Williams Creek Farm of SW Iowa

[Ben.MN/WI]

That's a great looking place. I planted milo in SE MN for the first time this year around June 1st and it has seed heads that are just starting to pop. I bet yours will pop pretty soon. The pheasants and quail in your area should really like that mix.

Did you use any herbicides on that early successional mix? I planted a somewhat similar mix on my place, but I have a lot more weeds than you do. A neighbor's cattle visited that plot and ate the tops off a bunch of the plants. Things were looking better before that, but once the cattle stunted the good stuff the weeds got some sun and really took off.

 

[cbw]

That's a great looking place. I planted milo in SE MN for the first time this year around June 1st and it has seed heads that are just starting to pop. I bet yours will pop pretty soon. The pheasants and quail in your area should really like that mix.

Did you use any herbicides on that early successional mix? I planted a somewhat similar mix on my place, but I have a lot more weeds than you do. A neighbor's cattle visited that plot and ate the tops off a bunch of the plants. Things were looking better before that, but once the cattle stunted the good stuff the weeds got some sun and really took off.

Thanks, Ben! Always learning.

Re: Milo…—ya, we planted a bit late. I hope you are right.

Re: pheasants and quail... That’s the plan. We have seen more pheasants the last couple years. Growing up we had all kinds of quail, but I haven’t seen a quail on the property for years. Hoping the habitat work will bring them back.

Re: spray for early successional… I just did a basic Gly + 2,4D a couple weeks before drilling the seed. Haven’t added anything else since then. There was corn planted in this spot last year.

Bummer about the cattle! That can be rough.


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[cbw]

Learning from failure…
Working to establish some clover plots. So far have had mediocre to poor success. Here is one of the worst ones below. I posted details on this thread. Post in thread 'Starting Over.' https://habitat-talk.com/threads/starting-over.16993/post-352557

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[cbw]

Yesterdays project was putting in a new waterhole in a spot that seldom holds water, but is often muddy with lots of deer tracks. Hope this keeps drawing the deer, but reduces odds of EHD.

Also spread some lime on a clover plot, cut some every/exits, opened a few scrapes and got a few cams out.

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[cbw]

Update on the hillside we burned in April:

April burn:

Todays view:

The background is switch we planted 4 years ago. The foreground is an old field managed section. We killed the brome in March of 2021.

Below is how high the switch is. I’m 6’4”

Blood moon rising:

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[cbw]

Today’s big project was building a walking bridge out of plastic barrels and cedar planks that we cut from our timber last year.

Why would we build a bridge? Here is a pic of our property.

And in the pic below, the yellow is where we put the bridge, the blue line is our entry to access the east side of the property. This bridge will keep us from walking through deer bedding in the low/swampy area.

Zoomed in:

Progression of building the bridge. Had two kids and my father assisting:

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[cbw]

And the blueprints

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[Brian662]

That is really cool, I'm impressed.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

The barrels are a great idea. Nice work

 

[cbw]

Thanks guys. For v1 we went as simple as possible. We’ll see how long it lasts.


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[cbw]

Update on the new timber kill plot.

Here is what I posted back in April. We had cleared most of the trees:

This summer, I lightly disked it one time to level the ground. Sprayed it twice to get a good kill. 3 weeks ago, I broadcast a clover mix from Green Cover—Northern Clover Release with a mix of Crimson Clover, Frosty Berseem Clover, Fixation Balansa Clover, Alfalfa, Rapeseed, Radish

I finished getting the stand up and entry/exit cut in earlier this week and snapped a couple pics. While the growth is uneven, the new clover looks promising:

I wanted to bring the deer closer to the stand, so I dropped a couple cedar trees. They didn’t stick out as far as I had expected, but even the 10-15 yrds will help:

We’ve been dry for the past 3 weeks, but we just got 2.6” of rain last night. (I love having a weather station on our farm when we live 30 mins away!)

I will likely put a light sowing of WR for a nurse crop in a week or so. And she should be ready to hunt in 6 weeks!


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[cbw]

Yesterday we wrapped up our 3rd big project for the summer. We have about 8 acres that have been overgrown with ERC so it was impassable. Was able to get funding through EQIP to remove them and for a burn next spring. We are planning put this in old-field management.

This section outlined in red borders the bridge we just installed.

Did 95% of the work with this tree sheer. SO much better than chainsaw!

Left some around the edge for screening entry/exit:

Some “after” pics:

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[T-Max]

Very nice! How flush can you shear those stumps to the ground with that?


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[cbw]

Very nice! How flush can you shear those stumps to the ground with that?


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If the trunk is less than ~9” we can get flush to just under the ground. Larger—a couple inches. I was amazed how how large of trees it handled. We only had to use the saw on 3 trees total—each were over 15” diameter.


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[cbw]

Had some spots of sericea lespedeza. Didn’t realize what a pain this is to control. Any of you find a more natural way control it?

Adam Keith of Land and Legacy directed me to this herbicide. Only 1/2 oz per acre.

Tracked all the spots on OnX so I can check how they did next year.


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[Howboutthemdawgs]

I don’t think there is a natural way. Honestly fire and mowing only piss it off. Discing makes it explode. I bet it’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve run through about 100 gallons spraying mine with glyphosate this summer. I have a personal vendetta against it. I have just learned you have to go aggressive and know it will be a multiple year ordeal and there will collateral damage but it’s worth it in the end.

 

[hillrunner]

Yesterday we wrapped up our 3rd big project for the summer. We have about 8 acres that have been overgrown with ERC so it was impassable. Was able to get funding through EQIP to remove them and for a burn next spring. We are planning put this in old-field management.

This section outlined in red borders the bridge we just installed.

Did 95% of the work with this tree sheer. SO much better than chainsaw!

Left some around the edge for screening entry/exit:

Some “after” pics:

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I've done similar cedar clearing projects, you're going to have a heck of a fire.
Do you have any more pics of you sheer? I'm always looking for an easier way to beat back the cedars.

 

[cbw]

I don’t think there is a natural way. Honestly fire and mowing only piss it off. Discing makes it explode. I bet it’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve run through about 100 gallons spraying mine with glyphosate this summer. I have a personal vendetta against it. I have just learned you have to go aggressive and know it will be a multiple year ordeal and there will collateral damage but it’s worth it in the end.

Thanks. This new herbicide (MCM 60) is supposed to knock them out. Doesn’t burn them down, but they don’t come back next year. The key is to spray while they are flowering, so only a short window. I’ll let you know next year how it works. :-)


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[cbw]

I've done similar cedar clearing projects, you're going to have a heck of a fire.
Do you have any more pics of you sheer? I'm always looking for an easier way to beat back the cedars.

Re: fire — ya, that’s what I hear! What is the rule of thumb, the fire is twice as high as the fuel or something like that.

Re: sheer — I’ll snap some more pics when I’m down there. We picked it up used last year, and our mechanic re-inforced it in a couple spots after the season. This year, we’ve put it to the test, and it’s been a workhorse. It will pivot 90 degrees, so you can use it for trimming branches, too. Early on, the fuse to run the pivot kept blowing, we put in a resettable fuse, and it has worked fine.


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[Brian662]

Thanks. This new herbicide (MCM 60) is supposed to knock them out. Doesn’t burn them down, but they don’t come back next year. The key is to spray while they are flowering, so only a short window. I’ll let you know next year how it works. :-)


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That's the same herbicide I started using for wild parsnip this year too, it appears to be a very slow acting kill, but it works good.