Old Field Habitat in Mississippi developed from Cutover

RestoringtheGround

Yearling... With promise
I’m starting a podcast talking about native habitat restoration/management of a 5 yr old cutover. I am a Landscape Hortoculturalist by trade in Louisiana, and an amateur native habitat restorer for wildlife on my property in Smith County Mississippi.

The podcast is under this name: Restoring the Ground. The podcast is on Spotify and Apple. I also have a Facebook page - Restoring The Ground.

The podcast will primarily be about habitat restoration on a 218 acre property that was 95% clear cut 5 years ago. I will be sharing my journey of trying to find information on what to do with a young cut over, and where I have found help and feedback. I have found that almost no one talks about how to restore a property that has been clear cut without doing a complete start over. I didn't want to destroy the 4 years of natural tree regeneration when I purchased the property.

A forester wants to spray herbicide and replant in pine trees, and no one else really gives any information on what to do except burn the property. I was looking for structure and strategy in my work. I wanted a plan, and in this podcast, I share where I started and where I am trying to get.

I found help from a Wildlife Biologist through the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He has been very helpful to give feedback, answer questions, and someone I can bounce ideas off of.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the last 16 months brush cutting to create Old Field type settings. I will talk about the successes and failures I’ve had in these areas. I’ll talk about what an Old field setting is and the vegetation that is preferable for wildlife. I will refer quite a bit to articles written by Wildlife Biologists and studies they have produced, and then tell you my results as I try to put them into practice.

Through guidance from my wildlife biologist, I went and got my burn certificate this spring through the state of Mississippi. I will talk about what it takes to do that, how to do it, and then give feedback on my burn results.

As I stated already, By trade, I am a Landscape Horticulturist and own a landscape business. I am also a man with a strong faith in the Lord. These things will come out in the podcast also.

My goal is to help others with the things that I have learned. I spoke with the Biologist who has been helping me and asked him if there was a need for this since so much of the south is managed for timber. His response was absolutely because so many people are either buying land that has been clear cut or own land that they clear cut themselves and they are not sure what to do with it after the cutting except replant in monoculture pine trees.

He has volunteered to come on the podcast with me to answer questions, and I will gladly answer any questions that I can. I introduce who I am in the podcast and look forward to feedback. I hope that I can help someone as they walk through the journey of restoring the ground of their property.

Thank you and I look forward to any and all feedback. This has been a fun journey and the more I post about this, the more I learn.
Scott
 
Cool stuff. Has lots of similarities to my own journey. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
 
Cool stuff. Has lots of similarities to my own journey. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Do you have any experiences that you can share that would be helpful?
 
Good to see another fellow Mississippian on HT! Not 100 percent that we have the same goals, but I think they are similar! My goal is to have a pine savanna, but I am a long way away from that!
 
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Green ash tree that I cut down with a brush cutter 3 months ago. The deer are hammering it.
 
Deer are bedding in this spot and eating on the native browse. Partridge peas, sumac, ragweed and other being eaten down
 

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Deer are bedding in this spot and eating on the native browse. Partridge peas, sumac, ragweed and other being eaten down
So that’s beautiful ground. Thing is you will have to keep it disturbed to keep it like that. Fire fire fire.
 
So that’s beautiful ground. Thing is you will have to keep it disturbed to keep it like that. Fire fire fire.
I’ve actually burned 3 different times this season. I burned in March, late May and last weekend (mid July). I’m planning to burn a few spots (heavy woody content areas) in September as a test to see what the results are like. It will probe about 5 acres total.

My areas that I am opening up will be burned on a 2 yr rotation most likely. The ones with a lot of woody content will probably get burned late summer. The areas that are more grasses will get late winter discing.

It’s trial and error. I will say that so far, I do not like the results of that late May burn. It came back with a native vine, but it’s like 90 percent of the growth. There are some good natives beneath the vines, but I’m waiting to see what it looks like come early September.

I’m letting my hillsides grow up in natural regeneration of trees and probably will not burn them for another 4-5 years because I want the trees to get larger and not kill all of them. That is going to be about 150-160 acres total.
 
I’ve actually burned 3 different times this season. I burned in March, late May and last weekend (mid July). I’m planning to burn a few spots (heavy woody content areas) in September as a test to see what the results are like. It will probe about 5 acres total.

My areas that I am opening up will be burned on a 2 yr rotation most likely. The ones with a lot of woody content will probably get burned late summer. The areas that are more grasses will get late winter discing.

It’s trial and error. I will say that so far, I do not like the results of that late May burn. It came back with a native vine, but it’s like 90 percent of the growth. There are some good natives beneath the vines, but I’m waiting to see what it looks like come early September.

I’m letting my hillsides grow up in natural regeneration of trees and probably will not burn them for another 4-5 years because I want the trees to get larger and not kill all of them. That is going to be about 150-160 acres total.
I have been experimenting on some areas too.

