Glad youve chimed in. I don't think burning is gonna get it. We burn through June/july and still, areas with good broomstraw have good broomstraw after. I would love to find a way, besides cows, to promote less grass and more forbs.

Gotta get mechanical. A disk does three things: disturbs the soil, with enough passes it will kill and bury broomstraw/sage, and brings dormant seed up from below for it to sprout. Fire is great for large scale and cost efficiency, but the most bang for the buck is going to come from a big tractor and heavy ass disk.

I was thinking about the best way to describe what "early successional" habitat is to people the other day, and it occurred to me just to tell people to imagine their garden if they disked it up real nice and didn't plant anything. A years growth of weeds is early successional habitat.

Jacob's Sheep.......

I always cringe alittle when I step foot on a place that has broomsedge on it. Some folks love it, but I think they’d be surprised how much better their place would be without it. It’s hard to convince them of it, though.

How much time and cost is associated with that though when done at any scale?? Some of these plantations are 2,500.......5,000.....and even 10,000 acres

I forget what the video is on youtube, but there is a forester in Mississippi that controls several thousand acres of longleaf pine and other fallow properties with a small heard of longhorn cattle..he controlled the areas they were in by feeder training with an old truck and side by sides..he managed mostly for quail but in return they had robust populations of turkeys and deer..not cattle farming..just controlled grazing combined with chemical pre emergents and fire…the property was beautiful. I saw several ceasar kleiberg research projects incorporating cattle as a tool to control buffle grass and kr blustem that had completely taken over vast landscapes…most all of it was for the management quail..scaled quail or more commonly called blue quail in south texas. I think financially..wealthy landowners are more in tuned to the recommendation of season land managers because they naturally want to save money..and look no further than the five essential tools of wildlife management..they are simple on small or large scale with the guidance of the experienced professional. Nowadays, chemical seems to be a powerful and maybe over used tool..idk..i know the negatives of cattle and the benefits of fire and its negatives..if i had a property..i think i would try to use them all together..because they all clear somthing thats in the way…but each one diversely leaves something behind..these are my thoughts and oppinions..im a dummy tho..so..theres that🤠

How much time and cost is associated with fencing, buying the cattle, hay equipment or buying hay?

Most of the things I've watched about folks using cattle for this purpose talks about not buying hay because they're running them on a much lower stocking density than normal......

You know at some point I’m assuming you’re gonna be able to sell some cows which is income……When does disking or spraying ever pay you money back??

There was a guy..its been awhile so he may sell them an yall may know what its called..but he invented this thing you pull behind a tractor..i forget what its called..like..a soil purge extruder..idk i made that up, but anyway..it had some kind of heat source and it super heated the upper 6-12in of the soil bed so hot it killed all he dormant seed in the seed bank..it was intended to reclaim property that was rampant with invasive grass..i think it was initially designed to eradicate cogon grass..it has been a long time since ive heard it mentioned..maybe yall know all about it..i know the stories i heard was that it could completely purge soil to a virgin state and native species could be immediately introduced🤷🏻

Speaking of some guy on Youtube……..There’s also a guy on there from Florida that brought over some cattle breed from Africa that I cant remember the name of that looked like it would be ideal for understory management. His whole reasoning for using them was because of how adaptable they were to less than ideal conditions. I think at a minimum I would start out with a similar kind of breed to do the initial ground work……Once the understory was converted to more optimal conditions you could look at something more finicky that might be more profitable.

And how many of these special African cows are you going to put on how many acres?

Depends on the size of the property and the initial investment someone wanted to make……I wouldn’t start out with the idea of trying to introduce a full stocking rate to manage the whole property from day one. I would start out with something I could test the waters with in the beginning and build up over time to the number that accomplished our goals…..Sorta like running a small scale experiment before scaling it up.

Any way to accomplish the effect yall are describing with a skid steer?

No telling what something like this would cost and I still dont know that you'd get the true desired effect with anything other than some type of grazing herd.......

Thats a roller chopper..they work well..looks like they are running over small mesquite and ratama..its a less expensive alternative to a hydro axe…the roller chopper combined with a good rome disk will control woody species for a time..well enough to treat with chemical and re establish native grass or site prep burning for tree plantjng…problem here is the stumps..most places in texas that do this are using it on brush species..while they do have a very robust root system…they dont have much of a stump..thats why fire..and cattle too.. are a more effective here..they have their place here as well..just not nearly as much.

I've seen suggestions of burning in August/September for growing season burns as a way to encourage forbs. I have no personal experience with burning that time of year but it may be worth a shot. I'm going to experiment with it on some small areas.

A lot of the quail places use strip disking in the woods to discourage broomstraw and encourage forbs. It needs a couple passes at least though and it labor and equipment intensive. It certainly does work. Same with a roller drum chopper. Used all the time but does not do a great job of reducing the coverage of broomstraw.

Wouldn’t there be some tax benefits for someone who converted their quail plantation to “Such and Such Cattle Co”?? I’m not up to snuff on all the tax loopholes and such……Would fencing and equipment count as a tax write-off??

When of comes to the “debits and credits” of the idea…..here is something else to consider that has value…..

As you move this herd of cattle around from stand to stand, they’re taking a portion of this grass biomass and converting it to manure/fertilizer…….What is the value in having the landscape fertilized??.......And its not JUST the value of it as plant fertilizer……It also gives a big boost to the microbial community in the soil….it’s basically big piles of microbe stimulant….They break it down and turn it to available nutrients…..

AND…….if you look back in that research paper that Gobbler posted it talks about how their mowing treatment suffered from a buildup of residue on the soil surface which prevented seedling emergence and yada, yada as compared to the fire treatment……This is one of the variables about that situation I was referring to. If you have a grass dominated system with few forbs and legumes and you’re just throwing massive amounts of carbon down on the ground with no N to balance the cycle and efficiently decompose it…..then you ARE gonna get a build up of biomass that smothers the surface. The cattle are throwing down some of that N you’re needing to break that biomass down…. as well as balancing the grass/broadleaf/legume ratio…….which balances out that carbon/nitrogen ratio a little better…..as well as helping to stimulate the soil surface and “work” it a little through their hoofing action……There’s a lot of value hidden in managing in this manner that folks arent necessarily going to see on the surface.