New Pasture Saplings

[ovrszd]

Not knowing where you are at, this might help or be totally worthless. I live on 68 acres in the Piney Woods of East Texas where the trees are worse then weeds. 200 years ago there where forest fires and the old trees choked out the small trees, but when people settled here, they cleared the land, then abandoned the land, and the land comes back super SUPER thick with trees growing inches apart. Pines, sweet gums and oaks will take over a cleared area in just a year. In two years, they are ten feet tall and impossible to walk through.

I've found that constant mowing eventually works. I like to clear an area with my backhoe by digging out the tree with the rootball attached. Then fill in the hole and compact it. The native Bahia and Coastal Bermuda grass will start to grow almost as soon as it rains in the Spring and Summer. It's very rare that I need to spread grass. Other weeds will mix in with the grass, but if I keep it mowed, the weeds become fewer and fewer. For some weeds, I've sprayed 2,4-D with good results. It's controlled, so you have to buy it by the quart to get it over the counter in my area.

For years, I mowed with a 37hp tractor and 6 foot rotary cutter. It got the job done, but I was never able to mow all of my land in a single year. I focused on the areas I felt where the most important, but I was in a losing battle in other areas. Last year I bought a 70hp tractor and 12 foot batwing. This has allowed me to mow my entire place 3 times last year. The difference is significant. Mowing several times has had a huge impact on what comes back. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but for the first time since owning my land, I can see it really getting where I want it!!!

I'm in the process of buying 40 acres in the Mabank area. It's totally different there. More open, much flatter, different soil, and tons of Mesquite. The coastal Bermuda is very impressive, but there are so many Mesquite trees there that it's impossible to hay it. I have to remove thousands of them, but since it's such a big project, and 62 miles away, I'll start in one area and work my way out. My plan is to spray the trunks with Remedy mixed with diesel. That seems to be the most common method at killing the Mesquite down to the root system. Then I will mow the saplings after they have died, and dig out the bigger trees with my backhoe. This will be a multi year, never ending project, but one that I'll start getting hay from as soon as I can, and then work on expanding the size of the hayfield until I'm haying all that I can off of the 40 acres.

Chemicals are expensive and require years of application. First year will give you measurable results, but from what I'm told, it takes five years, spraying in the Spring and again in the Fall, to get to the point that you don't have to keep spraying chemicals anymore.

I now look at hayfields differently. It's amazing how much work it took to create and maintain them!!!!

Excellent post.

Your first point being the most important. Every area is different. In my country each farm can be quite different.

 

[Hay Dude]

Multiple mowings will not kill saplings. Some species actually thrive on it. Mowing will control tall growth but that's about all.

wonder how I made all those saplings on probably over 100 acres go away? Maybe it’s just luck or something about my area?
When they are mowed, they are in control.

Unleashing heavy ag equipment or cows on them kills the stubs, too. Eventually lack of photosynthesis puts them in a dormant phase.

Let the field go unmoved and they will return.

 

[ovrszd]

wonder how I made all those saplings on probably over 100 acres go away? Maybe it’s just luck or something about my area?
When they are mowed, they are in control.

Unleashing heavy ag equipment or cows on them kills the stubs, too. Eventually lack of photosynthesis puts them in a dormant phase.

Let the field go unmoved and they will return.

You are that good HD!!!

My vision of what the OP is dealing with is a field scattered with brush mature enough that there are stumps to deal with. Stumps that he's going to remove.

Mowing, regardless of how many times, won't fix that. Eddie described the procedure very well.

 

[Hay Dude]

IMO, theres different types of saplings.
Obviously, the kind I have bush hogged and cut down died off after cutting and sometimes discing.
There’s probably other types that need more work. I haven‘t encountered those types yet.

That’d be my guess.

Have had a few customers request that trees be cut at grade and the root system killed. We cut the tree down to about 2 feet tall, then cut the stump down to ground level, then pour roundup into holes drilled in the top outer ring of the stump.

I do have a few fields with very flush cut stumps that don’t give me much worry when driving discbine over them, so They never give trouble once they’ve been flush cut-even without chemicals.

 

[big bubba]

Agree. We have been trained to use carcinogenic chemicals as first lines of defense instead of other methods first.
I have 5 or 6 small fields basically created out of overgrown trash, now producing hay. Had stumps, suckers, hemp dogbane, small cedars & lots of sweet gum.
Didn’t use chemicals. Used a mower, a disc on a few, a landscape rake and seed. They look like lawns now.

