Wildlife Foodplot on Reclaimed Strip Mine

[Bobcat335]

I recently bought a 50 acre piece of property in Central Pennsylvania. The majority of the property is reclaimed strip mines. I also recently purchased a new Bobcat CT335 tractor with the plans of installing some food plots and doing some property enhancements. The soils on the site are very compact and rocky, as you would expect on a reclaimed strip mine. I'm looking into buying an implement to loosen the soil, but i'm unsure what would be the best choice given the nature of the soil (ex. 1 or 2 bottom plow, chisel plow, subsoiler, ripper, tiller, ). I'm going to need a set of disks, but i'm unsure how to get the soil loosened up properly before disking

Any recommendations or guidance would help tremendously, Thanks

 

[dave1949]

I recently bought a 50 acre piece of property in Central Pennsylvania. The majority of the property is reclaimed strip mines. I also recently purchased a new Bobcat CT335 tractor with the plans of installing some food plots and doing some property enhancements. The soils on the site are very compact and rocky, as you would expect on a reclaimed strip mine. I'm looking into buying an implement to loosen the soil, but i'm unsure what would be the best choice given the nature of the soil (ex. 1 or 2 bottom plow, chisel plow, subsoiler, ripper, tiller, ). I'm going to need a set of disks, but i'm unsure how to get the soil loosened up properly before disking

Any recommendations or guidance would help tremendously, Thanks

That sounds like an interesting and very worthwhile project. Any chance of pics? Is there anything growing on it now? Do you need to worry about erosion? Has it been packed with a sheepsfoot roller or the like?
Dave.

 

[Trails2004]

Hurry if you want any AML money-

 

[theboman]

Sounds like an old strip mine where they didn't save the top soil. Boy, I'm familiar with those sites. As a teenager I spent a lot of time at friends and he had several hundred acres stripped (yep, they didn't safe the topsoil there either). We rode motorcyles, horses, snowmobiles, 4x4s etc there a lot! Lots of target shooting of anything. Hours and hours of fun and work. I tossed down a lot of straw too along the highwalls during the reclamation process... You brouht back a lot of memories!

I'd get a good ol' disc and have at it. Maybe a rototiller (and older one) if you can find one. I'd think most the rock will be hand sized on top, but you never know... Hope for a lot of rain and get it on the ground! BTW, winter wheat seems to grow really good in those strip mines if I remember correctly and critters love the stuff.

Best of luck!

 

[Bobcat335]

I'll work on gettin some pics on here tomorrow. I'm new to this forum.

As far as vegetation, there is a good cover (warm season grasses) with some small white pine, black locust, and honeysuckle for tree species that were planted for relcamation (typical for reclamation in the area). For erosion control the mining company put 3 large drainage ditches containing R-5 / R-6 aggregate with drainage swales connecting to the larger ditches. Erosion control will not be an issue for any projects. The site was reclaimed with big dozers and finished with a chisel plow.

The majority of the property was an unreclaimed strip mine that was reclaimed with the best avaliable material and subsoil as part of the agreement with the mining company the mined the adjancet property. So the AML monies and bond forfeiture money has been spent.

Anybody else try to use box blade for tilling purposes? This may work for me since it may only be feasible for me to try and loosen up the top few inches of the soil. After using the box blade, i was thinking about renting a tiller to get a little deeper and getting a smoother surface.

I was thinking of planting clover, but winter wheat is growing well at the adjacent reclaimed site so that is a good option as well. What about buckwheat??

Thanks fof the help

 

[dave1949]

White pine does well on acidic, poor soils, so that is a good indicator. Black locust is actually a soil nitrogen fixer, so that makes sense too.

Red clovers, like the mammoth varieties, can grow on poor soils and aren't too picky on the PH of the soil. Winter wheat will sprout and take hold on very thin seed beds. Sowing the wheat and dragging a loop of chain across it may work even. You won't get the prettiest stand, but it will be start. Never tried buckwheat.

