surface? How deep and dark is it?.......Is there a build-up of surface litter that’s suppressing new growth? Does the surface litter need thinning slightly to allow new growth?..

Which would be better for our soil with it in these thin conditions……1) to run fire through it and burn up the little bit of surface residue we’re building……or 2) to run cows across…..which tramples most of into the soil and turns part of it into manure that gets deposited…..aka lost nutrients ....as well as stimulating the seed bank


I think as land managers we are literally just understanding some of these things on the surface.......

This is hilarious.

Which part?.......Please be more specific than "all of it".....

Watching someone have an endless conversation...with themself.

I think I may actually try and keep the cows for about 11 months…..We are just now really getting into some of the best time to reset succession on different stands…..Its much easier to have that trampling effect right now….

If you really get into feeding corn you can actually use it to help mob graze areas on a small scale. My cousin feeds the crap out of ‘em….I noticed a while back that the deer were beating the dirt down to the mud and I told him next time you put some out to move his spot over,,,,,the next time move it again…..Well, now that’s turned into him pretty much using corn and deer to mob graze reset the vegetation buffer surrounding some of the food plots….Now is the time when that is really effective…….

He's trying to have an intelligent conversation but having trouble with the other feller.

The problem isn’t if these principles would work, they definitely could. It boils down to functionality and getting people up buy in. Rotational mob grazing has been hard enough but trying to get people to mob graze southeastern forestlands will be practically impossible.

Harder than getting them not to till?

There’s situations like areas around Hurtsboro that are more like “rangeland” where I could see it being feasible to get a foothold. It would be pretty easy to compare the areas as well with the vast amount of acreage being managed the same way with fire.

Yep. I have a couple of clients that make me spray, bush hog, disk, and plant. I’ve explained to them why I don’t usually do that and have even drilled them some test plots. They were impressed with the results, it saved them money but they still want me to do conventional tillage.

Whatever, it’s their money. I think I’m slowly getting them to see the light though.

On our farms we do rotational/mob grazing where it’s convenient. I assure you, the principles work. I have better fields and produce more tonnage per acre. I can’t do it where we’re growing monoculture grass crops though. Causes too many problems.