Tree ?

[Double R 2]

Long rambling but I like the subject. The rivers and drainages have been channelized, the floodplain dynamics altered, the original vegetation largely removed and later replaced with differing compositions of native species. I like to wonder what it will be like many, many years from now, long after we're all dead and gone and it's described in historical accounts.

Sounds like a good project, wingman, and you're right - that other stuff will seed in plenty heavy.

[novacaine]

I remember one of the first (if not the first) harvest on a wrp tract. It was an existing stand that was included in the wrp offer (Pinchback-close to Morgan Brake). I think they only allowed patch cut but it will be interesting to see what is allowed (if any) for a less than 30 yr old thinning.
Kevin N worked on this with Jerry Trauger (pre- M.Oliver/Acornman).

Very interesting-both short term and long term.

[jwarwick]

Question for those same folks piggybacking on this one but moving down the road a few years on a WRP property:

WRP properties go through a planting/grass/young tree stage and into the years 8-15 range where there is good cover/browse and maybe starting to produce some acorns. After 15 years or so, the WRP trees appear to canopy and block out nearly everything.

Question -> Has any one dealt with selectively thinning WRP trees to open it up for browse/cover, and if so how and with what results? Any other thoughts on managing WRP tracts? (I know you would have to go through NRCS for any cutting, etc., but wanted to know if anyone was at that stage with their WRP property).

Thanks.

Great question!! but you know you are seriously hijacking Wingman's thread don't you?... I don't think he minds

I have a 200 acre tract that was a bald-a$$ cotton farm with a history of duck usage when I bought it. I enrolled it in CRP (15 year contract) and planted it in the bottom-land hardwood mix about 8 years ago. I have very much enjoyed witnessing the evolutionary process of going from horizon to horizon vistas of wood switches jammed into a muddy cuts in the Earth- to a beautiful variety of broomsage and sparse 12 foot tall broad-limbed trees, then other thick stands of taller but thinner trees that made it through summer droughts in tightly rowed packs.

For the whole lives of these trees, summer drought has occurred in the south Delta for all but one year IMO. This stress has taken out a lot of my trees to the point that looking at certain areas of it now reminds you of the sparse but beautiful placement of trees in the Texas hill country. Other areas of our land that hold the wettest soils (although you wouldn't call them "wet" in the summer- they are usually nearly bone dry in the summer) show perfect rows of fine trees that will soon shade out the understory.

This natural selection of only the heartiest trees... leaving spaces between them of thickets and cover has given me the motivation to make a plan for some dozer habitat enhancement after the CRP contract runs out. At that time I want to assess what areas (1/4 acre to 5 acres) need to be scarified so that a successive environment will continue.... then I will ask NRCS if they will re-enroll the place for another 15 years.

So to answer your question, yes- I would greatly desire to continue the successive habitat process via manipulation over the homogeneous "diversity" of a rowed forest of a 15 year old bottomland hardwood "mix".

Jon

[jwarwick]

RR- I really appreciate your last couple of posts. Good writing and good material. I too am interested in the long-term advantages or disadvantages of the timbered rows that are the new forests of the Delta.

With this issue and some others I have to revert back to my old personal stand-by for tough cases... I put on my long-term glasses which usually reveal this truism:
What we do now really doesn't matter as much as we think it does. In the long run (I mean LONG, LONG run). Nature wins and reaches its own equilibrium.

BTW Wingman, I would not plant any persimmon, green ash, hackberry, or sugarmaple. They come up voluntarily everywhere on my place thanks to the critters that eat the fruit/seeds from natural mature stands on joining property.

Good luck

[Wingman]

BTW Wingman, I would not plant any persimmon, green ash, hackberry, or sugarmaple. They come up voluntarily everywhere on my place thanks to the critters that eat the fruit/seeds from natural mature stands on joining property.

Good luck

That's just it. I'm surrounded on the south side by 1,000 acres of rice and corn, on the north by 1,000 acres of cotton and soybeans, on the west by 1,000 acres of catfish ponds planted in crops, and on the east by the same.

I have one canal that runs through the place that has a few trees on it, but they aren't mature because the county dredged the canal about 10 years ago and took out everything.

I have one 20 acre cutover on my back property that has a few mature trees around the edge, and that is the only block of trees for a half mile.

I just don't think I'll get much of any natural regeneration but wind-blown stuff (like the cottonwood and willow I mentioned).

[Double R 2]

I just don't think I'll get much of any natural regeneration but wind-blown stuff (like the cottonwood and willow I mentioned).

Some science regarding cottonwood/Nuttall interplantings...

http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/23474


In advocating such interplantings, carbon sequestration folks like Green Trees "estimate that in just 7 years, a cottonwood/hardwood inter-planted forest in the LMAV would hold 200% more migratory birds."

http://www.green-trees.com/enviro_benefits.html

[Wingman]

Neat readings on that cottonwood/oak stuff. I have some ponds that will have the 604 trees per acre and then some.

But as far as natural regen. of the persimmon, sugarberry, etc. I am in a virtual tree "desert" if you will. This part of the county (western side) is either good sandy land planted to cotton or corn, or sorry gumbo put in fishponds. If you find a 40 acre block of woods west of Belzoni you have really found something. There is a school section about 3 miles to the east and it's the largest block of trees around. The trees were pretty much wiped out on this side of the county way back when.

