Out On The Land

K

KSBrittman

Active member
I have been busy doing my best to improve habitat on one of my Upland hunting spots . It started with helping the landowner mow firebreaks in late March .



We burned 1/3 of his CRP Acerage as recommend by the local PF /QF Biologist


One of our Quail/ pheasant areas was starting to get invaded by locust and hedge it took the better part of the day with the Sthil and RTU to get rid of and pile this patch . We also disked 1/3 of every field we burned to promote good brood rearing habitat.



We also worked with the Landowner / Tenant / NRCS/ ASC/ and the local PF/QF biologist to enroll 21 Acres of field border , CP 33 and Safe .
This was nearly as much work as the boots on the ground stuff .




The landowner(not the tenant) is pretty fired up about upland habitat and bought a bigger tractor to pull the NRCS Great Plains drill for when we seed the cover crop on the new acres .We also planted a dove food plot




The pay off should be a few more birds to chase this fall .

Last year 3 Pheasants and 4 Quail were harvested on this property. I hope with the added habitat and a bit of work on the existing and a little help from mother nature we see a nice upswing in bird numbers .
 
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Part 2 ?

I wanted to ask about the best herbicide to get rid of brome grass in our native planting ?

One suggestion I got was too wait to the fall and after a hard freeze for more than 3 hours and when the temp returns to 55 spray with round up .

Native will be dormant and Brome still feeding?

Is the above the best method ? Is their a selective product that works well that could be used this spring .
 
KSBrittman said:
I wanted to ask about the best herbicide to get rid of brome grass in our native planting ?

One suggestion I got was too wait to the fall and after a hard freeze for more than 3 hours and when the temp returns to 55 spray with round up .

Native will be dormant and Brome still feeding?

Is the above the best method ? Is their a selective product that works well that could be used this spring .
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This is my opinion but I think the best way to keep brome out of a native seeding is plant a ton of cool season natives right away. If you have brome invading in an already established seeding you can try the method your talking about. Burning at the 4.5 leaf stage would set it back and and early season high intensity graze would also do the trick. Nothing is the silver bullet but they are all tools. I prefer an early burn with cattle soon after green up in the spring.

I am in NE SD. It seams in November there is usually a window to spray the brome with round up. I would go with a quart per acre at 4 lbs of active ingredient per gallon. The big trick is too make sure all the natives are shut down for the year. I don't think you necessarily need the temp to get that high either. I have sprayed brome and the high for the rest of the winter never got above 40 and the brome was dead the following year.
 
Thanks for the reply , so that would a 50/50 mix of Glysophate / Round up,to the Gallon ?

Did you get most of the brome killed the first year ?
 
Many roundup formulas are 4 pounds of active ingredients per gallon of chemical. Fall applications of 1 pound (1 Quart) per acre is recommended. The total gallons per acre of the combination of water, surfactant, and roundup is dependent upon your nozzles, pressure, and ground speed. As 3car states, there are several ways to attack the problem. If you want to preserve your cover characteristics you currently have, spraying in the fall after the warm-season grasses are dormant will come closest to doing that. Hitting the brome with cattle or chemical in the spring is an option. You usually need to use up to 3X the chemical in the spring as you do in the fall. You also take the chance of part of the native grass component being out of dormancy and being killed by the gly. The grazing component should be severe and of specific duration in order to meet the requirements to reduce the brome and not degrade the native. If you "need" the spring cover for your bird production, you may not want this option. If you can do both as the same time, good. Much depends upon the extent of the infestation and the size of your treatment area. You'll need to make a reasonable evaluation of where you're at and how fast you want to get to the end in order to determine the path you will take to get there.

Nice work Ksbrittman!!!
 
Thanks for the reply , We have seen the brome waterways and road ditches work there way into the native grass planting , I would say one field is 1/3 brome 2/3 native . One field may be closer to 50/50 . Would the fall application of glysophate nock most of it out the first year ?
 
KSBrittman said:
Thanks for the reply , We have seen the brome waterways and road ditches work there way into the native grass planting , I would say one field is 1/3 brome 2/3 native . One field may be closer to 50/50 . Would the fall application of glysophate nock most of it out the first year ?
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Yea, its going to be fairly tough on it if you get the timing correct. But if you remove a cool season grass some thing has to take its place. In my part of the world its Canada Thistle. You may want to try and drill some sort of cool season grass to take its place like western wheat, Canada Wildrye or even slender wheat grass.

If your set on spraying the brome maybe a late haying in the bad areas so you can remove as much material as possible. We would hay it in August after the nesting season. Spray it in November and run a grass drill over it with some cool season grasses and maybe some native forbs. You can keep it some what cheap if you just use some western wheat grass.
 
