Cedar Fence

This past weekend my wife and I made a split rail cedar fence.  The wood came from a dead Eastern Red Cedar that fell when we did a prescribed burn on this tract for site prep and the planting of longleaf pine seedlings.

We split the logs using two wedges and a maul.  Lots of work but rewarding to be able to use the wood and not leave it on the ground until the next burn where it would be destroyed. 

We are going to landscape this entrance to our property.

Cool Weekend

This weekend everything was frozen over on Dewberry Lands.  Temperature was in the single degrees and before the cold, was freezing rain.  Thank goodness the rain changed to sleet before the trees started to snap.  The weather made for a beautiful picture but the driving required a four-wheel drive to travel.

Prescribed Fire Pruning

As a side note to the previous post: The rain has finally come and some places in the county are seeing signs of Southern Pine Beetles from the stress on the trees from the drought but we are seeing the soil moisture starting to come back.

I wanted to share a picture of a stand of 22 year old loblolly pines that had a prescribed fire under them this last spring, about March 22.  This is later than I like to burn but it was the best time we had with the weather like it had been up to this point.  Below is the results of this late burn which got hot, a little hotter than I like.  

Because it was later and the fire was hotter, it killed the lower limbs on the trees.  This was a bonus to the prescribed fire because it took out much of the under-story and it also served as a natural pruning of the trees which will add to the value of the wood at a later date.  The pruning was an unintended consequence with valuable results.  It will be interesting to watch this stand and see what the trees will look like in the next five to ten years. 

60+/- Days With No Rain

The drought has really been bad this fall.  We have no green food plots, water is drying up, and the threat of wildfire is ever looming. This is making it tough for wildlife this year.  Last week I saw the track of a bear in the dust in one of our food plots.  He was traveling around and was eating acorns that had fallen.  Hopefully this drought will end soon and we will get the much needed rain of winter.

Summer and Fall Wildlife Food Plots

My daughter and I planted in the dust our fall plots this past week in hopes of getting some rain off of Hurricane Mathew.  We planted a mixture of seed giving the wildlife a variety of plants to browse on if we get rain before the seed is eaten up by the birds.

Below is a picture of our largest field we plant for wildlife being about three acres. 

This field has had some fall crops planted in strips: but we chose not to plow under the complete field.  You might ask why?  The reason is the field will continue to produce a high protein forage until frost.  This field was planted in sunn hemp as was most of our summer plantings.  Some places in the field the plant has gotten about ten feet tall.  Deer love this stuff.  They are slow to eat it the first year because the protein is so high in the plant but after they get started they will destroy small field plantings of this crop.  Below shows the results of deer eating the plant.

Some of the plants have been topped three times and have leafed back out to produce more forage.  The plants that are tall have had the leaves stripped off as far up the plant as the deer can reach.  

Why sunn hemp?  The leaves contain 28 to 30 percent protein where alfalfa is about 20 percent.  It is an annual crop and will not reseed because it is tropical so you don't have to worry about it becoming a weed.  It grows well in our soil types and because of its rapid growth it adds organic matter to the soil.  It is a legume that they claim will add 100 pounds of nitrogen, 10 pounds of phosphorus, and 80 pounds of potash to the acre.  

This is the second year for us to plant sunn hemp and we are very pleased with it. 

Just Released:NEW REPORT REVEALS SOUTHERN LANDOWNERS WANT TO HELP AT-RISK WILDLIFE SPECIES

Below is the link to this special report from a study made of private forest landowners in the southern states by the American Forest Foundation, Chris Erwin.  

THE REPORT


I hope you enjoy these findings.  As a private landowner in Alabama this report showed what I already knew about private forest landowners that I am acquainted with.

Spraying For Longleaf Planting

Last week we had our tract that is to be reforested this year sprayed.  As soon as the foliage dies back we will do a prescribed burn of the property to prepare it for planting this winter.  We are going to plant native longleaf pines on this tract.  It joins another tract that has four year old longleaf pines already established on it.  This site was harvested this spring in order to convert it to longleaf pines.