Pollinator Mix Going In

[SDinWI]

Some good news from the FSA office! My continuous CRP application was accepted, and I'll have 15 acres of pollinator mix going in this spring. I've attached the seed mix - lots of goodies for pollinators, insects, and birds. I'm excited to add some good habitat, especially for chicks in the area, as I'm mostly surrounded by wetland and ag. With the quick spring warm-up and all the moisture so far, I'm hoping we can get it sprayed and planted around mid-May. More acres to hopefully be planted next year under general CRP.

Added some additional pics of the wetland habitat on the land as well. A pretty nice mixture of willows, dogwood, tag alder, cattails...

 

[SDinWI]

Update: the CRP was planted June 12th, and it rained later that day. We’ve had great weather for it to grow - it’s all going according to plan

It’s a very clean field except for a few sections of ragweed, but I’m not worried about that management wise.

I was out checking the CRP today and flushed a brood! Walking back to the car and 5 yards from it a hen flushed and only went maybe 30 yards. No youngings went with her so I thought she must have a nest nearby. Well I take another step forward and left and right pop out chicks taking flight as well. A little smaller than a robin I’d say and at least 8 of them all together! They flew great and had no trouble. No idea how old they would be. I’ve been a bit pessimistic on the hatch this year with all the rain, but I’m happy to see a first nest succeed like that!

 

[remy3424]

Looks awesome! Fun to see the new chicks/ I have stayed away from ours, I need to take a walk and see what I can find. It should have been/is pretty good conditions for them this year.

 

[cyclonenation10]

That is awesome, looks great, keep us posted on the progress.

Are you planning on mowing a few times this year?

 

[SDinWI]

That is awesome, looks great, keep us posted on the progress.

Are you planning on mowing a few times this year?

Thank ya will do.

Yes, I'm planning on mowing it down a couple of times this year to prevent it from seeding. I have just been using a weed whipper so far. It's been so wet and the ragweed is pretty isolated to one section, I thought a whipper could do the trick instead of the heavy tractor & brush hog. It's such a clean field otherwise that I kind of don't want to mow it all. We'll see what the NRCS guys says about that.

 

[SDinWI]

Got in some tractor time the past week mowing the CRP.

Well... I started the first mowing two weeks ago, got one or two acres done and let's just say there might have been some operator error running the tractor/brush hog for the first time Had to wait over a week for the new part, but the oats and everything else growing did not wait up!

So, I got back to it recently and cut as high as I could but wow, it was tall for a month and 10 days of growth. You can see the oats were starting to seed out, but I don't think there was any viable seed.

All in all it has put on fantastic growth this year. We're getting into the dog days of summer, and I cut a little later than I would've liked, so I probably won't mow again.

Also, it took me a heck of a lot longer than I was expecting. I have a 5 ft brush hog and thought I was going a solid speed. But maybe 5 is a little undersized for larger acres??

 

[cyclonenation10]

Got in some tractor time the past week mowing the CRP.

Well... I started the first mowing two weeks ago, got one or two acres done and let's just say there might have been some operator error running the tractor/brush hog for the first time Had to wait over a week for the new part, but the oats and everything else growing did not wait up!

So, I got back to it recently and cut as high as I could but wow, it was tall for a month and 10 days of growth. You can see the oats were starting to seed out, but I don't think there was any viable seed.

All in all it has put on fantastic growth this year. We're getting into the dog days of summer, and I cut a little later than I would've liked, so I probably won't mow again.

Also, it took me a heck of a lot longer than I was expecting. I have a 5 ft brush hog and thought I was going a solid speed. But maybe 5 is a little undersized for larger acres??
View attachment 8439

Looks awesome.. 5 foot is small, but doable if your patient. I believe ours is 7ft.

Did you see any birds while mowing?

 

[Quailnerd]

Got in some tractor time the past week mowing the CRP.

Well... I started the first mowing two weeks ago, got one or two acres done and let's just say there might have been some operator error running the tractor/brush hog for the first time Had to wait over a week for the new part, but the oats and everything else growing did not wait up!

So, I got back to it recently and cut as high as I could but wow, it was tall for a month and 10 days of growth. You can see the oats were starting to seed out, but I don't think there was any viable seed.

All in all it has put on fantastic growth this year. We're getting into the dog days of summer, and I cut a little later than I would've liked, so I probably won't mow again.

Also, it took me a heck of a lot longer than I was expecting. I have a 5 ft brush hog and thought I was going a solid speed. But maybe 5 is a little undersized for larger acres??
View attachment 8439

Good looking field, well done!

 

[SDinWI]

Looks awesome.. 5 foot is small, but doable if your patient. I believe ours is 7ft.

Did you see any birds while mowing?

Gotcha, thought it might be.

None while mowing but flushed a chick in another field I'm preparing to frost seed. I don't doubt that the CRP could've held some birds pre-cut. Flushed a couple rabbits. Only minor complaint I have is that I don't love the clean rows from the no-till drill and there are some areas where the tires were that didn't get planted (see bottom left of pic). I might toss some more seed in the bare spots just cause I'm nit-picky, but it'll fill in with time I assume.

 

[cyclonenation10]

Personally I wouldn't worry about the bare spots - might actually be better, more bare ground for young broods to navigate, and some weeds certainly isn't a bad thing.

