Diversity promotes healthier ecosystems, boosts resilience against environmental changes like droughts, and provides food and cover for a multitude of species, contributing to a vibrant and thriving environment.
Diversity promotes healthier ecosystems, boosts resilience against environmental changes like droughts, and provides food and cover for a multitude of species, contributing to a vibrant and thriving environment.
All right, guys. So we are this. Let me tell you what we're fixing to do over the next few weeks. We're doing this habitat series but we wanted to go into a little bit deeper and kind of go dig, dig deeper into certain topics. So I've got Jack with me and Jackson, student in Mississippi State, and we all kind of I don't know if you've heard the one of the podcasts we did with him earlier in the year, but he's, he's kind of searching for ways to connect dots in the classroom and that kind of thing. Right, jack?
Speaker 2:Yeah it's kind of so.
Speaker 2:Like you know, we're learning all this stuff in the classroom and it's great, but you know you're trying to find ways to connect it to in the field.
Speaker 2:And this video series is, you know, that's my goal with it and that's our goal with it, I think is you know we're I'm learning this stuff in the classroom and Carter's, you know, been in this industry long enough that we can kind of connect dots, and you know one, I can learn that stuff, but also the kids in the classroom with this video series they might be able to learn something. And so you know I'm obviously I'm learning a lot from filming these videos and getting in the field, but it's also neat to make these videos and to post them for other people to see in the classroom or out of the classroom. You know it could be a college kid or somebody less than this could be you know 40 or 50 who has a degree in, you know, business or something they have hunting land, and so it's. I think this series is going to be beneficial to college kids, but also, just, you know, landowners who like to hunt and they might not have got a degree in forestry or land management or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, over the last 10 years kind of, when I started really kind of diving deep into habitat management, when I was posting stuff, it was really just like, oh, I'm figuring this out right now. So if I'm figuring it out right now, surely someone would love to hear about that too. So, anyway, that's. I just want to give you all kind of a brief description of what the podcast part of this habitat series is going to be. We are going to dig into we can't cover everything on social media, so if we're going to cover something and go deeper, we're going to do that through this podcast. Basically, what the way that we're going to kind of lay this out is? Jack's in forestry school. He's needing to kind of connect some dots, and so we're going to this series is kind of be tailored towards him and towards what he's trying to pursue at Mississippi State, and I think that by doing that we're going to be able to open a lot of doors for other people to be able to look into some deeper sides of habitat management.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think it'll be neat, just for, you know, people outside of the university too to look in.
Speaker 2:And you know there's I've talked to a lot of people who you know they think forestry is cool and they didn't go to school for it but they're like you know, the videos that you'll have made, you know they're neat and they might not even have hunting land. They might not have land but it's still neat to see that aspect and so I think it'll be cool to. Obviously it's great for college kids and you'll be able to see a little bit of what goes on in the field, I guess. But it'll be great for people who, you know, just want to learn a little bit more. You know, kind of like I mean, I used to watch how it's made videos growing up and I mean it's going to be kind of similar to that with you know it's going to be shorter but it's going to show just what goes on in the forestry industry. You know, from logging to you know, measuring timber and and then we'll, you know, dive into the habitat side with you know, deer and turkeys and managing for that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know if you really look at it and it's you know, it's like habitat series, where you know when you think about habitat series, you're thinking about wildlife, you're thinking about you know, to me that's what I'm what I'm what I'm thinking. I think viewers probably think that. But in order to do that, we've got to go into the deep side of forestry. We've got to go into the management practices, we've got to go into the civic culture, we've got to go into forest measurements, things that you're that Jack's taken this semester to be able to, to explain some of this stuff on the habitat series, on the habitat side, they all correlate, they all come together and being able to.
Speaker 1:The biggest thing that I want you to take from this and other people that are taken from this is you gotta have, you gotta equip yourself with a tool bag right, it's like it today we just got finished burning and being able to understand whether, understand how you can use it to your advantage and you know, humidity might be high, winds up, we can do some things and it can actually create more diversity in the stand without even having to put fire lanes and that kind of thing. So that's kind of what I want to give you all kind of a brief look into what this podcast, what this series, is really going to get into. Now let's jump into diversity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the. So we did a video, we posted a video, I guess last week, talking about it. But that's one of the one of the big, I don't know. That's one of the biggest things that you can really do to a property and there's a lot. You know, when you, when you say diversity, there's a lot of ways that you can add diversity to your property. I mean you can burn it, you can, you know, clear, cut it, you can thin it.