I went flying last week and was even more astounded when I got up there at how many fishponds are dry this year that had fish in them last year. Some of those places are being leveled and put back in crops, but I'd guess the majority of them are going in trees. I'm talking several thousand acres of catfish ponds. It's really gonna be something to see in 10 years.

[Wingman]

Well, after much deliberation and still not sure if I did the "right" thing or not, I just placed my order today.

70% oaks (50 nuttall, 10 overcup, 10 willow)
30% other (10 bitter pecan, 10 sugarberry, 5 persimmon, 5 red maple).
Works out to be 40,000 trees on 132 acres. Another 25 acres will go to natural regeneration, which is already growing up in willow and cottonwood (should make a good dove roost next to my sunflower field and a sound barrier between duck holes).

Got 3,500 cypress trees ordered and 10,000 Chickasaw plums. 11.6 acres planted in cypress surrounding flooded food plots and/or moist soil units and 8 acres of plums around the high edges of the ponds planted to the other trees.

Approximately 16 acres of levees will be planted to native warm season grasses (big and little bluestem, switchgrass) and partridge pea. 5 acres of levee tops in either durana or patriot clover. Another 3 acres of levees planted to other food plots for the deer, rabbits and quail, and almost 25 acres of pond bottoms planted in food plots for the ducks. Finally, another 37 acres of pond bottoms will be managed for moist soil plants (some of these in combination with cypress plantings and/or food plots.)

Soon, this will tie in with adjoining 300+ acres that is planned to go in CRP next summer, and the possibility of 600+ acres on an adjoining property rumored to be going in either CRP or WRP. This will create a nearly 4-mile long corridor of reforested bottomlands that have been in catfish production for the last 50 years.

It's been a long, tiring process planning all of this but hopefully one day soon I will have a nice place for people to poach so I can get my quota met each month.

[Double R 2]

Sounds like a great prject, Rob. Hope to stop and visit while passing through next fall.

Well, after much deliberation and still not sure if I did the "right" thing or not, I just placed my order today.

70% oaks (50 nuttall, 10 overcup, 10 willow)
30% other (10 bitter pecan, 10 sugarberry, 5 persimmon, 5 red maple).
Works out to be 40,000 trees on 132 acres. Another 25 acres will go to natural regeneration, which is already growing up in willow and cottonwood (should make a good dove roost next to my sunflower field and a sound barrier between duck holes).

Got 3,500 cypress trees ordered and 10,000 Chickasaw plums. 11.6 acres planted in cypress surrounding flooded food plots and/or moist soil units and 8 acres of plums around the high edges of the ponds planted to the other trees.

Approximately 16 acres of levees will be planted to native warm season grasses (big and little bluestem, switchgrass) and partridge pea. 5 acres of levee tops in either durana or patriot clover. Another 3 acres of levees planted to other food plots for the deer, rabbits and quail, and almost 25 acres of pond bottoms planted in food plots for the ducks. Finally, another 37 acres of pond bottoms will be managed for moist soil plants (some of these in combination with cypress plantings and/or food plots.)

Soon, this will tie in with adjoining 300+ acres that is planned to go in CRP next summer, and the possibility of 600+ acres on an adjoining property rumored to be going in either CRP or WRP. This will create a nearly 4-mile long corridor of reforested bottomlands that have been in catfish production for the last 50 years.

It's been a long, tiring process planning all of this but hopefully one day soon I will have a nice place for people to poach so I can get my quota met each month.

[novacaine]

Rob, that is going to be one busy project. Sounds like fun! Good luck.

Que the Paul Ott music..................Plant a tree and watch it grow..........Plant a
tree and watch it grow....................

[Wingman]

Finished ripping the last 25 acres last Monday. They were too wet to rip 5 or 6 weeks ago and too hard for the disk to do anything but ride on top of the dirt last week. I was gonna let these last two ponds just go natural, because one of them already has a decent stand of 5 foot tall cottonwoods and willows, but I decided to plant them.

Which brings me to my next observation and it goes hand in hand kinda with the cottonwood interplanting you were talking about Ramsey. I drove past a cottonwood plantation today right on the Humphreys-Sharkey line south of Hwy 14. One section was planted 2 rows of cottonwood for every 1 row of oaks. It must've been 30 or 40 acres planted like that and the rest of it was solid cottonwood. The cottonwoods were about 50-60 feet tall and the oaks from 10-15 feet tall. I just wonder if they are using the cottonwoods as trainer trees to get good oak timber?

[Sprangletop1]

^ yes. I have not seen the two row then oak, but have seen the four row then oak. They are using the cottonwoods as trainers, then when they remove the cotton woods you do not have a clear cut but a viable stand of oaks. I like the oak every third row for wildlife, but you would be giving up $ per acre when it comes time to harvest.

[Double R 2]

Good call Sprngletop. Crown Vantage used to have a private lands program years ago, they'd interplant the oaks under the cottonwoods. They'd coppice the cottonwoods after about 10 years, and then come back and cut again after about another 10. Second cut, they'd leave a few cottonwoods and by then the hardmast trees were well on their way. Saw a stand at Reed Hunting Club that was established similarly.

[Wingman]

The dibble bar platoon arrived today! Woohoo!

[jwarwick]

Don't blink, you'll miss it.... those guys are quick.