Old pasture restoration

[carbonspyder]

Hi all, first time posting so bear with me.
I'm looking for some ideas on what to do with roughly 2 acres of old pasture on our farm that is no longer used by our cows. Attached below are some pictures for a general idea.

It's covered mostly in Timothy and the deer only use it as a means of travel to our crop fields you can see on the north end of the aerial, or towards a 1/2 acre food plot at the end of the red line in the woods on the aerial. The pasture is pretty much a large transition zone that isn't being used much by anything.

I'm willing to do some experimenting and have some pretty good equipment to work with (large tractors, large disc, chisel plow, etc). My first idea was to plant some native plants that I am currently stratifying in a couple patches and disc the rest to see what it turns into, I can elaborate on the natives I'm growing if any are interested.

Deer usage is my primary goal but I'm also trying to add some diversity to the area for pollinators and birds. I already have a few apple trees I've grafted planted that you can see with the orange fence around them.

Any ideas are appreciated, hopefully my pictures all work, thanks for looking.

 

[carbonspyder]

Made my first mistake, forgot to include I’m in Wisconsin, zone 4a/b. Not much snow yet this year unfortunately.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I'd have some good ideas for Pennsylvania, such as rye in the winter and clover in the summer, maybe planting a corner in switchgrass for bedding, or letting some grow up in native bushes. However, you should check and see what other Wisconsin people are doing to make habitat, maybe @MarkDarvin can speak into this from Minnesota...
Having big equipment is a huge plus to plant stuff, one thing with deer is that their digestive system isn't compatible with the lignens in grass, so that's why they don't touch the timothy, but they will pig out on cereal grain plantings if you can establish any of that in the early fall for late season food.

 

[1100LT20]

If it’s relatively flat terrain, I’d build a wagon wheel. Opening in middle for the blind with 6 to 8 lanes connecting from blind to pasture edges. Plant corn and leave standing and plant alfalfa on the hunting lanes. Or to benefit all wildlife, allow it to regenerate naturally and just plant some fall brassicas on the lanes. Plenty of ideas and keep us updated.

 

[carbonspyder]

Thanks guys, when I've planted winter wheat and rye around here deer and turkeys will typically use it for bedding instead of eating it but that wouldn't be a bad thing in this case.
I like the wheel approach and may modify that into some patches of different crops/cover like switchgrass or some native bushes closer to the woods for cover like was suggested, then some crop and forb patches closer to the fields. We have lots of ag around here and by far the biggest draw every year is beans, they'll beat out any food plot as long as they're standing.

 

[weekender21]

I’d spray it with gly next fall when the warm season natives are dormant. Goal being to kill the non native cool season plants and see what you get for free. The native seed bank might be good enough on its own.

Once you get it headed in a native old field direction, (could take chemical application two falls in a row) you could make more detailed planting to suit your needs and desires.


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[yoderjac]

I'm beginning the process of managing for weeds. The first step is to kill the grasses and then see what the native seed bank has to offer. Dr. Harper had a great video at the beginning of this thread: https://deerhunterforum.com/threads...lds-for-bigger-bucks-and-better-hunting.7125/. The thread itself has a lot of posts from me describing the path I'm on.

The biggest challenge is not equipment. It doesn't take much. I think fire is best if you can use it for management, but a disk will work. The video provides some good hard data supporting going this direction as well as tips on how to get there in different situations. I'm still too early in the process to provide long-term results, but it is a very low cost way to produce a lot of deer food and cover that is huntable.

 

[carbonspyder]

I've browsed that thread before and it actually was one of the things that led me to post this, I was hoping others followed that and tried doing it themselves already.

One thing I'd definitely like to get rid of is all of the Timothy, whether that's with gly or the disc/chisel plow. This spot has had cows pastured on it by my family for likely over a hundred years. I'm sure there's compaction in the soil and I'm worried there's not much for natives hiding in the seedbank but we'll see. I would also be interested in burning here and there but don't feel comfortable doing it myself, I may see if the local university fire club would come out.

 

[yoderjac]

I've browsed that thread before and it actually was one of the things that led me to post this, I was hoping others followed that and tried doing it themselves already.

One thing I'd definitely like to get rid of is all of the Timothy, whether that's with gly or the disc/chisel plow. This spot has had cows pastured on it by my family for likely over a hundred years. I'm sure there's compaction in the soil and I'm worried there's not much for natives hiding in the seedbank but we'll see. I would also be interested in burning here and there but don't feel comfortable doing it myself, I may see if the local university fire club would come out.

After I retire, I'm hoping to take the prescribed burner class for our state. We have a pine farm, and so far, we have been hiring a burn coordinator to execute our burns. I've worked on a couple of the crews to actually do the burn to gain hands-on experience. Burning a couple acres of pasture is much easier than burning hundreds of pine understory.

I'm not sure compaction will be a real issue. It probably depends on your soil type. Pasture land has not been subject to repeated or deep tillage like some row crop land. It probably has reasonable OM giving the manure. I doubt it would be compacted deeper than a good disc could handle. Also, native weeds are generally so well adapted to the climate in a given area, they can often deal with other issues like slight compaction.