If the native is still present, just suppressed, I'd just let it fill in the voids over time. 3car, western wheat is mostly a western Kansas species. Ks brittman hasn't indicated where this cover is, so it might not be the best choice. Canada wildrye I believe is one of the plants that can cause dogs problems with awns. Might also not be an early choice. If you evaluate the site, maybe some type of brood-rearing/pollinator type planting would add diversity. If it's CRP, it'll need to meet the cover requirements in the contract.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
If the native is still present, just suppressed, I'd just let it fill in the voids over time. 3car, western wheat is mostly a western Kansas species. Ks brittman hasn't indicated where this cover is, so it might not be the best choice. Canada wildrye I believe is one of the plants that can cause dogs problems with awns. Might also not be an early choice. If you evaluate the site, maybe some type of brood-rearing/pollinator type planting would add diversity. If it's CRP, it'll need to meet the cover requirements in the contract.
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Good Points PD. Yea I am not too familiar with Kansas. Western WG is a staple in all of our mixes. Our soils are fairly heavy and any bares spots will grown Thistle with the best of them. I have heard of Wildrye causing problems in dogs but have yet to see a problem.
 
3car said:
Yea, its going to be fairly tough on it if you get the timing correct. But if you remove a cool season grass some thing has to take its place. In my part of the world its Canada Thistle. You may want to try and drill some sort of cool season grass to take its place like western wheat, Canada Wildrye or even slender wheat grass.

If your set on spraying the brome maybe a late haying in the bad areas so you can remove as much material as possible. We would hay it in August after the nesting season. Spray it in November and run a grass drill over it with some cool season grasses and maybe some native forbs. You can keep it some what cheap if you just use some western wheat grass.
Click to expand...


I agree with haying it to get rid of the excess, otherwise, its going to be hard to get the chemical to the brome thru the taller Warm season grasses.

KSBritman. Is that a 4010 tractor? or a 4000? Looks almost exactly like mine.
I just updated my post on integrating forbs into an established stand with a frost seeding. It kind of takes you thru what I have gone thru over the last 9 years. :)
 
Our area of operations is Northeast Kansas

The waterways in our native planting are not enrolled in our CRP agreement .

I wouldn't mind converting them to a native mix , any Concerns with washing or erosion in a waterway with Native ? I assume a heavier seeing rate might be needed ?
 
Clump grasses might allow for some erosion. Often, the NRCS recommendation is solid switch at a higher planting rate. Brome is quick, cheap, and easy; which is why most people use it. There are better ways to go if wildlife habitat is part of the plan. Check with the local NRCS for recommendations.
 
Great thread.

So if you have brome up under plum thicket what is the best way to kill it off without killing the plum thicket? I guess wait until the plums have dropped their leaves and then spot spray under them.
 
SetterNut said:
Great thread.

So if you have brome up under plum thicket what is the best way to kill it off without killing the plum thicket? I guess wait until the plums have dropped their leaves and then spot spray under them.
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That's right Steve!
 
We spot sprayed under some of outs this spring , we made sure no Glysophate go on anything green on the tree and kept our handheld sprayer nozzle close to the ground .
 
I had some good news yesterday while sitting out around my alfalfa field turkey hunting. While no turkeys showed up, I did have several male Bobs whistling up a storm last night.

The first I have heard this spring.
 
SetterNut said:
I had some good news yesterday while sitting out around my alfalfa field turkey hunting. While no turkeys showed up, I did have several male Bobs whistling up a storm last night.

The first I have heard this spring.
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That's fantastic news, Steve! Nice job.

I don't want to jinx it, but I heard whistling last time I was at my little hobby farm... (10 acres of tilled farm ground, with another 10 in grass and another 10 in river bottom timber) I'm real protective of the grass because the surrounding landowners till EVERYTHING and don't leave much of anything for cover in Winter and Spring. I never dreamed I could get wild quail on my place because it is such an island. But it sure sounded like a quail or two has found my farm this year.

Exciting stuff!:cheers:
 
Toad said:
That's fantastic news, Steve! Nice job.

I don't want to jinx it, but I heard whistling last time I was at my little hobby farm... (10 acres of tilled farm ground, with another 10 in grass and another 10 in river bottom timber) I'm real protective of the grass because the surrounding landowners till EVERYTHING and don't leave much of anything for cover in Winter and Spring. I never dreamed I could get wild quail on my place because it is such an island. But it sure sounded like a quail or two has found my farm this year.

Exciting stuff!:cheers:
Click to expand...

I ran down to the farm tonight. My 6' wide rotary tiller got delivered.
Should be able to do some serious work around the place with it in some of the out of the way places.

But I heard some more quail tonight in the area I burned a month or so ago.
 
Nice Steve! One caution. Don't get too close to barbed wire fences with that thing. You will understand if you ever do. On a side note, I talked to a manager in Oklahoma where they are doing some telemetry work. He says that the quail in the burns are not leaving, but nesting in the black with just the same survival and success rates. Good stuff to know!
 
KsBrittman, any updates on these projects? I ran pups on one of my patch burn sites yesterday morning. Cattle are whuppin up on the grass and the forbs are coming on nicely. Quail were talking in several directions despite the wind muffling my ability to hear them. I did come home Thursday from a meeting to be greeted by a big ole rooster pheasant in the driveway! Never had seen one there before. I have a hen turkey in the drive most days. Had a buck and doe in the yard this morning when I went out to pick cherries! Heard geese and wood ducks while picking. Nice to live in the wild!
 
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