Made hay off this hilltop field 4 months after this picture was taken. It was scrub brush, autumn olive, blackberry stickers, hemp dogbane and other junk. It could just as easily been grazing land like the OP wants.

View attachment 781503


Here’s another I cleared about 10 years ago. Didn’t use any chemicals on this one, either. I cut this in the fall and by the following June it was producing abundant hay.

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Here’s a field of saplings cut in October of 2015

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Here’s same field this summer making hay

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roger that dude

 

[BnRidge]

Ways to control brush (se WI, temperate northern climate, borderline prairie):
Burn the area. Every 3yrs will control most brush and saplings.
Chemicals like brush guard, triclopyr4, remedy - basal spray up to 4" caliper, broadcast for area control.
Mowing often, like a lawn or hayfield.
Brush hog, dull blades that leave a rough wound are more likely to kill.
Tree puller. 1-4" caliper trees are removed, but some will re-sprout from root nodes with a vengeance. Could create a seedbed.
Dozer. Without over seeding with desirables like grasses creates a great seedbed. Invasives love disturbed areas.
All of the above will work, but all most likely would need to be repeated. Pick your poison.
We have an old pasture here next to the house that has been mowed like a lawn for 20yrs. Recently, two years of not mowing and there are 100s, 1000s of small knee high saplings starting. Just like that, they were all waiting for an opportunity. Putting it back into pasture would solve the sapling issue, and once removed again it could stay as prairie, possibly for a very long time. But eventually brush starts to encroach.

 

[jaxs]

Agree. We have been trained to use carcinogenic chemicals as first lines of defense instead of other methods first.

Best way depends on how you feel when you get out bed that day.

We cut the tree down to about 2 feet tall, then cut the stump down to ground level, then pour roundup into holes drilled in the top our ring of the stump.

 

[DB1200]

Thanks for all the replies and it's really given me a lot to think about! I live in central NC. I don't mind using some chemicals but I have to be very careful about them. I have honey bees and I have to be positive that anything that I spray is not anything that my bees will be working. With that said chemical free would be great. I was hoping since I just mowed it down Saturday and the temps getting well below freezing, does this have any effect on a sapling freshly busted apart by a brushhog? Also, When I got home today I was just curious so I hooked up and went playing a little bit with an old bog harrow. It did a great job busting up the ground and cutting through mowed vegetation. Will harrowing it up this time of year in the dead of winter help with any weeds this coming spring? Thanks for all the help I do appreciate it.

 

[ovrszd]

I don't think you'll gain much now. Even with burning, it works best when the plants awaken next Spring. Take some pics when you get a chance. That will help us better understand.

 

[jyoutz]

Multiple mowings will not kill saplings. Some species actually thrive on it. Mowing will control tall growth but that's about all.

The only quick way to deal with woody vegetation is to cut the tree and treat the stump with Garlon or a similar herbicide. But the treatment must be done soon after cutting before sap seals the stump. If you’re treating a large area, use a dye in the herbicide so it’s easy to track which stumps have been treated.

 

[goeduck]

The big leaf maples we have out here do that, they just sprout multiple shoots for every one you cut off. It goes on forever if you just cut them. On a small scale if I grind out the stumps down to 6 to 8 inches or more below grade it takes care of the problem. How deep did your forestry mulcher go? Or are your stumps too big for a mulcher to be effective?

On a large scale an excavator digging out the stumps would seem to me to do the trick but you mention that is out of the question. I did use crossbow a few times, drilled a series of holes around/near the bark and applied it there. The trees took a few years to die off, but they did. More recently I went to the grinder.

 

[Hay Dude]

If the OP is just looking for grazing land, not lawn or hay fields, he should be fine flush cutting the stumps and letting a rotary mower or cows take care of the rest.

 

[ovrszd]

If the OP is just looking for grazing land, not lawn or hay fields, he should be fine flush cutting the stumps and letting a rotary mower or cows take care of the rest.

Yep. We need, or I should say I need, more clarity on intent. And pics would be nice.

My Brother sheared 2 acres 10 years ago. What a mess. Dangerous to drive a tractor on. Would have been fine for grazing. But not for maintenance. I ended up digging all the stumps with the hoe. Then hauling them off and repairing the mess as described by Eddie.

