Six Years of Habitat Restoration: Reaping the Rewards

[@CentralMississippiWhitetail]

Showing these updates really highlights how well this works. Thanks for the follow ups..

[@JaysClubHouse]

Love the longer video. Little more explanation and 1st hand insight

[@Mariposaland]

That looks good! Nice job Drew and Will.

[@patrickwolf4373]

Congratulations Will and Drew! What great results due to hard and smart work! Patrick Wolf, WI

[@blitzcrusher299]

Looks like a savannah. Great work guys. Bet it’s full of game.

[@tundrafiend01]

What an awesome video. Definitely good motivation to get back in the woods and to continue TSI projects.

[@trentsipsy2871]

Great episode Daniel.

[@buydirtlife]

Very informative video! Awesome stuff fellas!!

[@brianoestreich1319]

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[@bog6282]

Awesome video, beautiful place! So what is the plan for that grass field?

[@daronsmith2229]

I’ve got a farm in Nebraska where like you, I drilled in a field of native grass. It’s a 16 acre field and like you I don’t see much of any deer using it other than passing through. So this year I took four interior areas and sprayed 2 quarts of glyphosate per acre. Doing that kind of scared me but, it thinned the native grass down so that there was ample area for Forbes and for deer to bed.

[@GrowingDeerTV]

Daron - Great work! Using fire at different times of year also helps increase the diversity in native grass stands/promotes forbs and other native species.

[@littlerayofsunshine69]

Yay! GMO deer!

[@grantdenbow]

Would definitely thin that NWSG stand, and overseed a forb mix after a burn. Definitely add some thicket forming shrubs and you won't be able to keep the deer out. Great looking property, I wish more people would take this level of initiative.

[@brentkuehne435]

If most have not figured it out. It takes a tremendous amount of time, money, and work to get and keep these properties in highly productive condition. So, before embarking on such a project be fully aware! It's a hell of a lot easier to tell someone how to do it, than actually doing it yourself !

[@GrowingDeerTV]

We've been improving our property for decades - some years with hand tools and other year with equipment. Why discourage folks?

[@brentkuehne435]

@GrowingDeerTV Same here! 22 years as a matter of fact, with marginal results.Don't get me wrong, I don't want to discourage people. I just want them to know what they are getting into. I have worked with representatives of this organization with my timber management, and less just say things didn't go well! Cost me a bundle to correct issues with my cutting.

[@Whiskey61]

That native grass field would be a good candidate to turn into an Old Field habitat.

[@Kurtdog63]

CRP fields are amazing places for deer to feed and bed. There are a lot of weed type broadleaf plants that get waist to chest high that the deer feed on and bed in. I have put grassy type food plots in and trail cameras showed the deer walking thru it and don't even put their head down to eat it. I mowed some trails for access at the edge of the CRP and raised the mower deck up to 5 inches and the clover came on like a carpet in the trails. The ag fields stayed in CRP for two years. Bucks went to an older age class, and were actually showing up during the daylight hours on trail camera. Farmer took the property out of CRP third year, planted soybeans. Trophy deer went nocturnal and turkeys disappeared. Hunting went to crap.

[@Winterascent]

Are you missing a key component of pre-settlement grasslands? Large ruminant grazers like buffalo, which are now extinct from the region? That grass supported other game beyond deer and turkey.

[@Mo75149-j]

Switchgrass is mostly just for structure, or for screening or access. Not much eat it, I don't hardly find sheds in it either. No animal or deer needs more than 30% grass in a native landscape. Native regen growth is 10x better quality I agree with you guys!

[@matthewmarvin5993]

Looks like the native grass stand could be improved by adding adaptive grazing of cattle to the property. Large herbivores were always a part of natural ecosystems. We don’t have bison or elk so we currently use cattle as a substitute.

[@TwoBucksShy]

21:00 man.. bet they could fatten up a couple beef cows on all that grass

[@lukeschmitt3018]

Would a growing season burn on the grass field select for more forbs and less grass?

[@GrowingDeerTV]

Luke - Fire rarely terminates perennial grasses. However, growing season burns often do result in more diversity of plant species.

[@redheadhunter4525]

I didn’t know Rick Moranis was a deer habitat guy.

[@Mattryan843]

How big is this property?

[@grantatwood8579]

The only problem with fire is the forestry commission charging 50$ a acre. Any ways to minimize that cost? I can make the fire lines myself

[@GrowingDeerTV]

Wow - I've never heard of a state charging that much. Which state quoted you that rate? Most folks take a class or two, get some experience on a well-planned fire and then burn on their own property.

[@grantatwood8579]

@@GrowingDeerTV I’m in southeast Arkansas unfortunately

[@wcb5890]

Any chance you could contact a college with a wildlife/forestry program and have them do it? I know for my forestry class we did our burn training and wildland firefighting training on city, state, and some private land.

[@Christopheren]

I have a good hunting property. 20 acres lots of terrain . I have been scared to do any burning because there’s two different gas lines on the property. Would you be scared to burn near a pipeline?

[@KevMaine]

The dude in the Boulavard shirt looks like Eddie Van Halen's twin brother.

[@jimkindle3563]

💪👊👍

[@showmetheheartland]

Disk sections of the nwsg field. That'll set the grasses back and encourage forbs. Disc a 1/3 of the field each year until it is closser to what you'd like to have. In addition, burning that field in the summer or fall will also set the grasses back and encourage more forbs.

[@GrowingDeerTV]

Goodness - fire is great but don't disk.

[@showmetheheartland]

​​@@GrowingDeerTV this would be one instance when I would disc, since in this circumstance it would quickly eliminate some of the grass and encourage annual forbs at the same time. I certainly wouldn't advise "recreational discing", but hitting each part of the field once over the next three years with a one time disc treatment isn't doing much damage in proportion to the benefits that the practice provides. Fire is great, but it'll take years of fire alone to set that rank grass stand back to a level that the landowner will be satisfied with. In fact, he'll probably never get there in his lifetime with fire alone. Discing is a tool in the box just like anything else.

[@wcb5890]

So...the land owners created a monoculture with white oaks, or are at least going that way?

[@GrowingDeerTV]

No - whites and reds (which are families) and there are several species in those families. Not sure how you interpreted this - let alone ignoring the gads of herbaceous species present now were there was primarily only dead leaves.

[@showmetheheartland]

The landowner never said that!