Originally Posted by 2Dogs

As far as "out West" type fire , I'd figure our forests aren't as dry and we don't normally have days on end of high winds. I guess it's possible though.

You touched on our terrain , you should see some of our skidder drivers in action . Fearless, but mostly crazy . They say it ain't rough unless you roll one. I bet John Deere would be shocked at where they put those machines too.


Im sure plenty of discussions similar to this were had before Gatlinburg!

We need to import some of your loggers down here. thumbup Usually they leave steep slopes uncut cause they don't want to go up n down em!

Originally Posted by Willyb
Gobbler,
In the burned hardwood stand, was that stand thinned to that point where the larger mast producing trees were left and undesirable hardwoods were removed?


The smoking one, yes. We thinned it for wildlife habitat purposes. The other one is a oak savannah in the midwest.

Originally Posted by centralala
I didn't say they wouldn't do great. I said they wouldn't reach their potetential. Are you saying honeysuckle left alone will be as close to its potential as honeysuckle where the soil is amended? Really? I'll stick with what I said, amended soils will give better quality vegetation than non amended soils.


The discussion is related to native understory habitat and fawning cover. Honeysuckle is not a native. Its an exotic invasive that deer like to eat. It is also not fawning cover, nor does it compose a significant part of most understories. Understory habitat is things like broomstraw and other Andropogon species, native forbs and legumes, etc that grow under open, sunny pine and hardwood forests that are properly maintained. They neither need nor utilize increases in pH (in acid dirt), nor do they respond particularly well to fertilizer. Often they do worse on limed and fertilized ground, so yes, they do reach their potential on "unamended" ground. They are evolved and adapted to the soil conditions on the areas they exist and do quite well with sunlight and fire.

Last edited by gobbler; 05/19/18 11:54 PM.
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine