How's Your Habitat Projects Coming??

UGUIDE

UGUIDE

Active member
Guys, I'd love to hear any updates you have on your projects as of this summer.

I've been busy spraying CRP and Food plots. Finally hve some warm seasons coming in a CRP plot that wasn't done right to start with. The Plateau, Milestone, Roundup combo seemed to do the trick (that is where I didn't miss with sprayer). Now I have Outback GPS and 300 gallon sprayer with 40' swath.

Food plots are all coming nicely and did one round of spray with 1 pt 2-4-D/acre. 2 plots had serious milo volunteer issues and I am contemplating running through it with cultivator just to thin it out a little and release some of remaining stand.

Any suggestions?
 
Habitat Projects

The board is very slow lately. We sprayed the sod in the plum plantings from last year in the past 2 weeks. The lesson learned was that we should have deferred grazing last year. Seems that the cattle selected to graze the strips we mowed to mark the sites for the tree planter. In doing so, they uprooted the tree spaded plum plants before they had the chance to root down. We probably lost 2/3 of them to the cattle bumping into them. Got the bison marsh planted to Japanese millet last week just in time to get rain on it. We'll be working on disking and planting more marshes this week. Food plots for the deer got worked last week. They'll go into wheat/winter peas in September. I've got 5 guys working right now, hopefully we can get fire breaks mostly done before they head back to school.
 
Frustrated with CRP

PD, I just checked my new FWP planting of 4 warm season grasses. I supposedly did it by the book and I feel like the conservation district forgot to put seed in the drill! I can't find a blade of grass.

This was winter wheat stubble that was disked black last fall. I spray mixture of Roundup, Plateau and Milestone 1-2 weeks before grass was drill in mid-late May.

Some areas are still balck but resdual control is now wearing out and weeds are coming in.

If this stuff isn't going to come in the first year I am wondering if it is not better to just sow it in a nurse crop of oats and forget the herbicide.

Help!!
 
UGUIDE said:
PD, I just checked my new FWP planting of 4 warm season grasses. I supposedly did it by the book and I feel like the conservation district forgot to put seed in the drill! I can't find a blade of grass.

This was winter wheat stubble that was disked black last fall. I spray mixture of Roundup, Plateau and Milestone 1-2 weeks before grass was drill in mid-late May.

Some areas are still balck but resdual control is now wearing out and weeds are coming in.

If this stuff isn't going to come in the first year I am wondering if it is not better to just sow it in a nurse crop of oats and forget the herbicide.

Help!!
Click to expand...

Chris

This is very normal for warm season grasses. I've had the same feeling about finding even one blade of grass that first fall and even the next spring. You just have to give it time and it will show up. You did the right thing during seeding with the herbicide, as the weeds would have been much worse without it. The herbicides you applied will work about six to eight weeks so the best thing to do is mow it once during August and then leave it alone. Mow no shorter than about six inches high. Don't mow after September 1 and don't mow next spring. If you have a lot of thistles it might be a very good idea to put some Milestone down next spring in late May. After that sit back and watch the grasses show up about the third or fourth week of July 2010.

Your seed has two components, live seed and dormant seed, and the percentages should be on your seed tag. The live seed will start developing roots the first summer but the dormant seed needs a winter season before germinating. Therefore if your seed had a lot of dormant seed it will take a little longer for your planting to develop into the thick pheasant loving planting you are hoping to see.

In all the years that I've planted warm season grasses, I've only experienced one year where they showed up the first Fall, usually it's the next summer during late July. Cool season grasses will typically show up the first fall, but sometimes they too may take a year or so. I've even had one year, I think 2006- a very dry year, where it took until the third year- summer 2008- before the warm season grasses showed up.

LM
 
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Chris, Landman has the facts for you. You should never look at a NWSG planting the first year. The second year you may find a few plants. The third year you may start thinking you will need to do some annual disking soon. Normally we don't worry about weed pressure after the first year. We generally find that some weed pressure gives us a more open stand that is more beneficial as both nesting and brood rearing cover form more years before becoming too dense. If you have a dry year the first year after planting, you will find that the shorter grass species will predominate. If you have a wet year, you may have a hard time finding the shorter species until you have a drought year.
 
I wish I would of heard this a week ago. I just sprayed some fist year grass with 2,4-d. About 2 pints an acre. I talked with the extension agent first and he thought I should be OK. I had mowed it twice already and the pigweed and lambsquarter were starting to canopy over pretty bad. I hope the grass seedlings did not get cooked.
 
LM/PD,

thanks for encouragement and good info. I am starting to see WSG in other plots that are 2-3 years old.

Now, here is some info and questions:

3 years ago 2 FWP's were planted to NWSG at same time, one in winterwheat stubble and other in burned winter wheat stubble (black and planted after burn in spring). The burned one came up first year and the other had cheatgrass up the wazoo. If what you say is correct, why would that one come up first year so strong?

2nd question: If nothing is going to come up first year, why not seed in oats as nurse crop rather than put down expensive plateau herbicide?

#3. My PF guy just sent me info on outfit from Ohio that will gaurantee NWSG success after 60 days from plant on new CRP projects. Hwo do they do it?
 