 

[SDinWI]

Beautiful view tonight on the prairie Wanted to take good look at the growth this year before the growing season comes to an end shortly.

I noticed that the prairie popped with yellow in August/September with some of the late summer bloomers it seems (black eyed Susan & the sunflowers). There was also natural partridge pea, red and white clover, and blue vervain I spotted that wasn’t planted. All high quality pollinator plants that can finally shine after being sprayed out year after year.

I started this thread as a way to show how a CRP/native grass/forb planting could look & evolve over time. I’ve never done anything of the sort before and wanted to track the results for anyone who’s curious about a planting of their own and for my own sake. They say the first 3 years of a native planting can be described as sleep, creep, and leap. I’d agree that year 1 was mostly a sleep year - the grasses didn’t really show up along with most of the early to mid blooming forbs. Establishing long term roots and not vertical growth was the name of the game. It’ll be interested to see how it really takes shape in these next 2 years.

Fun stuff…After following the CRP this year, I’m already planning the next pollinator project for next spring.

 

[cyclonenation10]

Beautiful view tonight on the prairie Wanted to take good look at the growth this year before the growing season comes to an end shortly.

I noticed that the prairie popped with yellow in August/September with some of the late summer bloomers it seems (black eyed Susan & the sunflowers). There was also natural partridge pea, red and white clover, and blue vervain I spotted that wasn’t planted. All high quality pollinator plants that can finally shine after being sprayed out year after year.

I started this thread as a way to show how a CRP/native grass/forb planting could look & evolve over time. I’ve never done anything of the sort before and wanted to track the results for anyone who’s curious about a planting of their own and for my own sake. They say the first 3 years of a native planting can be described as sleep, creep, and leap. I’d agree that year 1 was mostly a sleep year - the grasses didn’t really show up along with most of the early to mid blooming forbs. Establishing long term roots and not vertical growth was the name of the game. It’ll be interested to see how it really takes shape in these next 2 years.

Fun stuff…After following the CRP this year, I’m already planning the next pollinator project for next spring.
View attachment 8634
View attachment 8635

That looks as good as any first year seeding that I've seen before. Great structure, doesn't seem to have too many cool season grass nuisances. Awesome stuff. I think you'll have a beautiful stand next year.

 

[91reddog]

That looks as good as any first year seeding that I've seen before. Great structure, doesn't seem to have too many cool season grass nuisances. Awesome stuff. I think you'll have a beautiful stand next year.

Agreed, that is a very nice first year stand!

Could I ask what your prep was prior to seeding?

It's so nice to not see Canadian Wild Rye in your seed mix! Maybe these agencies are finally shying away from this killer.

I've got a frost seeding going in on bean ground in the future. Waiting for the beans to come out so we can have the surveying/pins placed on our land extension at our house in Garretson.

 

[SDinWI]

Agreed, that is a very nice first year stand!

Could I ask what your prep was prior to seeding?

It's so nice to not see Canadian Wild Rye in your seed mix! Maybe these agencies are finally shying away from this killer.

I've got a frost seeding going in on bean ground in the future. Waiting for the beans to come out so we can have the surveying/pins placed on our land extension at our house in Garretson.

Beautiful stand to you as well! Good luck with the frost seeding! I'm going to try my hand at that for the first time this winter as well.

It was historically an ag field on a corn, beans rotation. They had beans on the prior year but the farmer mistakenly subsoiled the field after harvest so it was uneven. I had to drag to level it back out in the spring. Kind of ruined the perfect set up I had of being able to no till into the very little stubble. There was a burndown with just glyphosate two days prior to planting, and it was planted June 12th. Perfect timing with rain that night.

I worked with the NRCS/PF Biologist, and we created the mix together. With the continuous CRP program I'm in, he said we could create our own seed mix. So, I made sure to leave the rye out of it! He knows some people don't want rye in their mix for that reason, and it sounds like they try to accommodate in one way or another.

 

[SDinWI]

Also have to say I've been bow hunting out by the CRP and I've seen 2 chicks, a rooster, and a hen and 5 chicks in three sits in or just off the CRP. More birds than deer!

 

[91reddog]

Also have to say I've been bow hunting out by the CRP and I've seen 2 chicks, a rooster, and a hen and 5 chicks in three sits in or just off the CRP. More birds than deer!

I'm quite intrigued by you June seeding. Everything I've ever done has been a frost seeding. Alot of the reasons for that, is that alot of my forbs have required a cold stratification. I like what you have done for a first year stand!

I've always followed a 3 mowing increment mid June ,mid July and mid August as my advisor suggested. My biggest problem has always been mowing too short I feel. Even on my highest setting it's 4.5 inches and I've painfully figured out that that is too low in my opinion. I think I'm going to seek out a sickel mower for my next project . I may spread the seeds that need to be stratified in December and then put in the rest in May and give that a try. It's slightly less than an acre extension to our acreage to square it up.

 

[SDinWI]

Yeah, the NRCS recommended I plant via no till in the spring. As far as I understand, the forbs that need stratification will sit there dormant until they go through a cold cycle this winter.

I probably could’ve mowed a time or two more but tractor/mower issues stalled that.

I will try frost seeding some pollinator areas this winter. So, I can see how the two methods compare next year. I’ve killed off the areas but I’m hoping I can use cleth to control grasses to limit competition.