Most of my land is replanted in longleaf so have to do dormant season burns now. Soon I will be able to add in some growing season.

I did have all of longleaf areas sprayed with velpar/oust. Put a hurting on sweetgum so hopefully my fire this winter will gain me more control.

Hairy clustervine is a beast. It will die out as succession continues though. It looooves bare ground.
 
I wish more people would share their experiences with hinge cuts or stump sprout preferences. I’ve been at it for about 4 years now. Based on my observations 1. Maple 2 Sassafras 3 Ash. My surprise tree ended up being Black Locust. They also hammer honey locust. Devils walking stick is another good one. Apple trees got hit hard this spring too. I’m in Kentucky. Keep us posted on your observations
 
I’ve actually burned 3 different times this season. I burned in March, late May and last weekend (mid July). I’m planning to burn a few spots (heavy woody content areas) in September as a test to see what the results are like. It will probe about 5 acres total.

My areas that I am opening up will be burned on a 2 yr rotation most likely. The ones with a lot of woody content will probably get burned late summer. The areas that are more grasses will get late winter discing.

It’s trial and error. I will say that so far, I do not like the results of that late May burn. It came back with a native vine, but it’s like 90 percent of the growth. There are some good natives beneath the vines, but I’m waiting to see what it looks like come early September.

I’m letting my hillsides grow up in natural regeneration of trees and probably will not burn them for another 4-5 years because I want the trees to get larger and not kill all of them. That is going to be about 150-160 acres total.
How are you managing firebreaks in clearcut?

Eta: I have land in SW Hinds cty but live in the Felicianas of LA. I’m eyeing some property that is clearcut and have really been torn as to what I could actually do with it.
 
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Turkish,

Shoot me an email to restoringtheground@gmail.com. I’ll send you my cell number through email and I’ll be glad to go in depth on what I’m doing.

Scott
 
How are you managing firebreaks in clearcut?

Eta: I have land in SW Hinds cty but live in the Felicianas of LA. I’m eyeing some property that is clearcut and have really been torn as to what I could actually do with it.
Turkish,
I live in Livingston Parish. I'll try to post some pictures of what some of the areas look like after I brush cut them down. I have creeks and springs running through my property so I try to use those for boundaries whenever possible. I also have cut a lot of trails throughout my property since I laid out a 7 mile dirtbike course throughout the woods. The trails are about 10 ft wide, so I can turn the dirt over and use them as fire lanes. If none of that is available, I will then disc a ring around the outside of the Brushcut area. When I burn, I try to start with a back burn and do it slowly and carefully. Once I burn in a black area, I then strip fire to black in a larger area, and when I feel that everything is safe, I will then start a head fire. I have some videos on my Facebook page that show the one I did a few weeks back.
 
I wish more people would share their experiences with hinge cuts or stump sprout preferences. I’ve been at it for about 4 years now. Based on my observations 1. Maple 2 Sassafras 3 Ash. My surprise tree ended up being Black Locust. They also hammer honey locust. Devils walking stick is another good one. Apple trees got hit hard this spring too. I’m in Kentucky. Keep us posted on your observations
Im currently going through several acres of a 15yo cutover with a brush saw/weedeater. I've cut all those you spoke of and a few more, except sassafras and honey locust. I plan to set a few cameras up and ill report back. So you found that they like maple the best?
 
Im currently going through several acres of a 15yo cutover with a brush saw/weedeater. I've cut all those you spoke of and a few more, except sassafras and honey locust. I plan to set a few cameras up and ill report back. So you found that they like maple the best?
Yes. Last year I cut a maple tree down in the spring, it was about 20’ tall. It was close to my clover food plot(2acers). I went back a week later and every leaf was gone off the tree. I did the same thing to a black locust this spring with the same results but probably not as fast as the maple tree
 
I wish more people would share their experiences with hinge cuts or stump sprout preferences. I’ve been at it for about 4 years now. Based on my observations 1. Maple 2 Sassafras 3 Ash. My surprise tree ended up being Black Locust. They also hammer honey locust. Devils walking stick is another good one. Apple trees got hit hard this spring too. I’m in Kentucky. Keep us posted on your observations
Easy,

My place was clear cut 5 years ago so everything is a stump sprout, LOL! Here is what I have found this year. When I go into one of these areas to produce Old Field/Early Succession habitat, there are a few trees that the deer hammer when they sprout back. For me, green ash is probably number one and by far the heaviest hit tree. When I find Black gum, they are hit pretty good also.
 
Easy,

My place was clear cut 5 years ago so everything is a stump sprout, LOL! Here is what I have found this year. When I go into one of these areas to produce Old Field/Early Succession habitat, there are a few trees that the deer hammer when they sprout back. For me, green ash is probably number one and by far the heaviest hit tree. When I find Black gum, they are hit pretty good also.
It’s been over a year. Are you still around? I’d like to keep up with what you have going on.
 
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