I could sum it up in two words but it wouldn't be enough to convince folks simply by saying "it worked"

With your theory of OM, is that not what soil is? Trees, shrubs, grasses, leaves, all decayed into a mass? Seems like they only way to improve that would be fertilizer. Burning just helps clean out and begins the process that takes years to do.

Yes, soil is a combination of a few things......its the finely ground up rock that comes from the subsoil.....this is the base of our mix......combined with the decomposed organic litter that's deposited on the surface.....your shrubs, leaves, grasses, etc.......we also refer to this as "carbon".......That is a huge component of rich properly functioning soil.....With fire most of your above ground carbon is gonna be released into the atmosphere through combustion.....so therefore you've taken away a large percentage of the soil carbon it would have gotten through decomposition......That's what I'm suggesting mob grazing would give you in comparison.....It would recycle that carbon back to the soil instead of releasing it to the atmosphere......AND.....AND....it would be applying "fertilizer" on top of the vegetation through cow manure/urine.....I'm suggesting that the end result would be a more fertile soil which would produce a more productive understory.....which equates to an increased carrying capacity

The impacts of organic matter is dramatic…..especially on sandy soils……I think the soils could be managed much more productively in this manner while still keeping fire in the toolbox…..There will still have to be some woody control I’m sure…..I see it here at my place even though I’m not technically mob grazing…..I’m recycling the vegetation back the soil though with my tractor and I’m getting a more vibrant productive understory from it than what I see fire alone causing in the places I go…….Add manure to the mix and it would be a dense jungle of diverse understory growth…..Granted I’m just measuring with my eyeball….but I believe an actually study would show this to be true

Just to add to this……I think SMZ management is one place where we really have a lot of room for improvement and managing the understory in this manner would transform those areas…..Think about this…..if you look at the map…..where is the best soil moisture??......Well, let’s manage those areas then to produce the best understory vegetation since that’s where our best soil moisture is located…..instead of shading it all out and letting the top soil erode away during annual flash flooding events

That's more than 100 words.

--“I have just about tripled my grass production and started growing new species like eastern gamma grass, Indiangrass, and big and little bluestem – all those species now have time to go to seed,” he said.


--Totemeier will receive financial assistance through USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) to offset some of the conservation practice expenses.


--For example, Totemeier likes to graze his cattle in 50 percent timber and 50 percent grassland paddocks during the summer heat. “They spend the days in the woods eating high protein leaves from invasive honeysuckle,” he said, “then move to grasslands in the evenings to eat mixed grasses and legumes



https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/ia/newsroom/stories/STELPRDB1186272/


The deer come from the soil.

Just skip all this madness and airdrop in 10 tons of peat and potting soil per acre.
That ought to do it.

That's not a bad idea but dont you think that seems a little unrealistic?

Almost as unrealistic of your above ideas.
I know you mean well, but the thing is that no one has the time or money to do any of those things.
And no one is going to import cows to eat everything on site. Nor would they want to. Nor could 99% of people even do that.
And the deer wouldn't want all their food eaten by cows either.
Nor would people want cows to wipe out their fall and summer food plots.

The best management tools are fire for pines, strategic thinning of hardwoods as well as pines, and planting as many fall and summer food plots as possible and liming them. As a practical matter doing those things would amount to doing the maximum possible for improving land for wildlife. Other then hauling in massive amounts of peat and dark rich top soil with dump trucks for food plots.

I disagree with you.......Several of those things you listed are not really accurate.....Y'all arent thinking big enough

There are actually people who are already putting these ideas into practice to give proof to the theory.....

You say that people don’t want the cows eating up all of their deer vegetation…..but by that same thinking fire would be consuming it all……In actuality both methods are just setting back succession. However, cow are grazers and deer are browsers…..While there are some plant species that both animals will target….the cattle are for the most part using different plant species than the deer….You also have the ability to move the cattle off of a parcel to control how much of the vegetation they consume....they are rotated around in small temporary paddocks using electric fencing......You're simply using them as a tool to bring succession back down.....recycle carbon to the soil.....deposit manure on the land.....and turn a portion of the veg into beef.....which tastes better than carbon dioxide (combustion)

It costs around $17 an acre I believe to have someone burn to set back succession……What if someone brought in cattle and did it for less and the land produced more??? Would there be incentive for landowners to do it?

This one isnt overly entertaining but if you'll listen to what they guy is saying he'll explain how to use the cattle to help in managing food plots

Do cows eat gum trees? Fire is a quick and effective method of mgmt. And, it's something a land mgr could do on a large scale. If there is enough farming acreage, you could really turn up the tonnage of food produced by improving those acres to produce much forage for the deer. On a large scale (and not that large), I just don't think you can make a difference in a given piece of land like you're talking about CNC. I suppose a lot of things are possible... physically speaking... but all things cost money and time and usually one or the other runs out!!

Oh man at the new herbaceous growth after a fire (given temp is right) and fertilizing your natural growth makes a difference. Any given acre of land could have an enormous turn-around in a matter of a few days with fire. That given acre could be thousands of acres which could be improved QUICKLY!!!!!! At not a lot of costs to the landowner.

I vote for fire.

Are cattle pastures overrun with sweetgum? I'm being serious....there's obviously some type of sweet gum control going on at some point in the process there. That isnt to mean that we plan on making everything look like a cattle pasture.....only pointing at the fact that there IS the possibility for woody control there.....just not sure how it would play out

I just don’t think fire is the end all-cure all to wildlife management even though IT IS a big part of it….Now don’t get me wrong as this is easy for folks to do in these discussions and think that I am somehow suddenly against fire….no……I just recognize that there are other tools that can be used as well and may be better in some situations. I think fire CAN have a negative impact

I’m thinking of one property in particular that I’ve been on a good bit in the past that’s managed with fire. I’ve even helped to burn the place myself….Its in a very poor soil area and the understory forage just really isn’t that great despite being burned and getting sunlight…..I think part of the problem may be that the soils are too thin from hot fires too frequently. Ideally you probably want to set back succession every couple of years but doing so is basically burning up all of your above ground biomass and keeping it from the soil…... That biomass has a big impact on poor soils....As you add it or remove it from my throw and mow test field....the quality and quantity of the vegetation changes.....species composition also changes ....The same principles play out across the rest of the land that is playing out in my test field.....soil organic matter and how we manage it has the same impacts

As far as scale is concerned......there's a lot of small hunting properties being sold now in the 200-500 acre range.....How hard would it be to manage a property that size in this manner if you rotated the cattle around in 50 acre parcels or something of that nature?.....Its just a matter of figuring out how many cattle it would take to reset 50 acres of understory vegetation in a timely manner so that they could be rotated to the next 50 ....Fire is $17 an acre.....for easy math lets just say I bid $10 an acre to reset the succession with my cattle.....That's $5000 for the whole property.......Can I move cattle in and temporarily fence it off 50 acres at a time with hot wire for $5000 and make a profit?......Its certainly cheaper than buying or renting my own land to raise cattle on

Not hard if you build sanctuaries

Soil quality has no impact on forage quality. If we take pokeweed (for example) from Iowa and pokeweed from the sandhill region of North Carolina the nutritional content is the exact same. Soil quality does have an effect on forage quantity, the fertile soils in Iowa produce more forage but of the the same quality.

Moderate grazing does have some benefits if you're managing pasture or grasslands. If your management goal is for white-tailed deer I would strongly consider controlled burns. Burning will lower the soil acidity level by releasing phosphorus, nitrogen, calcium, etc.. and promote herbaceous plants and grasses.