Grass

Oats have a strong allelopathic chemical agent that inhibit weed growth. That could also affect the grass seed planted as well. As for the short term grass, they are probably planting plants, not seed. Wheat also has the allelopathic affect, but to a lesser degree. You burned the chemical when you burned the stubble. The stubble in the other site evidently gave protection to the planted grass and you had better than ordinary success with it. It happens.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Oats have a strong allelopathic chemical agent that inhibit weed growth. That could also affect the grass seed planted as well. As for the short term grass, they are probably planting plants, not seed. Wheat also has the allelopathic affect, but to a lesser degree. You burned the chemical when you burned the stubble. The stubble in the other site evidently gave protection to the planted grass and you had better than ordinary success with it. It happens.
Click to expand...

They are planting seed and not plants and they warranty their work.
Here is there website.

http://fdcenterprises.com/home.html
 
UGUIDE said:
They are planting seed and not plants and they warranty their work.
Here is there website.

http://fdcenterprises.com/home.html
Click to expand...

Chris: The Charles Mix Conservation District planted my very first Warm Season Grasses in 1999 in two large CRP fields. One went into a corn stubble and the other into soybean stubble. In both I had the same experience you had, I even called the District to ask if they were sure they put seed in the planter!. I only sprayed Round Up prior to planting and did not mow it at all during the summer. Both fields "established" in late July of the following year but one field is real thick and the other is fairly thin - I have no idea why. My friends really like hunting the thin field (yes, its still that way today) because they can see their dogs work and we get plenty of pheasants.

The only year that the grasses established right away was 2007 - I don't know why but all three fields did the same thing. For some reason the weeds did not show up that year and the grass grew quickly. In contrast my plantings in 2006 took three years to establish.

I'm guessing that a person can do some things to make the grass grow more quickly such as more herbicide applications to keep the weeds away for the entire growing season or choosing seed that has no dormant seeds in it. Also better ground preparation might help such as tilling followed by rolling then planting. However all these things would significantly add to your costs so it becomes a matter of what you are willing to spend for the results you seek.

I want to add that with Warm Season Grasses you may have to stay a step ahead of the Canada Thistles. They grow early while the Warm Season Grasses are still dormant and they can get all the way to bloom before the grasses will shade them out. Watch that second spring for sure. You won't have as much of a problem with cool season grasses.
 
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Guarantee

I guess I don't understand what their guarantee is. You won't have a huntable stand of grass after 60 days. I don't know if I've ever had a planting fail, so a guarantee doesn't mean much. I never would have collected on one with my success. It does cover you though if you do have a significant weather event.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
I guess I don't understand what their guarantee is. You won't have a huntable stand of grass after 60 days. I don't know if I've ever had a planting fail, so a guarantee doesn't mean much. I never would have collected on one with my success. It does cover you though if you do have a significant weather event.
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I understand that the warranty covers cost of seed, chemical and replant if you don't have a certain percentage success rate of growth in the stand within 60 days. This is alternative to same measure being 1 year, 2 years, 3 years.
 
UGUIDE said:
I understand that the warranty covers cost of seed, chemical and replant if you don't have a certain percentage success rate of growth in the stand within 60 days. This is alternative to same measure being 1 year, 2 years, 3 years.
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Chris: This warrantee doesn't make sense to me. Why replant if the grass is going to grow anyway and replanting would happen the following spring? I've been told that a successful warm season planting is when you can giant-step from one plant to the next. I'm guessing that with a trained eye a person will find small plants the first fall most of the time. The problem is that an untrained person will find it very difficult to distinguish the "grass you planted" from the "grass and weeds growing on its own" that first year.

Every now and then, under the right conditions, warm season grasses will grow nice and tall that first year, but most of the time it takes a year or two longer. I'm sure you have a lot of grass growing already, its just very short and very thin. A year from right now you will have a very nice stand of warm season grasses.

I feel that it would be very helpful if the planter would let the plantee know what to expect so they aren't surprised if they don't have that tall huntable field of grass that first year. LM
 
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Landman and PrairieDrifter,

Thanks for the support and encouragement as I know you guys have a lot of horse sense and experience and that goes a long way.

I can't argue with your logic.

It does seem like every planting and year brings varied results.

I am getting warms in the other 2 plots that were delay planted.

Slowly but surely......
 
I guess I would consider it somewhat of a marketing ploy. They know if you do the site preparation corectly and plant good seed that the success of the planting will be very high. Putting numbers to it just makes them "look" better.
 
Guys, on another subject (food plots) I learned that when you do deep tilage to bury trash you still need to put some residual herbicide down.

In several of the milo plots I have pidgeon grass real bad and it is holding back the milo.


I've used alochlor and atrazine last year and work pretty good but I still have to sprayed with 24D. I may try a product called Harness which works like alochlor but might keep things a little cleaner.

My understanding is that Pidgeon Grass is another name for types of foxtail?
 
If your primary focus is birds, you might consider planting the Egyptian Wheat using a drill in the future. You'll get canopy quicker and not need the herbicide as much. Also, you won't have as much problems with deer taking all of your bird food.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
If your primary focus is birds, you might consider planting the Egyptian Wheat using a drill in the future. You'll get canopy quicker and not need the herbicide as much. Also, you won't have as much problems with deer taking all of your bird food.
Click to expand...

I might have to give that a try next year. I haven't had a problem with either birds or deer browsing it down. Problem is that there is still a ton of seed left in the spring and it can volunteer.
 
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