 

[Hay Dude]

Fluid filled tires would be a disaster on little stumps

 

[ovrszd]

Fluid filled tires would be a disaster on little stumps

Yep. Or non filled tires.

 

[BnRidge]

One neighbor here has a tree shear. I notice that he likes to promote using it for fencerows, on others farms and rented land but not his own. Another neighbor has a tree puller. He pulls, piles and burns on his own land, and pulls and leaves it lay on others and rented land. Doing it half way just makes a mess that can last decades.

 

[EddieWalker]

What little I know, and it's not much, is that the best time to kill weeds and trees with chemicals is when they are actively growing, and pulling nutrients from the ground. This is when they will pull the chemicals into their system, and spread it down to their roots, and totally die. This only happens in the Spring and the Fall. The success of the chemicals is based on timing application to when this is happening. For Mesquite, ground temperature is important, but the biggest giveaway is when the leaves turn dark green. This is when I plan on spraying them.

When cutting weeds, I believe the best time is when they are almost fully gown, but before they flower and create their seeds. Cutting too late and you just spread the seeds. Cutting too soon and they will just start growing again.

Cutting trees can be very effective for some trees, or you're creating a worse problem with other trees. For me, cutting the Mesquite tree just leads to more saplings sprouting up from the root system. Cutting them is the worse way to get rid of them. Fortunately for me, on the land I live on, pines are the dominant tree species and they die very quickly when cut. Unfortunately, they will keep trying to sprout for many years from all of the seeds that end up in the ground.

Disking is known to expose the seeds and kill them if done at the right time of the year. If done at the wrong time of the year, you will actually increase their production and have more weeds and trees sprouting in the Spring.

It's all about timing!!!!

 

[jyoutz]

What little I know, and it's not much, is that the best time to kill weeds and trees with chemicals is when they are actively growing, and pulling nutrients from the ground. This is when they will pull the chemicals into their system, and spread it down to their roots, and totally die. This only happens in the Spring and the Fall. The success of the chemicals is based on timing application to when this is happening. For Mesquite, ground temperature is important, but the biggest giveaway is when the leaves turn dark green. This is when I plan on spraying them.

When cutting weeds, I believe the best time is when they are almost fully gown, but before they flower and create their seeds. Cutting too late and you just spread the seeds. Cutting too soon and they will just start growing again.

Cutting trees can be very effective for some trees, or you're creating a worse problem with other trees. For me, cutting the Mesquite tree just leads to more saplings sprouting up from the root system. Cutting them is the worse way to get rid of them. Fortunately for me, on the land I live on, pines are the dominant tree species and they die very quickly when cut. Unfortunately, they will keep trying to sprout for many years from all of the seeds that end up in the ground.

Disking is known to expose the seeds and kill them if done at the right time of the year. If done at the wrong time of the year, you will actually increase their production and have more weeds and trees sprouting in the Spring.

It's all about timing!!!!

Actually herbicides work anytime the plant is actively growing, from spring to fall, but not when they are dormant.

 

[EddieWalker]

I fully admit to not being an expert, but after talking to the experts in my are at the Ag Extension, I'm going to disagree on a technical point. While they may work any time of the year, there are times of the year that they work a lot better then other times of the year here in East Texas. That would be Spring and Fall. And in those to periods, you have about two weeks in each season that's considered the best time to apply so you get the best results without wasting your money.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Thanks for the help. I think the main problem is that when the where mulched up the stumps where taken down to ground level and wherever there was a stump I get stands of sapling trees. I could try pulling them but would have to pull the stumps which is out of the question. I might try spot treating with some brush killer after I have cut them off and see if that decreases them. I'm just looking to make it usable pasture land. The land for many years will never be good for hay production. Just wanting to use it as another place to put cows to give my other pastures a rest.

It's been my experience that if you cut a tree down in a cow pasture, the cows will forget the grass and skin the leaves off that tree. Donkeys love brush. My neighbor bought 25 goats for that. His own dog killed every one of them the next morning. Not so with donkeys. A donkey can kill a pack of dogs. A jack can be too rough alone with your cows. A jenny will be fine. I had a full Jack. You could put little kids on him and lead him around. But he'd kill anything else. Horses, cows, they gave him space. But, we had a Shetland pony meaner than that.