Dr. Craig Harper, who is probably the leading authority on early successional habit, says you don’t need more than 30% grass.
30% grass stems, 30% grass species composition, 30% grass canopy coverage? 30% grass coverage in a 2' square sample block, 30% grass coverage in a pine stand, 30% grass coverage on a property? Makes a difference. If in a "timber stand" how do you control the density to 30%.
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
Dr. Craig Harper, who is probably the leading authority on early successional habit, says you don’t need more than 30% grass.
30% grass stems, 30% grass species composition, 30% grass canopy coverage? 30% grass coverage in a 2' square sample block, 30% grass coverage in a pine stand, 30% grass coverage on a property? Makes a difference. If in a "timber stand" how do you control the density to 30%.
Fair question.. I think it’s in terms of whatever your early successional understory is, whether pine savanna or old field. For early successional habitat, he says 30% should be the maximum. I’m just passing along what a PHD that has spent a career studying early successional habit, food plots and fire recommends as what the ideal early successional habit looks like.
Last edited by Double Creek2; 06/20/2510:34 PM.
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Dr. Craig Harper, who is probably the leading authority on early successional habit, says you don’t need more than 30% grass.
30% grass stems, 30% grass species composition, 30% grass canopy coverage? 30% grass coverage in a 2' square sample block, 30% grass coverage in a pine stand, 30% grass coverage on a property? Makes a difference. If in a "timber stand" how do you control the density to 30%.
Well I guess you got to pull grass out the timber stand. Duh.
30% grass stems, 30% grass species composition, 30% grass canopy coverage? 30% grass coverage in a 2' square sample block, 30% grass coverage in a pine stand, 30% grass coverage on a property? Makes a difference. If in a "timber stand" how do you control the density to 30%.
Fair question.. I think it’s in terms of whatever your early successional understory is, whether pine savanna or old field. For early successional habitat, he says 30% should be the maximum. I’m just passing along what a PHD that has spent a career studying early successional habit, food plots and fire recommends as what the ideal early successional habit looks like.
In my opinion that’s just a generalized rule of thumb for easy quick explanations…..If you get deeper into the weeds it would probably be better to express it as individual stand density measured in average clumps per acre…….Here’s a down and dirty explanation of what is actually going on from a plant community/soil function aspect and what ultimately really matters in the end…….Dont hold me to it but I think I got most of it pretty close to right…….
Each clump of native grass represents “X” amount of carbon……….I think a native grass plant is like 48% carbon by weight or something like that…..In order for the system to function properly you need “Y” amount of broadleafs and legumes to balance out the nitrogen demand that makes the cycle go round efficiently…….I’ve always thought about it like a carbuerator……Every unit of gas needs so many units of air for it to balance and run correctly or you become too rich or too lean…….
The amount of space around that one grass clump that it takes to grow our “Y” amount of broadleafs and legumes depends on the site fertility…….The higher the site fertility the more broadleaf plant tonnage able to be produced per sq ft …………If we think of each grass clump as a “housing unit” surrounded by a square full of the broadleaf tonnage it takes to support that housing unit……the site fertility is going to dictate how big that square needs to be…..Higher fertility technically allows for scaling down your “management units”……We're talking about units on the finest scale of 2 by 2 foot areas or 4 by 4 etc
Now go back to our example stand gobbler posted that we’ve been discussing…….The issue is that the grass density or carbon load has become more than what the broadleaf and legumes on the site can balance out without grazers involved to convert some of the grass to manure……The end result is that all the plants are suffering from the carbon imbalance robbing the whole system of N……Your carburetor is flooding with too much fuel…..Your running too rich……….There’s probably also competition for soil moisture to consider…..The imbalance of grass on a dry site is probably stressing things as well from the standpoint using too much water…..Its like cereal rye stressing clover when it goes to seed because of the water its using
Something that I forgot about our scenario that needs adding in there to the equation are pine needles…….To go along with the carbon the grass understory is producing, the soil is also trying to break down the carbon from the pine needles too……While it may not seem like much those little boogers are just adding to your carbon load and the N you’re needing…….
Yes they measured squirrels too. Hogs as well. But there is no importance to turkeys with squirrels so I’m not sure why you would bring them up.
Because the reality of what was done in that study, how it was done, and what was found is far from the conclusion you’re throwing out there…..But I know you’re just looking for whatever you can find to be an antagonist….. I’m actually a little surprised they would take a study like that one and reach to draw the conclusions from it that they put out there in the podcast……It’s a little sus really......I would encourage everyone to read over it and see what conclusion you come to.....Here's you an interesting quote from it
"Of the species that had a negative association to increasing burn frequency, two were non-native (feral hog, nine-banded armadillo) while the third non-native species (coyote) had no association."