I have pretty heavy clay. Repeated tillage and heavy equipment in wet conditions can cause compaction. Logging decks where the top soil was removed followed by heavy equipment on the clay are even worse. On occasion I've had to use a sub-soiler one time to relieve compaction.

I would first work on killing the grasses. Typically the best time to kill cool season grasses with a broad spectrum herbicide like gly is to wait till late fall when warm season weeds have gone dormant. I'd look at using fire 3 or 4 years after weeds establish to set back any woody growth.

The harper approach is to kill the grasses and then disc to release the native seed bank. Then after that, identify problematic weeds and spot spray them with the appropriate herbicide. Keep in mind that even noxious weeds have their place. It is only when they start to dominate that they are a real issue.

That is my 2 cents for what it is worth, but I'm still fairly early in the process. I'm having a knee replaced next month, so my pursuit of this approach will probably be interrupted for a bit.

At our pine farm, I started going this direction before the Harper data was available. My intent was a bit different and my approach was less efficient. Basically I would "rest" food plots. I found that using herbicides each year to do T&M was resulting in some noxious weeds beginning to dominate. So, I would pick a plot or two and just let it go for about 3 years before replanting it and I would then rotate other plots into this rest phase. I was resting them from herbicide use. I don't fertilize plots. I found that after a couple years I'd get a better mix of weeds.

At my retirement property, I have a large dip that is a couple acres. It was too steep for me to want to plant. I decided it would be a good experiment with the Harper technique. I killed grasses with gly in the fall and used a disc to disturb it the following spring. I did not have time to do any spot spraying, I just let it go. It will not be a great example. We are in the process of building a house. In order to flatten the bottom of the dip which was sharp, I'm having all of the excavation fill placed in the bottom of the dip. So, I've got heavy equipment running thorough the middle of it this fall and next spring. I will probably start this over the year after the house is done. The good news is that the native weed did a great job of preventing cool season grasses this year.

Another technique I used over at the farm was to kill grasses in the fall and plant buckwheat in the spring as a cover crop. I also like to mix it with sunn hemp. Then in the fall, I would plant WR, Durana Clover, and PTT. I would mow the WR in the spring once or twice and then let it go. Eventually, summer weeds would infiltrate the clover field. If I don't mow it, the weeds would fill in over the first couple years and cool season grasses would not dominate.

 

[weekender21]

I've browsed that thread before and it actually was one of the things that led me to post this, I was hoping others followed that and tried doing it themselves already.

One thing I'd definitely like to get rid of is all of the Timothy, whether that's with gly or the disc/chisel plow. This spot has had cows pastured on it by my family for likely over a hundred years. I'm sure there's compaction in the soil and I'm worried there's not much for natives hiding in the seedbank but we'll see. I would also be interested in burning here and there but don't feel comfortable doing it myself, I may see if the local university fire club would come out.

Burning and disking won’t remove the Timothy but one or both could be awesome once the cool season grass is gone. I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry, maybe you’ll be pleased with what shows up once the Timothy is toast.


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[yoderjac]

Burning and disking won’t remove the Timothy but one or both could be awesome once the cool season grass is gone. I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry, maybe you’ll be pleased with what shows up once the Timothy is toast.


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I completely agree. You need herbicide to kill the grasses, burning and disking are for the disturbance to release the native seed bank. Because the OP is concerned with some compression from cattle, I'm suggesting he use a disc for the initial remediation after killing grasses and then use fire every 3 or 4 years if possible to keep it in early succession.

 

[carbonspyder]

Out of curiosity I might just spray gly on the whole of it, then disc one patch and leave another to see what comes up in both. Cows can wreck quite a bit of diversity over the years and id like to see what actually comes up.

 

[yoderjac]

Out of curiosity I might just spray gly on the whole of it, then disc one patch and leave another to see what comes up in both. Cows can wreck quite a bit of diversity over the years and id like to see what actually comes up.

You are right about cows wrecking diversity, but so can repeated herbicide use. Nature is amazing in how it can heal itself over time. Many weed seeds can be viable in the soil for many, many years. Dicing helps bring them to the germination layer. I would kill grasses in the fall and let it sit over winter. Then in the spring see what comes up. You may have cool season grasses bounce back. It may me necessary to apply herbicides again. I would wait until late spring to disc. That will also help disrupt any cools season grasses that are not fully established. That timing will favor warm season weeds.

The thing Harper says is to see what you get and spot spray what you don't want. The nice thing about managing for weeds is that you can always start over if you don't like what you get the first time. The normal setback time would be 3-4 years, but if I found the field was dominated by a particular noxious weed, I'd have no issue with focusing the right herbicide on the whole field and starting again.

Your idea of discing 1/2 of it might lend some insight into how much compaction is an issue.

 

[BenAllgood]

Disking after killing the non-native cool season grasses can get you this.

 

[carbonspyder]

Disking after killing the non-native cool season grasses can get you this.
View attachment 29047

Looks great! How tall is that roughly and how much do deer utilize that area?

 

[BenAllgood]

Looks great! How tall is that roughly and how much do deer utilize that area?

That was probably 3-4 feet then after year one. It was mainly for feeding which they did use very well. Now, I'm letting it get taller and getting more woody structure for fall/winter browse and cover. I'll probably maintain it in portions at different stages for different objectives.