Spring Projects delayed

Prairie Drifter-

Nice video! I love seeing those little buggers running around.

BTW, I had my helper farming today while I was in Dodge. He called and said the LPC were using some of my ground for a lek. He took some pictures from the tractor so will see how they turn out. The LPC have had leks around me on the neighbors, but this is the first that I know of on me in my lifetime. It is close to some of the old historic leks, evidenced by bird points found in the area. This is on my irrigated ground that I tried to enroll in the CREP for the Upper Arkansas(a water conservation program) that I didn't qualify since I was voluntarily conserving irrigation water. I wanted to run the streets of Dodge and shout, "The chickens are back, the chickens are back!", but figured that would get me a straight jacket. Most people are not as crazy about birds as I.

Again, nice article on your efforts for the gentleman bobs.
 
Thanks Myron. Wouldn't have guessed I would get the chance to do it. If you have a high pasture, you might try mowing a couple of acres on the top of a hill in the fall. You might find them using it next spring to boom. Thanks again for the compliment. As we saw in the surrogator thread, many of our peers need more information on quail ecology. This is just a snip, but it may spur them to look further.
 
PD, I have delayed intelligence. I was expecting the star of the show to be named PrairieDrifter for some reason. I caught on after awhile. :) You're right up there with Marty Stouffer in my book after watching the video WELL DONE!

I especially liked the ground level view. I use that approach with whitetails (Mgmt) and figure they only need enough to cover the height of their body, not huge tall trees like most hunters think.
 
Chris

Thanks Chris. It doesn't amount to much, but it could start people investigating. If that person farms 5,000 acrres, I've made a difference. Maynard, don't know where Myron came from, sorry! Hands not connected to my brain!
 
Spring Projects are DONE!

Guys, happy to report that all spring projects are completed. CRP grass and trees and food plots got planted just in front of nice rain.

Biggest surprises was when I thought I had 20 acres of food plots to do I really had 40 acres. Put on about 3 bags of milo, cane and millet each so should cover OK.

My operator seems to have all his beans and corn planted and winter wheat is doing nicely.

Now we switch to noxious weed control.

BTW, that one CRP plot that had the cheatgrass problem I end up spray light amount of roundup, milestone and plateau on it and the warms are coming. I did a terrible job of spraying. I can tell there is a GPS in my future. Used same mix on new CRP grass so we will see how they come this year with that investment. Note: FSA will not cost share weed control if doen ahead of grass planting.:(

I have a better idea how to setup for burns next spring and that is to mow green strips around all burn areas so they are nice and green come burn time.
 
Fire Breaks

Chris, if you'll mow those fire breaks this fall, they will be greener and cleaner next spring. Yes, you may need to remow in the spring, but the threat of creeping fire will be less.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Chris, if you'll mow those fire breaks this fall, they will be greener and cleaner next spring. Yes, you may need to remow in the spring, but the threat of creeping fire will be less.
Click to expand...

Prairie Drifter,

thanks for this confirmation. I have to believe that mowing the breaks is much better than busting ground since the distrubance arouses the noxious weeds pretty bad in our country.

With a clean and green buffer around edges of these burn areas I would think managing those burns would be pretty gravy. Burn blocks range in size from 4-20 acres each.

I am thinking this would also be an efficient way to manage mid-term CRP contract requirements vs. the clipping and bayling or disturbance disking practices????
 
A combination of burning and disturbance disking would give you the best results. However, if noxious weeds are a big problem, the disking will add costs in their control. Yes, the burning will give you much better results than mowing/haying. When you clip annual forbs, you kill the plant. That is brood cover and was going to be beneficial. The burning, timed right, will encourage perennial forbs and set back aggressive grass stands. Further, the mowing just adds to the thatch and makes feeding in the grass more difficult.
 
Here in Kansas, the best response from disking is in Oct/Nov. So the disk preceeds the fire. The later you disk here, the more grassy response you get-sandbur, foxtail, tumble windmill grass etc.
 
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