Dealing with old screen.

[Mahindra3016]

Has anybody burned their last years screen"egyptian wheat and willdlife grain sorghum" , or do you just brush hog it? It will soon be green up on both sides of my screen and would be a low risk burn. I want to plant screen again in the same spot, I am thinking burning and tilling would be better than a throw and mow, I think the screen would leave to much thatch, but on the other hand I will be burning up alot of O.M .
opinions please!!

 

[Smallplot]

I think it depends on your equipment. If you have equipment that will mostly handle chopping and tilling go for it. If you have something that would not handle it, say an ATV disk, then burning it off may be the best option.


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[Bill]

I agree if you don't have a drill that will plant through the trash and it's safe to burn that might be best. I'd Mow before burning to keep the flames low.

 

[Wild Thing]

I would chop or mow it first and then burn it if you can burn it safely. I tried drilling beans through some standing corn a year or two and it didn't work well so I ended up chopping it first with the brush hog and then drilling it.

Here is a little "Jungle Plot" of sorghum I planted a few years ago. It was really thick. I mowed it with the brush hog and tried discing it in but there was still a lot of trash on top so I ended up dragging my cultivator through it to get some exposed soil. Since you are only dealing with a "screen" you probably won't have this much residue but the photos should give you an idea of what thick sorghum stalks look like.

 

[Mahindra3016]

My wife's guineas are spending about 6 hours a day in the screen, so i kind of hate to mow it off just yet, we have had some good windy days here since making this post, and the screen is starting to thin out some, pieces of the screen litter my orchard, I am starting to think it is not going to be a problem if i just mow it, especially if i do it on a windy day and let a lot of it just blow around.

 

[j-bird]

I agree if you don't have a drill that will plant through the trash and it's safe to burn that might be best. I'd Mow before burning to keep the flames low.

Wuss! This was 5 foot tall dry switch grass...... I just tossed a match and let the wind and mother nature do the rest! Burn, baby, burn!!!! Burned off about an acre in about 15 minutes......talk about scorched earth policy! As bad as this looks - I had standing water between the switch and the trees and firebreaks, so it wasn't going any where. My youngest liked when the wind would pick up a bit and fuel the fire....... Great way to get down to bare dirt if you need to. This is a 120 foot wide buffer strip between some woods and my corn field. If you are concerned about the fire getting away or the like, mowing it first will keep things less dramatic.....if your into that sort of thing.