Cleirigh
New member
Hey TBNers. I've benefited a lot from reading posts for the last few years so decided to pull the trigger and sign up, maybe return the favor.
Project was/is restoring 18 acres of bottom land poplar plantation to the pasture it was 25 years ago. The trees had been harvested about 8 years ago so we had stumps with multiple resprouts, and 6 foot tall reed canary grass everywhere else.
First step was to lease the mess to someone with hungry cows. While that was happening I worked with the NRCS and the local watershed council to develop a plan and get financial/technical support for fencing (to keep cattle out of the river and away from restored riparian habitat that we would lease to the govt), and for infrastructure (water line, pumps, tanks troughs etc.) to bring water from the source up the hill. NRCS and council grants reimbursed about 75% not including the rent for the few acres of restored riparian. Cattle came off when the pasture flooded last winter, but after one season of grazing 25 yearlings the canary grass was low enough we could walk the field. Short story long, if you run a poplar plantation and want resprouts, harvest in the winter when the sugars are in the root. Sadly, I do not want a poplar plantation, and winter is also when the ground is wettest; so we found 2 feet deep ruts from the feller buncher, which are not tractorable for my little JD.
There's not a market for poplar so the next thing we did was hire an excavator to pull out and pile the resprouts/stumps, do a little smoothing, and push 8 foot pointed PT posts deep in so they don't pop out when the field floods. About 9 days in mid-summer and we had 60 or so big piles drying out (when the sugars are up in the poplars so hopefully killed every one of those f&$%ers) and 80 line/corner/end posts in. I took the 3520 with the rotary cutter and made a pass, very bumpy and took all day at 2mph but didn't flip it, so I felt I could take it from there and sent the excavator home.
We've spot sprayed about 100 gallons of herbicide from a backpack sprayer to control weeds that seem really happy to finally get sunlight, not exciting but part of the story. I'll skip details but happy to answer questions about that.
We lit off the piles a few weeks ago as soon as the burn restriction was lifted; 3 parts diesel, one part gas, a little used motor oil thrown in for good measure. A squirt bottle focused on one spot until it was good and hot did better and used less fuel than pouring and hoping. Also, 60 piles is too much for one man; I should have done maybe 20 a day and stayed close enough to push logs into the pile more often so they could burn more completely; fixing that mistake was 2 long days of hard work for my wife and me but it worked out. The flooding will silt over and compact the leftover ash and dirt so we spread those out with the FEL before giving my much abused JD a well deserved winter break.
This winter we will plant 900 trees and shrubs in the riparian restoration area, will plant another 800 in winter 2016.
As soon as the field is dry enough next spring the plan is to mow, disk, and seed but will not put animals back out until we have good roots. We also need to install brace posts and string wire before then. Until then, thanks TBN for helping make all this happen!
Project was/is restoring 18 acres of bottom land poplar plantation to the pasture it was 25 years ago. The trees had been harvested about 8 years ago so we had stumps with multiple resprouts, and 6 foot tall reed canary grass everywhere else.
First step was to lease the mess to someone with hungry cows. While that was happening I worked with the NRCS and the local watershed council to develop a plan and get financial/technical support for fencing (to keep cattle out of the river and away from restored riparian habitat that we would lease to the govt), and for infrastructure (water line, pumps, tanks troughs etc.) to bring water from the source up the hill. NRCS and council grants reimbursed about 75% not including the rent for the few acres of restored riparian. Cattle came off when the pasture flooded last winter, but after one season of grazing 25 yearlings the canary grass was low enough we could walk the field. Short story long, if you run a poplar plantation and want resprouts, harvest in the winter when the sugars are in the root. Sadly, I do not want a poplar plantation, and winter is also when the ground is wettest; so we found 2 feet deep ruts from the feller buncher, which are not tractorable for my little JD.
There's not a market for poplar so the next thing we did was hire an excavator to pull out and pile the resprouts/stumps, do a little smoothing, and push 8 foot pointed PT posts deep in so they don't pop out when the field floods. About 9 days in mid-summer and we had 60 or so big piles drying out (when the sugars are up in the poplars so hopefully killed every one of those f&$%ers) and 80 line/corner/end posts in. I took the 3520 with the rotary cutter and made a pass, very bumpy and took all day at 2mph but didn't flip it, so I felt I could take it from there and sent the excavator home.
We've spot sprayed about 100 gallons of herbicide from a backpack sprayer to control weeds that seem really happy to finally get sunlight, not exciting but part of the story. I'll skip details but happy to answer questions about that.
We lit off the piles a few weeks ago as soon as the burn restriction was lifted; 3 parts diesel, one part gas, a little used motor oil thrown in for good measure. A squirt bottle focused on one spot until it was good and hot did better and used less fuel than pouring and hoping. Also, 60 piles is too much for one man; I should have done maybe 20 a day and stayed close enough to push logs into the pile more often so they could burn more completely; fixing that mistake was 2 long days of hard work for my wife and me but it worked out. The flooding will silt over and compact the leftover ash and dirt so we spread those out with the FEL before giving my much abused JD a well deserved winter break.
This winter we will plant 900 trees and shrubs in the riparian restoration area, will plant another 800 in winter 2016.
As soon as the field is dry enough next spring the plan is to mow, disk, and seed but will not put animals back out until we have good roots. We also need to install brace posts and string wire before then. Until then, thanks TBN for helping make all this happen!
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