I say that in all honesty. I never thought there was such a thing but apparently a “good” burn can turn bad. I have about 17 acres of long leaf and at year 7 was finally able to send a fire through it. That was two years ago and my understory has yet to recover. You can see 60-80 yds wide open in most of it now which most know is not a good thing for holding deer. I need to thicken everything back up but don’t know what to do at this point. My deer usage has tremendously suffered because of it. I don’t know what I need to do now but something has to change this summer.

Wait on something to grow back is about only option. What did you have before and what do you have now?

Pretty good sage, briars, beauty berry and lots of other weeds. Now I have a little sage and briars. I’ll have to take pics but it’s way too open now and the deer don’t like it. I have sandy loam soil with pea gravel in it and the ridges have a very hard type sandstone underneath.

Get you a few privet sprigs and set them out. You'll be thick as all get out in no time

Sage should have bounced right back

You could buy a bunch of round rolls of hay and place them strategically throughout your pine stand. They would provide cover and plenty of seeds that could sprout and grow to some cover. I know a guy.

Gets Whild bills buddy to fly seed on with his crop duster

You would have to be insane to intentionally plant privet on your property.

Twas a joke Boudreaux

Might try scratching the dirt with a disc and expose some old seed bank

Is pretty good deer food though.

Fertilizer!!!

I hear ya Boudreaux. i have actually heard people suggest this before.

I sprayed a bunch of privet this summer. Not happening on that.

I second running a disk lightly and spreading fertilizer to feed what you got but running a disk would be better than nothing

If you could do this and run some cows on it for a few weeks with some temporary electric fencing it would probably help greatly.......

If you can fit a small disk in between rows with a small tractor just go scratch the surface between now and first of March. You may be amazed what will come back.

Although I’m quite perplexed as to why/how native forbs and grasses didn’t immediately come back. Are you positive there wasn’t a chemical treatment before or after the fire?

I think he likely got his fire too hot........If so it may have done a few things...... I'm guessing it toasted the microbial life in the top few inches of soil across a pretty large area......might not be a bad idea to try and apply an inoculant of some kind......(Cattle would do that).......Applying fertilizer would be good.....(Cattle again)

Unless someone sprayed my property without my permission. Friend helped burn so no one was paid. If I find out anyone Sprayed anything besides me I’m gonna put them in a hole after the assholes who did my site prep.

Is there any of it that looks good? If so, then you have to ask yourself what is different about that area......Was that area backburned and therefore burned cooler than the rest? Does it have better topsoil? Etc, etc,