I have to give it to CNC. I’ve never known anyone so passionate about growing weeds that most everyone else is trying to get rid of. It takes all kind to make this world go around.

I appreciate that Marsh……..but saying that everyone else is trying to get rid of them is not true. There are days in the spring when the sky is so thick with smoke around here that you cant see the sun for it. People aren’t just doing that because they like the smell of smoke……They are burning to promote the growth of native understory vegetation. Why? Because it’s the foundation block for supporting wildlife populations. The highest deer density properties I go to are nothing but a sea of understory vegetation….thousands of contiguous acres of plants y’all like to call “weeds”.

I see a way that I believe would allow you to produce a much more prolific understory than what is even being done now by using different management practices that focus on rotationally recycling the carbon back to the soil. The soil is, after all, the foundation block for the vegetation we're trying to produce. So it makes sense if we first and foremost try to manage it as productively as possible. Many folks are already using these methods to manage land around the world in this manner. What only a handful have done so far, that I’m aware of, is to use these methods to manage a hunting operation. I believe there is the potential for some of these hunting “plantations” as well as other landowners to manage their operations more profitably and productively by using cattle or other grazers as their tool for setting back succession of the understory……Maximizing the return that the land is capable of producing. Right now people don’t combine the uses like the potential exists for. Not only would you be adding the income produced from the cattle and/or other grazers, but I also firmly believe that you would increase the productivity of the wildlife if managed correctly. I've got a small test area built here that I'm now ready to rotate a few cows or sheep around on if I want to. I'd like to see it done on a much larger scale though. I think the results would be pretty awesome to see.

Fungi…….. Very important in the decomposition process and the recycling of biomass….. Do you notice what type plant is helping to promote their populations?? It's the very woody stuff.....

I go to a lot of properties that are managed with fire and I can see with my own eyes the differences in productivity and diversity of the understory plants in comparison to what I'm doing and I’m not even getting the fertilization boost that would come from the manure and urine of a grazing herd. I also feel quite certain that I see where folks are even hurting their situation by using fire too frequently and with too much intensity……They are degrading the topsoil over time and in turn degrading the microbial and plant communities that are able to be produced from it. It results in a less diverse and a less productive understory long term. I think fire should still be kept in the tool box and used but we might want to reexamine some of the impacts we have using it…..All situations are not the same and soil management impacts should be a consideration...especially when talking about the impacts on soil carbon levels

On that note, in addition to better soil building practices long term in comparison to using fire…..here is another way in which managing the understory with grazers would have a more beneficial impact on the deer and other wildlife in my opinion……When folks typically burn in the spring it’s a one time affair that sets back succession and produces one new flush of growth in the spring. In comparison though, a holistic grazing approach to setting back succession moves the grazing herd from new paddock to new paddock once or twice a week. The result of this is that all summer long you have paddocks that are producing new flushes of growth in a bunch of various stages……This then allows the wildlife to come in behind the grazing herd and “pick and choose” and feed off of the best parts of the new flushes of fertilized growing plants ……and if the animals are able to feed off a continual supply of new flushes of growth and very high energy growing tips……then you produce a better end product with the animal….both cattle and deer.

Marsh…….the much bigger picture of things with these holistic grazing ideas (or whatever name you want to give it) is that if someone were to take and implement these grazing practices on a big piece of recreational hunting property for the purposes of being used a tool for managing succession…..Then it could change our overall perception of what “raising cows” has to look like……And if that were to start happening then there’s a WHOLE LOT of cow pasture that could be turned back into productive wildlife habitat over the course of the next few decades….or at least start a trend in that direction…..which would have far reaching impacts. I believe there is very real potential for this to happen.

So now circling back around to question on producing bucks…….Recent research has shown that the nutrient quality of any individual plant is the same whether we test that plant in Iowa or South Carolina. The type soil it is being grown in has no impact on it’s nutrient content and therefore no impact on antler development or other herd characteristics….In other words, a ragweed plant in Alabama or South Carolina is the same ragweed plant in Iowa regardless of the soil……The difference though and the reason for these areas producing more “big bucks”……is their soil’s ability to grow high quality forage in much more abundance…….So therefore, that research also translates into meaning that if we can manage our own land here in Alabama to produce a higher abundance of high quality forage……then we also have the potential to grow better deer…..and the manner in which we manage the soil has major impacts on the abundance as well as the type of forage (which species) that are available. .....