Yes they measured squirrels too. Hogs as well. But there is no importance to turkeys with squirrels so I’m not sure why you would bring them up.
Because the reality of what was done in that study, how it was done, and what was found is far from the conclusion you’re throwing out there…..But I know you’re just looking for whatever you can find to be an antagonist….. I’m actually a little surprised they would take a study like that one and reach to draw the conclusions from it that they put out there in the podcast……It’s a little sus really......I would encourage everyone to read over it and see what conclusion you come to.....Here's you an interesting quote from it
"Of the species that had a negative association to increasing burn frequency, two were non-native (feral hog, nine-banded armadillo) while the third non-native species (coyote) had no association."
I wasn’t looking for whatever I could find to be an antagonist at all. I am listening to their podcast episode by episode and this is the episode I listened to yesterday. What the biologists were discussing happened to disagree with your hypothesis on 1 year burns. Your opinion is that 1 year burns increase grass to an extent that increases rodents to an extent that increased coyote and bobcat concentrations or populations. The study simply says that the more the burn the less predators you have. You are correct I didn’t read the study until you posted it. But nowhere in the study does it support your hypothesis. In fact it says you are incorrect. Not me, the study says you are wrong. But I’m sure the study is the problem. Not your hypothesis. Even though the biologist in the study and the ones on this forum are trying to tell you that you are. As smart as you are, I just figured you would like to know the biologists that you post about all the time said you were wrong. I don’t really care either way what you believe. Have a great day.
Dr. Craig Harper, who is probably the leading authority on early successional habit, says you don’t need more than 30% grass.
30% grass stems, 30% grass species composition, 30% grass canopy coverage? 30% grass coverage in a 2' square sample block, 30% grass coverage in a pine stand, 30% grass coverage on a property? Makes a difference. If in a "timber stand" how do you control the density to 30%.
Fair question.. I think it’s in terms of whatever your early successional understory is, whether pine savanna or old field. For early successional habitat, he says 30% should be the maximum. I’m just passing along what a PHD that has spent a career studying early successional habit, food plots and fire recommends as what the ideal early successional habit looks like.
Looks like he was discussing fields. 30% grass coverage in fields. I tend to agree. In fields I would be happy with 1/3 disked, 1/3 1 year fallow and 1/3 2 year fallow. Makes a great field system
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
The pine needles got me to thinking more about it and its something I guess I’ve never given much thought to because I was focused on food plotting concepts….but the amount of carbon the trees are dropping on the soil is changing the dynamics of the C:N situation as opposed to the same spot without those trees present…..Imagine if you create an oak savannah for example, you’ve got a pretty significant amount of carbon being deposited on the soil each year through leaves……That’s not a bad thing because these carbon sources are what makes topsoil……You just have to have the N units to efficiently process it……That means the percentage of legumes and broadleafs to grass that you’re growing in the understory needs to be a good bit higher than if those trees weren’t there…..more legumes even less grass…….Isnt this how an oak savannah typically grow naturally??
Again, this is where a grazer would go a long ways to alleviating that nitrogen demand the system is needing……The more carbon you can process into the soil the more you can grow the soil organic matter %........ The higher levels of organic matter the more top end plant diversity the system will “vibrantly” grow with good plant color…..Grazing herds are natures helpers with carbon processing…..There’s not many other ways of feasibly managing at top end potential without them……You just don’t have the ability to process the same high end carbon loads……. Applying fertilizer at that same scale to meet N demands would cost a crazy amount…..
Until this is understood ^^^^ you’re not seeing the whole picture……
I’m not s cattle expert but from what I’ve read it says that our pasture grasses go through what they call the “summer slump” where the productivity falls off…..It just so happens that this time period is when native grasses are kicking it into high gear…....I dont know but I would think a cattle person would be happy to have the additional summer grazing
Help me understand something about this whole situation……..Why are folks so hesitant just to say it like it is??.....Like the comment about not finding anything in thick grass stands but elephants and cotton rats that Dr. Harper made in the last video……They came back around to making a joke about it and he said something about y’all are gonna get me in trouble…..In trouble with who??.....Is it just a matter of tip toeing around things that might offend the way some professionals are managing??......In my mind it just is what it is…..its not a matter of feelings but rather just facts……
