Morning glories are starting to bloom and get showy…….Not sure why people dislike this plant so much…..It would suit me just fine if the whole field blooms out like this....... Not to mention it adds a “vining” layer onto your biomass the same as something like vetch …….Saying that they don’t “feed” anything would be pretty short sighted. I wonder sometimes how folks picture that things are supposed to look and why……..Or when all of the turkey management discussions are going on why some things are never mentioned that seem to be such an important cog in the wheel……Maybe these are some of the things that leave folks scratching their heads….Does anyone ever discuss the richness of the soil or plant diversity driving an insect food web??

If you ever tried to harvest a field of soybeans with morning glory( tie vines) you would understand why they are disliked so much. If I find a plant in my garden I spray it and the plants next to immediately to be sure I kill that SOB.

I understand why farmers would not like it but wildlife management is not the same as farming. Farming wants to grow a high yield of ONE crop......Wildlife Management needs plant diversity to make things go round and round......

You know I’m not against farming in any way and understand we have to feed society…..To me though, farming and wildlife management are just two entirely different world’s with completely different variables, goals, and constraints………We are looking at it through two totally different lenses. The things that are so much of a concern for the farmer have no bearing on what is or isn’t a constraint for the wildlife manager……In fact, many of the goals of a farmer are in direct contradiction to the goals of a wildlife manager.

For example…..if you want things like turkey and quail to thrive then you need to produce thriving food sources for them……Critters like crickets and tiny snails don’t just exist alone in populations by themselves…..They live within a dynamic food web ……You dont JUST grow crickets to feed the turkey and quail, you have to grow the whole system…..and that is done through growing the richness of the soil and promoting plant diversity……not eradicating it……If you want to produce critters like crickets and tiny snails then you have to create the habitat for them to exist in. That concept applies to below ground as well as above and to the habitat for more critters than just the deer and turkey. I think for the most part we focus solely on what is happening above ground and forget about what is happening below even though the latter is likely the more important. There aint a whole lot for a turkey to go scratching after in a biological desert.

In the end you really should be focused on growing the “whole” ecosystem shebang if you want to grow the critters within it. Be able to see the whole circle and how to grow it ALL instead of becoming so fixated on one or two things that you get tunnel vision. It’s very obvious to see just how much we have lost sight of the bigger cycles when we have these discussions about native plants……Very, very few people seem to recognize that any of them have a purpose except for maybe three or four that they cherry pick and deem as “good” simply because deer eat them……. That's tunnel vision.

This is called Butterfly Pea……..It’s a legume.





It’s also proof that nature is trying to show you the blueprint……..you just gotta be observant enough to see it…

This guy looks like someone pissed in his Corn Flakes this morning......I got the feeling when I was snapping the pic that he was saying......"WTF are you looking at ??".......If he hangs around I think I may call him Fred..... He looks like some kind of small predator with them talons he's got.....

These little guys are starting to show up more zipping around now........

Kinda just thought this was cool looking.........

Most everything I’m showing is coming from about a 3 acre area………I’m just scratching the surface too of what’s blooming and buzzing and flittering around. There’s a LOT of insect and plant diversity in a small area……In this situation, each acre is being very productive in producing all the different components of this food chain we’re talking about. These are the most productive acres in this sense in the immediate area because of how they've been actively managed and its why this turkey or turkeys are keying in on it……

Now if you could replicate this and make every acre of lets say a 1,000 acres have the same “pound for pound” productivity and diversity across each acre of land……..then that’s when you start changing the game with scale…..If each and every acre is filled full of cover and food then that increases the carrying capacity ……Each acre is able to support more so the total amount that the property as a whole is able to support increases.

I really believe that if you want to know what has happened to all of the wildlife like turkey and quail it’s really not as much of a head scratcher as folks make it out to be……Look at what we’ve done to the “land” and how drastically we’ve changed it……there’s your answer. You gotta open your eyes a little wider too and look past just what’s on the surface…….How many thousands of acres of overgrazed cattle pasture do we have now with shallow degraded soils and no diversity??.......... How many thousands of acres of ag land are there now void of soil and insect life??......How many thousands of acres are there in monocultures of grass being cut for hay with zero diversity??.......How many thousands of acres are hit with a scorched earth treatment for site prep or nothing but pine needle understories??........I ain’t hating on nobody…..just pointing out the obvious.

I could go on but when you add it all up that’s the answer to where the wildlife have gone. Just look when you ride down the road what you see?? How many acres can you point your finger at and say “Hey, there’s a big chunk of land covered in rich black topsoil and a vast abundance of plant species??” In some form or fashion one or both have been stripped from a big part of the landscape….That’s the foundation that supports these wildlife populations….. rich soil and diverse plant communities. We’ve eliminated this foundation from across many, many acres………

Speaking of turkeys, I have a small field of Whitetail Fusion and alfa rack, and the turkeys are just about living in it. It's hard for me to believe as many pictures as I am getting and the length of time they are staying that they are eating bugs. But it makes me believe I have found something that is good for the turkeys.