Speaker 2:I mean there's so many ways that you can add diversity to a property and you know a lot of y'all are probably doing it already and you just don't think that you're you know, you don't. There's a lot of ways that you know in the classroom and we'll mention things and talk about things, but until you get in the field and you really like talk about it or have that conversation, you don't realize it. And then once you hear about it, it's like, oh, I'm already doing that, you know you. Just you just didn't know that you were, and I think that's what this is sometimes. You know people are doing all these projects and they might not even have deer on their mind. They might, you know, want to make some money with timber or something like that, but in the long run they're adding diversity to their property.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So if we're, if we're, if we're jumping into the, the, the diversity of, let's, just let's, let's do get into the wildlife side of things here, let's go full into a natural process. You know, just think about, think about a tornado that comes through that, through an area. It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna knock, knock down some trees. It's gonna, it's probably gonna pick up and and not be on the ground all the time. So it's gonna, it's gonna knock down a spot and it's gonna go a little bit further and it's gonna knock down some more.
Speaker 1:Well, to me, what I see is diversity, is, is, is, is really, when it boils down to it, an edge effect. It's kind of like creating. When you create diversity in a let's just use that scenario Timbers down, it's about what a quarter acre, half acre of down trees, they're all matted up around it Right to the unaffected area. That's diversity. Then you got down stuff, you've got all that kind of creating and it's going to use shade and it's going to use different things to create all different types of plants. So, to me, if we're trying, if we look at that natural way that it's, I think, always, always, go natural thinking. The natural process is the most powerful process you can, probably that you can have. So if you start to look at your property and say you know what's happened, naturally, and then how can I mimic that, add to it, enhance it? Whatever Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think we put a lot of time and money into the food plot side of things and you know everybody plants food plots. But even just looking at ways to add diversity through you know fire or you know thinning or taking advantage of you know a lot of times when somebody sees a tornado go through a property, I mean their first thought is you know, well, all my trees are gone. And I mean that's true. But at the same time look at that diversity that for free, you didn't hire a logger to go in and add that diversity.
Speaker 2:I mean you didn't hire, I mean you didn't spend any money on it. Granted, you know it, it's bad for your timber and you know if you want to sell your timber. But at the same time it opened up that ground for all that sunlight to come in and you know you'll get plenty of forbs and grasses and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so all right. So we let's talk about different ways that we can. That diversity could actually look like on a management side of things. To me, all right. So you know, we got a food plot, okay, we got a long, long food plot and and then in that food plot we might have what clover, wheat, different things. In the spring you might plant veg, something like that.
Speaker 1:Don't discount the edge of that plot. It's the most important part of the plot in my opinion. Why? Because you know, think about turkeys, turkeys, they love natural stuff, they, you know we, they love clover, those kind of things. But they're going to stick to those edges. They're going to get in that back corner of a field. They're going to be more kind of, you know, turkeys, I think sometimes we we see them in the spring in these big fields, but for the most part they like to get in these back little corners of fields and so, creating diversity of different, different vegetation types right there around it. It's just like today when we went out there and and, and I was kind of sporadic, kind of putting fire down, you know, and it's just, you don't need to go, you don't have to go burn 50 acres to create that. Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 2:In fact, you know, in when you're managing for timber, you have to. You know you might want to burn 50 acres or 60 acres, you know block, but with habitat management and wildlife management you you don't have to like on a micro level. We could have fire right here, you know, on a two and a half acre plot, and then you know let's leave the rest and we might come back during the growing season and burn and that's creating diversity. Yeah, so you know, even this morning when we burned, the humidity wasn't perfect and so there were a lot of patches and a lot of people look at that like, well, it wasn't a successful burn, but that's just adding diversity. You're, you're creating, you know, black areas on the ground right now in the spring that all be green and the other stuff. You know you can come back and burn in, you know, during the summer and that's just adding diversity for the wildlife.