So we went from tractor time to this???

Now if you’re still following along with that then imagine that were not only providing the wildlife with an abundance of high quality forage…..but by managing in a way to produce constant new flushes of growth…….you’re providing the wildlife with a steady supply of the most high energy part of these plants as well as various stages that they themselves can pick and choose from.

……AND….……..if you want to talk about managing for truly top end type chit…….then you can still incorporate large scale “Ag” into the mix…… I know of several properties that would be prime for doing just this type thing…….one which is within the black belt soil region and has a couple hundred acres of ag land within a couple thousand acre recreational hunting property. I believe properties like this have the potential to be something sho nuff special above what they are now. I think they could produce 170”-200” deer with consistency. I see what is being produced now because I track these places.

The thing that makes that ag land so special is crops. Not weeds

I’m still trying to wrap my head around why anyone would want to do away with a place that held wood ducks? That obviously meant there was food and water there for ducks...and deer?

It wasnt on purpose......It was the unintended consequences of the management practices that were happening "upstream" in the watershed that caused the beaver pond to silt in over time

🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿

Privet hedge actually played a large role in this process……The watershed area we’re talking about here is shaped like the letter “F” with two hollers feeding into a main bottom where the beaver pond used to be. All of the fingers have been taken over by privet hedge in the past which is pretty common around here now. When that happens though the privet eventually forms a monoculture in the midstory and it, along with some other trash trees completely shades out the understory vegetation…….There’s no vegetation then on the soil surface to slow down the flow of water and hold the topsoil together. Water rushes down the bottoms in a flash flooding type manner with the force of the water carrying loads of silt with it that eventually fall out of suspension once it hits the beaver pond and slows down. Look back in my original pics toward the bottom of page 1 posted on 6/1 at the chocolate color of the water and you’ll see the sediment in suspension. There’s more than just one factor that caused the end result of the silting in process.

Again, this is just being shown as an example of the things we are all doing to the land…..I’m not mad at anyone or pointing fingers……….We all as a society could do a better job of being the “caretakers of the land”…..

But to compound this flash flood process that’s taking place in the watershed……At the top end of the first finger you had a farmer repeatedly turning the soil over on a large field annually......and at the top end of the other finger you have an old black man running way too many cows on too few acres without ever having any rest……..Both of these situations result in poor water infiltration and excess runoff across a good little swath of land that is feeding these water sheds during rain events…..A lot of that water that is flashing flooding the bottoms should be getting absorbed by the land but instead it runs off and makes the situation worse….Several factors lead to compounding the issue.

Thinking more about how the natural watershed systems were designed to function……I think one of the beaver’s role in nature is to help keep the midstory of these watersheds thinned out so that native understory species don’t get shaded out by woody growth. That’s pretty much what they spend their life doing is “thinning” up and down the watershed. I picture our watersheds looking much different before we really started tampering with it and they functioned in a much different manner. Can you imagine how many beaver lakes/ponds there likely were along all of the watershed fingers back when we first discovered America? I would guess that it encompassed most ALL of the watershed fingers and formed a gigantic interconnected system of small ponds and damns…..Think about how much that would change the water runoff across the landscape compared to what we have now when heavy rains occur…. We’ve drastically altered the functioning in comparison. Most of the upper ends of our watersheds are full of privet now with little to no native understory species.....I think if we could restore as many of them back to what they once looked like it would have a pretty significant impact on wildlife in those areas…..Most of our small scale watershed fingers are just sitting there now not being managed at all anyways…….yet labeled as “Stream Management Zones”…….

Looks like I may have just a smidge of volunteer crimson sprouting........


The whole field is covered in it actually.....it'll be interesting to see how long it makes it.

It won’t make it past a good hot spell. My place is covered in it too.

Yep, I was afraid that would be the case.........

All kinds of critters hanging around my field .....First one of these I've seen in a while......I believe my lab could sniff out a mole turd.......