CNC, I have enjoyed this thread as I see both sides of the habitat management equation and fully understand that we all have different operational constraints. However, coming from a region of the state that has a rather poor land quality in general, I have seen where rich plant communities as a result of many years of prescribed burning has had significant impacts on game. I have seen pics of fields on this site that I would only dream to have on my places, but that has not been a reality for me. My plots are all former log decks and we are currently trying to build them back up as there isn't a rich OM layer to work with. Been using lots of Petcher seed blends which seem to do well in poor soil conditions. I do some of my fields conventionally and some with nothing but a spiked chain harrow drag as they are sandy, and have seen improvement in my poorest fields from this method. That Howardtown Cur of yours should work out well for you ! I am sure you are starting to learn that they are different from most breeds, but I doubt you will find anything with more prey drive. Their ability to bay and catch will keep a lot of wounded deer from feeding coyotes.

Thanks!.......I completely agree with you on the benefits of fire……It's definitely one of the major tools in the box. I think we could slightly tweak the typical fire regime that people are doing now and merge it with some of what I’m showing to produce your most optimal outcome……Really the only reason fire has been excluded from what I’m doing is because of concerns with several “smoke sensitive areas”……So I’ve been managing using other methods.

Something that I have really noticed a difference as a result is in the ratio of broadleafs/forbs/legumes to bunch grasses. I do have areas of bunch grasses but the recycling methods I’ve been doing have heavily favored the broadleafs……What I see when I go to these quail plantations though and land managed with frequent dormant season fire is often understories heavily dominated by grasses…….I think there should be a happy medium in there and that’s exactly how the original system likely functioned……

Yes, you did used to have periodic stand replacement fires that came through naturally……but what you also had in between those fire cycles that most people arent replicating today were herds of grazers that roamed around and recycled a lot of the grass/carbon production back to the soil……The way we’re doing it now is mostly taking all of that above ground carbon that the grasses are producing and sending it up into the air every couple years…..What I think should happen that would make things even more productive is if a good portion of that grass was put back into the soil and THEN a fire sent through……That would keep enriching the soil too at the same time….....

I'm really excited about my cur dog......That's Lu-lu.

I’m renting one of those machines that you feed it square bales of hay and it spits them out for you. I may do this on some of my logging decks since there’s not much there now. I have some other fields (Sandy loam) that won’t grow much at all. I drilled them last year and they did ok but nothing spectacular. May add some hay to that field as well. What’s your thoughts? Thanks

I think that’s an excellent idea……..Blow it on right after you drill in your fall plots and then come over the top with some nitrogen…….If you’re still in the position of the fields struggling to produce then something like millet and periodic doses of N during the summer with help too…..It’s just what you’re needing to begin reclaiming an area like that……Nature used pure crabgrass originally in my field……You can mimic that with millet.....A thick stand of a fine grass crop is what you're looking for

Let me add one more thing to the post about fire….Here’s another area where I think we are a little off with our use of fire and could tweak things…… Now take this with a grain of salt as I may be dead wrong but I’m just going on common sense observations here……

When deer season ends in February folks start lighting up their drip torches and it looks like the world is on fire around here…..Lots of prescribed burns start taking place and one of the big talking points for “why” we’re doing it is that it mimics the natural fires that used to occur in the southeast long ago…….Here’s my knock on that idea though…..In order to ignite “natural fire” you need cloud to ground lightening and dry tinder…..How many lightning storms do we typically have around here in Alabama during February??......It’s actually pretty rare that we have those type of events during the winter, right??? On top of that…..we’re talking about the time of year when things are typically the wettest……So what are the odds of frequent natural fire from lightening occurring during this time?? It’s pretty damn low if you ask me….I’d say rare even.

Now……when would it be much more reasonable for a lightening storm to occur in Alabama and set the dry woods on fire?? During the summer correct??.....Maybe July, August, September......During the growing season……..And what does a slow low intensity burn during the 90+ degree heat of the summer typically accomplish??......Sweetgum/hardwood control……..I believe that “natural fires” were likely low intensity growing season burns that helped control the woody species and not the frequent dormant season burns we are using ……I also think the impact of the grazers controlling the grasses was a further measure that kept the fires low intensity since they reduced the grass fuel load in different areas.

My point is that if we are actually mimicking nature then we’re probably burning at the wrong time and thus creating a sorta bastardized version of what things actually looked like that is weighted too heavily toward grass.

What I'm doing is attempting to replicate the things that guy was showing in the video…….I think he’s likely hitting the sweet spot using cattle and fire both as well as how he is setting things up structurally and still actively managing during the growing season…..If you were a high fence owner then you could as Bob Ross says……”Really get crazy with it”……..and bring in a small herd of some exotic grazer and allow them to be your grass managers instead of cattle. The key would be having an eye for how much was too much......

I believe the the purple flowers are called "slender vervain".......

Something else you might could do with those spots is if you can find someone in the area who has some round bales of hay that may have gone bad or something……Take a whole roll and set it out in the middle of the field just after deer season and maybe slightly bust them open a little but leave it in a decent sized clump…..Just let them sit like that all the way through turkey season and you may even add multiple clumps to each field……You might could even turn loose a few tubes of crickets in the hay bales and call it a microbial inoculant..... ..Whenever you eventually come in and mow you’ll just run over and finish scattering it with a mower or something. I have been told that turkeys really like that. It would be a great way of getting some richness started though in a degraded area