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Question about site prep

S

slice and dice

New Member
I have a one acre area going into native forbes and grasses this winter (90 forbes/6 grasses, 50-50 mix). The area was a mowed turf type fescue blend. It has been thoroughly killed this year and I did a burn to get rid of the dead litter/duff.

Well, I had a dense layer of litter at soil level about 1/4" deep or so that was to moist to burn. I took the mower and scalped over this area after the burn to try and mulch/blow it off the site. That worked well and exposed a lot of bare dirt, but I still have quite a few patches where it's hard to see any bare dirt.

Question is will most of this chopped up half rotten duff break down over winter if I seed on top of it or should I try and somehow rake/light harrow it off as much as possible? Worried about raking to deep and stirring up dormant weed seed.

Planning on broadcasting seed when we get some snow in the forecast. All research I've done stresses good seed to soil contact and I don't want to botch this planting as it was kind of spendy plus the time to get to this point.

Appreciate any pointers.
 
Try this again.

If you walked onto one of your sites with the intentions of frost seeding NWSG,

and you saw 20% bare dirt with the rest being a thin but dense layer of grass litter, would you feel confident the freeze/thaw would work the seed into the soil?
 
First off, I'm extremely jealous of the mix you got... 90 forbes! That is awesome! (or was this a typo and you meant 9? haha)

I don't have a whole lot of experience but I personally would feel fine in your situation. What are your weed control plans? Mowing or herbicide by chance? We've always burned our areas before planting and had good burns with very little residue left over like you mention so I can't exactly relate to this situation.
 
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Ya, I goofed up waiting to long to burn and I did it at night. I didn't notice until the next morning that the residue didn't completely burn....must have been to damp from the frozen/thawed ground. So, I was stuck with not enough fuel to carry a fire, plus it stays damp anyway.

Weed control plan is mow to prevent weeds from setting seed/avoid to much litter falling on seedlings, and to promote sunlight on the ground...going to stay flexible and watch it. Will spot string trim if necessary and potentially use the "Gly glove of death" method on any nasties.

I have wondered what would happen if a person did a light glyphosate application when early weeds begin to sprout but before the native seedlings germinate. But with the diversity of this mix I am fearful that some of these species may germinate just as early. So, will stay away from any broad applications of herbicide with this particular planting.

This one acre patch is my trial run before I do the remaining 5 acres next year. On that piece I am going to do a spring burn and watch for remnant species before moving forward. I am in an area with some nice remnants and simply changing management practices on the ground can help these plants respond.
 
Your last thought mentions a great point how changing management by simply burning can really change the landscape! We've noticed the same thing with our old brome hillsides, some timely spring burns and walla... there's natives sprouting everywhere!

The early round-up application does the trick for weeds growing at that time, for sure. We did it this spring on a switch grass planting. Thing is weeds are sprouting so much at that time it hardly amounts to much weed control unless you add a preemerge like Panormic or Plateau that will help provide season long weed control. But in your case you plan on mowing so you've got that taken care of. Other concern about applying Gly is you may kill the sprouted good seeds you planted... I guess you have to weigh the benefits to the risk. You can always play it by ear and if you happen to have a nasty weed problem right away you can try the Gly but if there's only a few weeds maybe spot spray them... or play it safe and just forget the Gly all together.

Fun stuff!
 
Hope I don't regret it, but unless WW III breaks out on my site I'm going to keep it mowed and just make sure plants aren't smothered, nothing sets seed, and bare dirt is getting sun.

Planning on mowing three or four times the first year, then hopefully just once or twice the second year followed by the occasional spot trimming. I know it will look pretty awful the first year or two.

I did talk to one guy that sells seed and does prairie restorations...he recommended a full mowing or browsing schedule for 3 years!

I have a large Swisher side mower that I've modified so my initial mowing at 6 inches won't be a problem and then I can keep raising it...up to 12 inches. Just have to make sure I can identify the bad guys from the good guys when they are young...that's a challenge for me.


Thank you very much for stepping up to the plate to help me out!
 
Sounds like you've got a solid mowing plan! I hear you on id'ing the young goods vs bads... I'm clueless. Take some pics if you get a chance! We love to see them
 
LoessHillsArcher said:
Your last thought mentions a great point how changing management by simply burning can really change the landscape! We've noticed the same thing with our old brome hillsides, some timely spring burns and walla... there's natives sprouting everywhere!
Click to expand...

What do you have popping up after spending years crowded under sod?
 
ollie085 said:
What do you have popping up after spending years crowded under sod?
Click to expand...

Big blue, little blue mainly (could be broom sedge and not little blue, never looked THAT close). Lots of golden rod, common milk weed, and hoary vervain. Some switch grass (we added more), some partridge pea, lead plant, pale purple coneflower, sunflowers, ironweed, and I can't think of any other off the top of my head. I don't think we had any indian grass show back up yet...

Of course the weedy species came in: foxtail, nettles, thistles, etc.

This was virgin ground in the Loess Hills, it had just been pastured ~10 years or so before we began burning it.
 
I'm on our PF board and have been around a LOT of prairie plantings. If you have only 20% bare dirt, I would not recommend frost seeding. I've seen too many frost seedings on killed sod fail. Bare crop ground with stalks removed, or newly dozed areas around ponds or wetlands are the best candidates for frost seedings. A prairie drill is really the best way to go on killed sod. Your mowing plan is good.
 
Good timing turkeyriver! With the ground being frozen today and no worries of compaction, I borrowed a friends small dethatching implement and drug the dickens out of the site with my riding mower. I followed that up with the backpack blower. Sight resembles more of a bean stubble field with the ground all scratched up. 90 or 95% bare soil now. No access to a drill, gotta do the best I can do with what I have. He said I could use his core aerator and run it very shallow as well, but I think it's ready. This seed bank is pretty clean and don't want to risk bringing up anything else.

Never again will I burn a future seeding site without first doing a small test burn to ensure a complete exhaustion of the fuel.
 
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