Out On The Land

Troy you are living right my friend !!!

We still have 20 Acres of Milo cover crop to plant / it will get native planted next spring . 20 Acre ties into another 20 or so filter strip and a Tree Planting Corey Alderson helped us out with some time ago .

I need to take a picture of a burnt area of CRP and in the same field where it was disced. Broad Leaves everywhere !!!!

I was there for a little time last week and I could here Quail calling from some hinged over trees and rooster crowning in that same area .

I will do my best to post a few pics when we are up there planting
 
Here is a picture of an area in the landowners 11 year Old CRP that the landowner and I disced hope is good brood rearing habitat .


Here is a picture of the same field 8 acre field that has only been burnt .Per the Landowners CRP contract he can only disc 1/3 of the field and I believe no more than on a 3 year rotation . From what I have read Brood rearing Habitat is a limiting Factor in a lot of Ks upland . Hope we are doing the right things here . ( By the way what type of Forbes are these ?) Alfalfa ?
 
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I will report my findings we we get out there with a bird dog for sure , you seeing decent numbers in your area or hearing a lot of whistling ?
 
KSBrittman said:
Here is a picture of an area in the landowners 11 year Old CRP that the landowner and I disced hope is good brood rearing habitat .


Here is a picture of the same field 8 acre field that has only been burnt .Per the Landowners CRP contract he can only disc 1/3 of the field and I believe no more than on a 3 year rotation . From what I have read Brood rearing Habitat is a limiting Factor in a lot of Ks upland . Hope we are doing the right things here . ( By the way what type of Forbes are these ?) Alfalfa ?
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It is hard to tell unless I get a good close up shot. If the plant flower is purple probably alfalfa. If it is pink it could be sainfoin. Both Legumes and great for broods!
 
Looks pretty darn good to me Brittman! I'm sure a short walk in that cover would result in pants covered with bugs! The buffet is set! Make sure and survey that with dogs on a regular basis after the second Saturday in November. Life shouldn't be all work and no play. Yes, you can take a Britt!
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Looks pretty darn good to me Brittman! I'm sure a short walk in that cover would result in pants covered with bugs! The buffet is set! Make sure and survey that with dogs on a regular basis after the second Saturday in November. Life shouldn't be all work and no play. Yes, you can take a Britt!
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Thanks Troy we really have been scrambling at work , looking forward to cooler temps and the 2nd Saturday in Nov. we make take some youth the first weekend in Nov . That's a bunch of fun !!!
 
It is funny just how little it matters if you kill anything yourself when you take a kid hunting! Good luck on that day for sure.
 
Troy,

What type of native seedings have you had success with lately? For the last year or so we have seeded back approximately 1200 acres to what we call a spike seeding. Its basically overloaded with forbs to out compete the Canada thistle. The second year the grass really starts to come in but the first year they have been Maximilian, coreopsis, yarrow, black eyed susans, yellow coneflower and some blanket flower. Our best results have been seeding into soybean stubble but we have been a little caught off guard planting into small grain. The small grain fields compared to the bean stubble is night and day. Just wondering what you have seen in your career. The majority of the units look amazing but the few really have me concerned.
 
3car, this is one of those tasks I don't get much of an opportunity to do these days as I am on an area that is totally grass now and needs no planting. I haven't worked directly with private land owners on a regular basis since I left Norton in 1992. It is hard to give you a list that we use here and make direct comparisons to what you have to use there as there is some significant differences. Many species do occur in both latitudes though and several of the ones you listed are used here. With my experience with Canada Thistle, I find it hard to believe that anything would compete well with it. Where we had it, it often was 95-100% coverage without chemical application. We could get it down to 5-15% coverage with our spring and fall apps. We used Banvel and 2-4-D in the spring and Telar in the fall back in those pre-Milestone days. Those thistle motts were rarely used by any wildlife. Thorny pain! I REALLY don't miss the thistle. I'm probably going to stay healthier here from not having to spray that pest!

Some of the species we used here are Black Sampson, Gallardia, Beebalm, Mexican Hat, Stiff Coneflower, Upright Coneflower, Showy Partridge Pea, Maximillian, Plains Coreopsis, Illinois Bundleflower, Slim-flower Scurfpea, Roundhead Lespedeza, Western Ragweed.....
 
