Weeds tell the story??

[SwampCat]

On this same thought of plants being indicators........Any ideas on why a field would turn into a goldenrod monoculture??

I bought some ground that had been row cropped for a lot of years. 23 acres of it i had bedded and planted in pine. The first two years was 2011 and 2012 and all the pine died from drought. I had it planted again in 2013 and all the pine died in a flood in 2015. Over 36,000 pines were killed/died in those four years. Since then, I have let it go. It is strongly goldenrod, now. A lot of early successional hardwood trees are coming in - persimmon, honey locust, box elder, and green ash. I have seen other land in this area go the same way and fully expect these hardwood species to proliferate and eventually shade out the goldenrod.

 

[SwampCat]

I had a hack n squirt contract on 36 acres a year ago last summer. In addition to the treated species dying, many of the leave trees also died. The area is really open now. This area was clearcut in mid to late 90’s and allowed to come back on its own. It was 80% oak - primarily red oak. This first summer after the hack n squirt, the ground is covered in fireweed. My luck - it is largely deer resistant. I have no idea what that tells me about that soil.

 

[SD51555]

Its not really bothering me……The screening cover isnt gonna be as tall now since it took over all of the dog fennel but in the grand scheme of things I don’t think its gonna matter too much. I’m actually more interested in watching where it goes from here on its own now.



Something else I’ve been thinking about here lately that kinda related to this same discussion is the fact that even though I’m following nature’s principles and blueprint with soil building, etc,…….I’m actually still missing a big component in not having “animal impact” to these areas……And by that I mean large herds of grazers playing a role. I suspect that these natural processes were trying to mimic would progress a bit differently if they were in the mix. What I’m actually watching is successional soil building with a missing component.

I had learned that goldenrod situation when i took a 50lb bag of lime and just spread it on a 20 foot by 20 foot area of my native grass. It was crazy how it flipped in what grew there after it got rained in.

 

[Crimson n' Camo]

Something else about my field that I have to assume is playing into this equation somewhere is the fact that I have a nice layer about 10 inches thick of black organic soil built up across the top of the field. That layer of soil has an ideal pH and is nutrient rich. Immediately below that layer though the soil becomes harsh with a pH of 5.0 and very little Ca. I tried planting apple trees years ago and learned over time as they got larger and fell over sideways, that the apple tree roots did not like that harsh subsoil. The roots turned out and stayed shallow. I’m guessing that somewhere along this successional line will come plants who roots are made to tolerate those conditions and blaze new trails down deeper…..leaving behind channels and streaks of carbon once they terminate.

 

[Native Hunter]

Canada Goldenrod has been proven to have an allelopathic effect on some plants, and many studies have been done relative to that. Where I live, the next thing in the successional line to take it over will usually be blackberries, which have no trouble at all wiping out the goldenrod. If blackberries can get started in a spot where early successional trees are slow to pop up, they will form an impenetrable thicket that will completely stop any tree. When this happens, the patch has to slowly be taken over from the outside by trees at the edge of the patch. This can take many years in some cases, and if you stopped the trees from creeping in on the outside, the blackberries would never go away - and you would have a blackberry monoculture from now on.

Goldenrod is a welcome addition to my prairie. It fits in nicely between the NWSG clumps, and gets tall enough to provide good fall and winter cover (which is my primary goal). Another benefit of goldenrod is that deer feed on the basal leaves after the first frost. So, it is a food and cover plant. It can easily be knocked back with 24D if it gets too aggressive in some spots. I've done that occasionally at the edges of plots. When it dies, I will get a flush of annuals out of the seedbank - usually partridge pea and common ragweed will be the most prominent ones. The ragweed is native and the partridge pea was planted.

 

[Crimson n' Camo]

I was reading another thread that reminded me of another factor that may be influencing the goldenrod explosion if it likes moist soil......The last two summers have been the two wettest on record where I live. A side note to this is that rainfall amounts also impacts decomposition rates. I think the OM layer in my field may have actually taken a little step backwards as a result. Decomposition rates are already high on a normal basis here in the deep south with our heat and moisture.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I see mention of it liking wetter areas but on our property it’s everywhere. Our valley is at about 800’ with a trout stream running through it. The farm is right up the ridge top at 1200’ and it is everywhere as prevalent.


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