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Home
| What we do
| Invasive Non-Native Plants |
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Woodlands, or any land, goes through natural changes known as plant succession. Whether the starting point is a clear-cut forest, a hurricane damaged forest, or an old field left fallow; plant succession is the same. The first year, annual plants such as ragweed sprout from seed that have been dormant in the soil for years. Grasses, legumes and berry producing plant follow. As years pass, briars give way to woody brush which in turn grow into trees, shading out the weeds, briars, and small seed producing plants. As Plant communities change, wildlife that live on the land change. For example, as a new forest goes from grass and legumes to mature trees, the presence and numbers of bobwhite quail will decline because the habitat is no longer suitable. Most landowners prefer to manage or manipulate forest habitat for specific wildlife. In the Southeast U. S., this often means Turkey and Quail. Many of their needs are similar. Both quail and turkey nest and feed on the ground. They prefer to walk where they go and most important of all, their young leave the nest the day they are hatched and walk away. The further these one day old chicks have to walk from nesting habitat to brood habitat, the fewer 2 day old chicks you will have. QUALITY LAND MANAGEMENT works with landowners to manage game bird habitat in the following ways: |
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Prescribed Fire: One of the most important tools the wildlife manager has to influence plant succession. Prescribed fire removes accumulated litter from the forest floor, freeing up nutrients that fertilize the forest. Fire controls woody brush, allowing the turkey and quail to walk easily and most importantly, see and avoid predators. As woody brush is controlled, legumes and forbs respond to the additional sunlight that is allowed on the forest floor. Most legumes have hard seed coats that need to be broken down to germinate. Fire serves as a scarifying agent to break down these seed coats increasing legume germination.
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Forest Herbicides: Herbicides can increase the wildlife carrying capacity of your land. Woody brush, such as sweet gum, recover from prescribed fire too quickly on much of our forest land for legumes and forbs to become established. Broadcasting "Smart " herbicides, such as BASF's Arsenal, in a strip pattern greatly reduces this unwanted brush and opens up the forest floor for plants such as legumes that wildlife prefer. It works hand in hand with fire and is cost effective. |
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Sweetgum in need of
control |
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Mechanical Control of Hardwood Brush: When woody brush becomes so thick that it can't be controlled by fire or so tall that it can't be sprayed with a ground machine, mechanical control is often your only option. Our Bobcat with cutter head will get the brush down where it can be dealt with. Continued mowing of travel lanes between cover areas tend to let grasses take over. Disking strips in these mowed areas with a disk heavy enough for the job, such as our Brush Master, works great.
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Disking: A heavy disk is another relatively inexpensive and effective tool available to the wildlife manager. Disking strips through the open woods provides corridors for quail to walk, feed and dust. Redisking strips every other year allows the growth of annual weeds such as ragweed to grow, providing cover areas for chicks to catch insects in the spring and pick weed seeds in the fall and winter. Disking strips along roads and then spreading and lightly covering browntop millet in early spring offers more brood areas for turkey and quail chicks to collect insects in. If you get a "poor" stand of millet mixed with ragweed and other annual weeds, so much the better.
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OUR SERVICES INCLUDE:
PRESCRIBED BURNING - TREE PLANTING - TIMBER MARKING AND CRUISING - TIMBER HARVEST INSPECTION - BOUNDARY LINE MAINTENANCE - WILDLIFE PLANTINGS - WILDLIFE DAMAGE CONTROL - VEGETATION MANAGEMENT FOR WILDLIFE
PINE PLANTATION ADJUSTMENT FOR WILDLIFE
FISH POND MAINTENANCE
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