You might want to do some soil tests for PH and basic nutrients. Before you spend a pile of money on seeds and such, maybe you could begin with some small patches seeded to various things and see what does well or not.

Dave.

 

[Bobcat335]

soil test are done. I have a soil pH of 7.4 due to the mining company backfilling with lime. I need a good amount of nitrogen and potassium. A company put in an abandoned mine drainage treatment system and distrubed an area where i wanted to put my food plot. The seeded and fertilized the area with a mine spoil seed mix that contains clover. The clover grew surprizingly well, so my plans are to expand and supplement that area.

 

[Dargo]

I've been fortunate to have done really well in the past buying relatively large parcels of old strip mine land (hundreds of acres, not thousands) and just planting the heck out of them with the variety of trees, shrubs and grasses recommended by our state agencies. Twenty years ago that land could be had for only about $500 to $700 an acre. This last year a guy who owns a hundred acres or so across from where I have a few hundred acres spent a summer putting in flat pads for building and sectioned off 3 acre plots on one side of a long strip lake that was dug in the 1930's. In less than 6 months he sold out of all his plots getting $10,000 an acre!

Since people are building cabins and houses by the dozens there, the county is paving the roads and running water there. There already was electric in the area. I've had that property for many years and about half of it had been mined in the late 30's as well. I don't mind saying that I'll gladly copy off of him. It seems strange, but the old mined area with hills, pines, and strip lakes is more valuable per acre than the adjoining land I have there that hadn't been mined. I suppose I like the land with the hills and lakes more than just flat wooded areas and grass plains. Even though they didn't do squat to reclaim the land back in the 30's, apparently having a lot of heavy ground vegetation for 70 years has created a good enough layer of new soil that things grow well. People seem pretty confident that after 70 years or so that there isn't much more settling to do and they aren't doing anything special with their foundations.

 

[dave1949]

soil test are done. I have a soil pH of 7.4 due to the mining company backfilling with lime. I need a good amount of nitrogen and potassium. A company put in an abandoned mine drainage treatment system and distrubed an area where i wanted to put my food plot. The seeded and fertilized the area with a mine spoil seed mix that contains clover. The clover grew surprizingly well, so my plans are to expand and supplement that area.

I would say you are going about it the right way. Observing what works where and expanding on that, plus you know your soil tests.

Maybe the right tool for working up a bit of seed bed depth is going to be determined by the number and size of rocks present more than anything else. A box blade with ripper teeth would always be useful and might be enough for your purposes. That would be an inexpensive place to begin and see what results it gives. You could use a piece of weighted chainlink or other fencing to smooth out.

Something else to look at, if you dig down about 1.5' - 2', what do you see? If the soil is 'dead' just below the surface, plowing the surface layer root zone down might work against you for grasses (wheat, buckwheat, etc.). I have no idea how long it takes reclaimed soils to rebuild to normal levels of microbes which really determine how healthy the soil is. I would guess most of the good stuff is very near the surface if the reclaimation planting is not very old. The amount of organic matter present in the soil could be pretty low.

Are the trees and honeysuckle large enough that you need to bush hog them to preserve openings for your food plots? If you have an idea in mind of what you want it to look like 10-15 years from now, you could layout trails too and bush hog those. That would favor any grasses growing in the trails without having to compete with trees for nutrients, sunlight and moisture.
Dave.

 

[Western]

What is the rock size and density?? I have never planted a reclamation area, but I have planted in areas that where so rocky you would have thought so...The reason I asked is for me, that would be the deciding factor as far as what implement to use.. Allot of large rocks and you can destroy a disc or tiller.

Rye grasses will grow almost anywhere, any soil. On weak soil I would plant in combination's such as mixture of oats, wheat and clover. Any mixture that has legumes, so you can get some nitrogen fixed in the ground, that should help build the dirt over time..