3car said:
Troy,

What type of native seedings have you had success with lately? For the last year or so we have seeded back approximately 1200 acres to what we call a spike seeding. Its basically overloaded with forbs to out compete the Canada thistle. The second year the grass really starts to come in but the first year they have been Maximilian, coreopsis, yarrow, black eyed susans, yellow coneflower and some blanket flower. Our best results have been seeding into soybean stubble but we have been a little caught off guard planting into small grain. The small grain fields compared to the bean stubble is night and day. Just wondering what you have seen in your career. The majority of the units look amazing but the few really have me concerned.
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At what ratio of forbs to grass are you doing---I am going to plant 30 acres into soybean stubble at a 50/50 ratio this coming spring and what do you do for the 1st year as far as mowing and such?
The contract from the SDGF&P is coming this week and I'll have a better idea on just what is to be planted----it is a contract for ten years with no haying or grazing allowed and it has no yearly payment to me but the state cost shares the seed and the planting at 100 %

JIM
 
SDJIM said:
At what ratio of forbs to grass are you doing---I am going to plant 30 acres into soybean stubble at a 50/50 ratio this coming spring and what do you do for the 1st year as far as mowing and such?
The contract from the SDGF&P is coming this week and I'll have a better idea on just what is to be planted----it is a contract for ten years with no haying or grazing allowed and it has no yearly payment to me but the state cost shares the seed and the planting at 100 %

JIM
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Its really close to 50/50. The bean stubble has been so good I don't think we have mowed any of it. The small grain fields have been not near as good so we are going to have to send a mower out there probably this week to take care of Thistle. One unit erupted with sweet clover so I had a neighbor hay the entire 110 acres and the other unit has some Canada thistle and wormwood. Its not terrible but the other fields look great. Its hard to find Canada thistle in the other fields.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
3car, this is one of those tasks I don't get much of an opportunity to do these days as I am on an area that is totally grass now and needs no planting. I haven't worked directly with private land owners on a regular basis since I left Norton in 1992. It is hard to give you a list that we use here and make direct comparisons to what you have to use there as there is some significant differences. Many species do occur in both latitudes though and several of the ones you listed are used here. With my experience with Canada Thistle, I find it hard to believe that anything would compete well with it. Where we had it, it often was 95-100% coverage without chemical application. We could get it down to 5-15% coverage with our spring and fall apps. We used Banvel and 2-4-D in the spring and Telar in the fall back in those pre-Milestone days. Those thistle motts were rarely used by any wildlife. Thorny pain! I REALLY don't miss the thistle. I'm probably going to stay healthier here from not having to spray that pest!

Some of the species we used here are Black Sampson, Gallardia, Beebalm, Mexican Hat, Stiff Coneflower, Upright Coneflower, Showy Partridge Pea, Maximillian, Plains Coreopsis, Illinois Bundleflower, Slim-flower Scurfpea, Roundhead Lespedeza, Western Ragweed.....
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I agree with you but these fields look great. I know the seed bank is present for Canada thistle but its just not there. So far so good. This is the second year for some of the areas and they still look great. Some sweet clover but I can live with some clover. We had one unit were its really bad so I had a neighbor hay it.
 
I did forget to mention that some small grains have allopathic weed effects that prevent some other plants from sprouting. That may partially account for your small grain plantings falling behind your soybean plantings.

Jim, I don't know how vigorous your NWSG plantings are at the higher latitudes, but here we often get too dense on the grass side in 3-5 years after planting for nesting and brood success to remain high. Skewing your seed mix toward the forbs tends to extend that initial transformation by several years. However, you eventually have to do a manipulation to again give the forbs a better foothold. This is more a problem in higher rainfall belts.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
I did forget to mention that some small grains have allopathic weed effects that prevent some other plants from sprouting. That may partially account for your small grain plantings falling behind your soybean plantings.

Jim, I don't know how vigorous your NWSG plantings are at the higher latitudes, but here we often get too dense on the grass side in 3-5 years after planting for nesting and brood success to remain high. Skewing your seed mix toward the forbs tends to extend that initial transformation by several years. However, you eventually have to do a manipulation to again give the forbs a better foothold. This is more a problem in higher rainfall belts.
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Yea I knew about that before we planted but the agronomists I talked to said that those substances should be out of the soil by the time we plant and should not affect our plantings. Maybe he was wrong!?
 
I believe that's why rye straw is a good mulch! Plenty of other structural factors as well as the impact of roundup apps the previous year in the beans clearing some of the seed bank for competition plants.
 
Well I just mowed the one field that is my redheaded step child. Probably mowed 35 acres out of 110. Wormwood, sow thistle and Canada thistle! It was actually kinda a fun sitting in a tractor all day but man I wish this one looked like the other fields.
 
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