Best burndown option

[nwmn]

I have an area I cut trees down forna wildlife opening with hopes of creating beautiful deer bedding and a diverse pocket of natives. I was wrong. All I did was create an area impossible to access with side by side to spray and it has been overtaken with canada thistle, tansy, and cool season grasses. Pair that up with 4 foot tall ferns it's just an ugly area with tons of potential. Lots of 5 foot tall milkweed in here as well with full sun but it's competing with 2 of my least favorite invasives.

I sprayed last night with glyphosate and clopyralid, but it rained about 3 hours after so I'm not sure how effective it was, plus 2.5" of rain today. I want to get in there with something that will crisp it up ASAP so I can run fire through there. I have a guy with a mulcher coming in to clean stumps, limbs and whatever so I can manage the entire area. I want to nuke it, burn it, mulch, then plant oats and turnips or radish while spraying clipyralid to keep thistles out. Then I'll be doing a native planting once I feel confident the weeds won't sneak back in with a vengeance. Sunlight has been my enemy here. Seems like disturbance is the worst thing possible when it should wake up the seed bank with natives and good stuff. I always get 95% bad stuff .

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Spray and burn off asap before they go to seed. I think it is possible to get the natives to respond but the non natives need to be controlled first.

Early season ( post green up ) spraying and burning can be a good technique followed by post first frost spraying.

That will definitely help get rid of the cool season grasses with some of the other crap you don’t want.

In the end if you don’t have enough time to stay on top of it or deep enough pockets to pay a crew to come in and do it for you sometimes the best results one can expect is ok results.

Our project could be looked at by most as a failure. I consider it a work in progress. We neither have the time or the funding to do it right so it ends up being a “ it is what it is” type of thing.


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[SD51555]

I have an area I cut trees down forna wildlife opening with hopes of creating beautiful deer bedding and a diverse pocket of natives. I was wrong. All I did was create an area impossible to access with side by side to spray and it has been overtaken with canada thistle, tansy, and cool season grasses. Pair that up with 4 foot tall ferns it's just an ugly area with tons of potential. Lots of 5 foot tall milkweed in here as well with full sun but it's competing with 2 of my least favorite invasives.

I sprayed last night with glyphosate and clopyralid, but it rained about 3 hours after so I'm not sure how effective it was, plus 2.5" of rain today. I want to get in there with something that will crisp it up ASAP so I can run fire through there. I have a guy with a mulcher coming in to clean stumps, limbs and whatever so I can manage the entire area. I want to nuke it, burn it, mulch, then plant oats and turnips or radish while spraying clipyralid to keep thistles out. Then I'll be doing a native planting once I feel confident the weeds won't sneak back in with a vengeance. Sunlight has been my enemy here. Seems like disturbance is the worst thing possible when it should wake up the seed bank with natives and good stuff. I always get 95% bad stuff .

What kind of trees did you cut down?

Is the spot high and dry, or low and wet?


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[nwmn]

Spray and burn off asap before they go to seed. I think it is possible to get the natives to respond but the non natives need to be controlled first.

Early season ( post green up ) spraying and burning can be a good technique followed by post first frost spraying.

That will definitely help get rid of the cool season grasses with some of the other crap you don’t want.

In the end if you don’t have enough time to stay on top of it or deep enough pockets to pay a crew to come in and do it for you sometimes the best results one can expect is ok results.

Our project could be looked at by most as a failure. I consider it a work in progress. We neither have the time or the funding to do it right so it ends up being a “ it is what it is” type of thing.


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I sprayed gly and clopyralid a week ago. I got decent kill with clopyralid but i don't think the gly had enough time before the unannounced rain a couple hours after.

The crappy thing is this spring was super dry to start with statewide burn ban, then it hasn't stopped raining since May. I haven't been able to get in and burn any of my wildlife opening areas as planned due to burn conditions being either red flag or too wet. I'm taking it to the next step and just getting a buddy in with a mulcher to clean up all the stumps and anything that may destroy a side by side to make managing this area easier in the future. Mainly for two years to keep the invasives in check then will plan to let it go back to natives, fingers crossed.

I took the same approach initially. Thought felling trees to create a wildlife opening would turn these spots into great bedding and native habitat allowing sunlight, but what happened was the cool season grasses took over and tansy and thistle is growing everywhere as well. Of course, I got milkweed in there as well, but i've had to come to the realization that in order to create a good environtment for natives to thrive I must reset the existing vegetation, which involves setting bacck the milkweed as well. Luckily I've got milkweed colonies thriving all over the place so displacing some here and there isn't too big of a deal. I live at this place, so I will be able to spray to control the undesired species once it's mulched and the branches and logs aren't in the way.

 

[nwmn]

What kind of trees did you cut down?

Is the spot high and dry, or low and wet?


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Majority of the trees are basswood, with a few ash trees here and there. I'm noticing the basswood are mostly rotted and waterlogged so I'm having trouble even burning them in piles. The spot in particular is in a river bottom, but even after a super wet year, and about 4" of rain this past week i'm able to drive around back there. The surrounding understory is devoid of valuable species, as the midstory takes up all the sunlight. Lots of box elder, ash, and basswood in the midstory.

The areas are dry enough where I have plans to get brassicas growing in here once it's been mulched. I can spray clopyralid to kill off the thistles without harming the brassicas. Next spring I should be able to come through with glyphosate to kill off the grasses and encroaching ferns. The ferns are all over in this spot as well, are those tough to get rid of? I'm going to see how well the mulching goes, and I might have him take out some of the mid story trees while he's in there. In a perfect world he would leave his machine at my place and let me rent it from him and i'll get the entire thing cleaned up. I know natural settings are preferred by wildlife with fallen trees providing tons of cover, but when the cover is all invasives, i'd rather have it look like a park for a year while I spray out the invasives and then come through and release the understory.

On this property, I've learned that introducing sunlight only invites the thistles to grow out of control, and it becomes quite dangerous trying to get in there and spray due to all the slippery branches and logs I have to navigate through. Last night I actually fell on my back while spraying thistles with backpack sprayer where a large oak had fallen. 6-7' tall thistles everywhere and here i am struggling to get back up on my feet. I have plans to log this property as well since tons of aspen trees are falling in every windstorm and the thick cover would be a huge gain in this area where it's primarily ag land with wood lots. The thought of bull and canadian thistle taking over makes me really worried lol. However I should be able to run through the logged area with clopyralid in June, or continue to slog through with milestone and a backpack sprayer every single night of my existence.