Added to the habitat

remy3424

remy3424

Well-known member
Well, I didn't get as much done this spring as I would have liked to, I replace 6 conifers in our shelterbelts in the center of the section, need to replace at least another half dozen more, maybe I will try a few cedars yet this year, only out of my time (which I don't have enough of right now) if they don't make it. Added 3 cherry trees and another peach tree to the group of fruit trees I have yesterday. Got them in the ground and fenced-off so the deer won't have them ate this morning! Tics are still very active! Now need some rains for the sorghum to get going. Saw lots of birds, it will be another great season here, even with a mediocre nesting season. Any young fellas that have an opportuntity (or make an opportunity), to plant trees, do it now. At my age the best time to plant them was 20 years ago! I am getting some good size (and function) to some of the early ones I planted. Might take a couple pics and post what I have going.
 
Nice work McFarmer. I see some new filter strips put in here, just drilled them last week. The more habitat the better! If everyone enrolled the strips on the acres they were eligible on (or even a quarter of them), we would have more birds that ever before.
 
This spring did not offer 1 legal burn day. If the wind was down, the humidity was down even more. If we got the humidity, the wind was whipping. If we got a day that was only slightly out of prescription, the next several days were extremely high fire danger! Instead, we spent a lot of time mulching trees and brush and cutting invasives like Siberian Elm and locust. Did a lot to set back woody encroachment ahead of fires in the future. I think in the next month or two we will realize my biggest accomplishment by adding almost 500 acres to the wildlife area. I've been working on that project for over 5.5 years and we now have the grant approved. This will add another mile of the Ninnescah River, a mile of Mead creek, 100 acres of CRP, and 150 acres of cropland, and the balance of grass and riparian timber to our existing acreage! It will be a 10.5% increase in huntable acres for sportsmen and women. We finally got a good rainfall last week. If that hadn't happened, we might have been able to get in and disk those in the next few weeks. Now we will function like a normal year and probably get them dried out in July or August for tilling and planting to millet. I did get a lot of Reed Canary grass sprayed in the marshes and canals leading to the marshes. I'm hoping to get that pest pushed back and get more natives established in their place.
 
I planted about 40 flowering shrubs (fragrant sumac and chokecherry) to encourage pollinators and provide a little permanent brushy cover. They were planted in late March into really wet soil, using root slurry on all and weed barrier on 25 of them. Of course then it didn't rain for like 6 weeks. I've gone out there to water them twice. Only two of those planted with weed barrier were lost, but maybe half of the others are gone. I'm praying for timely rains for a while so I don't have to go water again--about a 5-6 hour job counting the drive time.

On the same quarter we replanted about 3/4 acre of worthless grass to a mix of NWSG. There was another piece of about 2 acres that was planted, but I didn't communicate clearly with my tenant and he tilled it up thinking it was going to wheat this fall. Oops. We'll replant that in the spring along with another area of an acre or so.
 
I looked into some more CRP for next year. I don’t think they will get much enrolled for the payment they are proposing. Defiantly below market rent. Then to lock that in for 10-15 years is questionable.
 
It takes a true sportman to lock-up ground for 10-15 year with the current commodity prices. Thanks for creating habitat. If you are ever in my neck of the woods, reach-out and I will give you the 50 cent tour of our habitat, bring your hunting boots if in season!
 
2022, as it has since it's first day, continues to be a challenge. We have started getting summer burn fire breaks mowed and disked and it is still dry enough that the disk isn't doing the greatest job. I have 715 acres lined up to burn and won't start until July 15 to miss the fat middle of the hatch. I always get a bit grumpy when the burn season fails me. I do have enough help this year that I might be able to burn without asking anyone else to help. I'll probably ask anyway because my help is short on experience. Good to have at least 1 more experienced torch man to keep things in balance. We've really been busy setting back the woody invasion and dealing with unwelcome plants that aren't woody this spring. Have a lot of cattails, phragmites, and johnsongrass that are a nice color of yellow or brown. We started working marshes ahead of millet planting last couple of weeks. Of course it rained and shut that progress down. Now the holiday is changing me into my law enforcement role. Have to deal with stupid for a few days before we can get back to progress on the habitat side. Have a construction project to build 3-5 new wetlands for waterfowl in the coming months. We are hoping for the fuel price to go down so our money will go farther. My biggest accomplishment may happen in July. We hope to close on almost 500 new acres adjoining the wildlife area! That will add a mile of river, mile of creek, 150 acres of cropland, and over 300 acres of grassland/woodland to the area. I hope to manage the cropland well enough to more than double the number of pheasants on the area.
 
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Prairie Drifter,
Good to hear about the additional acres. That will be awesome. I haven't been by your area for years, just don't get that way anymore.
Maynard
 
Thanks Maynard! I wish it were more acres, but in these days and times, we done good. Having more of the Ninnescah as well as Mead creek will be significant. I am hoping the cropland can boost my rooster numbers. It is pretty poor crop ground, but it is something that I don't have in such a big tract on the existing acres! It's almost taken 6 years to complete. Then I will have a lot of new work to do getting it under may management. Job security of a sort!
 
We are getting a lot of woody plant control done of late. However, with the drought as set in as it is, I have put off starting my summer burns until at least August 1. I don't want to remove what would be our drought forage so early that it might cause us to need to pull off early. Cattle come off the end of August so there is plenty of time to wait and see if the faucet opens back up and we can burn later. If we had soil moisture, I would have started burns this week.
 
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