Speaker 1:You got to, really you got to break out your, your, your plots, what break out your property and you say, okay, I'm going to. I need to create diversity, I need to create changes and what that looks like is plant structure that's going to be some, that's going to be re-sprout, and then you might have stuff you burned two months ago that's starting to get into 18 to 36 inches and so kind of doing different times of the year or doing different little projects. For instance, if you burn through, like one of the saplings are a big part of my inventory for nutrition. But when you run a fire through a five, six year old sapling, that's got six, seven, eight saplings all together. You probably don't have the fuel load to get that fire to burn through that, to kill it. That's okay.
Speaker 1:But we looked at some of those spots today. It's like a little size of a truck. Well, now, what are my options now? Well, we know that the fire kind of resets and the root system is still growing, the tree's still alive. So if we sever that stump with what A bush hog or a mulch in head and that's a way to, we might not be able to get it with a fire, but we can get it with other strategies.
Speaker 2:When I think it just all goes back to putting all of it together, because a lot of people talk fire, and especially in the spring, and just like trapping. With turkey season coming up In the next couple of months, everybody's going to start talking about trapping, and the rest of the year you really don't hear much about trapping. And so I think it's just like putting all of that together. Whether it be fire, whether it be a mulcher, whether it be a bush hog, put it all together and that's the perfect plan. Like you don't need fire, you don't need just fire on your property, you don't need just mulching, you don't need just bush hogging, you have to put it all together in every aspect.
Speaker 2:The plants are going to react a little different and so that's just creating more diversity. I mean, when you burn it, it's going to grow up and be all green and perfect for you, for wildlife. Well, when you bring the bush hog in and cut some stumps, that'll be a perfect mineral sprout. But it's going to be at a different time. It's not going to be when everything's greening up, in the spring most likely.
Speaker 1:That's pretty much going into next week's. Next week. What we're going to talk about is really diversifying your early successional habitat, and what I mean by that is you need to be dropping. You need to be promoting new growth throughout the let's just call it seasons, let's call it quarters. If you go burn through your whole inventory in the spring, you don't have any inventory to reset In the south when it's dry. You need to be two months before that planning for that, and when you do that, you're diversifying your vegetation to where it doesn't matter. If you hit a drought, it doesn't matter, because that new growth, the power in that nature, natural process, is going to fight right through that drought.
Speaker 2:When you just have to plan ahead, because I mean, we weren't planning on burning today until probably two hours before, but everything was in place to where we could, and it allowed us to burn some ditches and some bottom land spots that had never been burned before. And as we're recording this, it's raining. As we're leaving, it started sprinkling when we were burning, and so it just shows you have to plan ahead too. You can't burn everything you want and burn the places that are going to be harder to burn without planning ahead. The conditions have to be perfect already, and then you add, in a couple of hours of making fire lanes or stuff like that, it dwindles how much time you have to burn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. All right. So we're excited about this y'all. I'm telling you just what you were talking about just a minute ago, like those ditches. Oh man, I cannot wait to geek out on some wetland upland. Yeah, you know some of those things.
Speaker 2:It'll be cool to show what comes up and how that reacts.
Speaker 1:That's funny man. That edge, that slope line is undervalued, and that is really what I found in my management. The key to really boosting a whitetails horns and turkeys. I mean turkeys, people just don't under. I mean wetlands, turkeys fall August before you know. The crazy thing about the natural process is if a duck is gonna use it in February, there's probably another bird that's using it the way before him. So it's all these, all these, all the wildlife kind of work together. They might be at different times of the year, you might not be seeing it, but it's definitely happening, yeah wetlands are so important for you know, I think that's one of the things that people don't think of.
Speaker 2:When, I mean, when you're looking at property and you see a you know big swamp or you know wetlands on your property, they'd be like, oh you know, let's skip to the next property, let's buy another one. But I mean there's a lot of I don't know. Well, not with you know obviously duck hunters.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm no, I that's wetlands. Oh my goodness, wetlands. Oh my, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a one of the best recipes for growing big deer, having ducks. You know, this year we're noticing, hey, droughts, yeah, these properties are more valuable. So, anyway, all right, so we'll see y'all next week and jump into diversifying your early successional habitat throughout the season. See y'all, okay. So last week we talked about diversity and kind of in general, and we ended with talking about how we were going to talk about early successional, diversifying your early successional habitats. You know, since, since then we've had some time to really think this out and and it's yes, we're going to talk about early successional, but we're going to really kind of go into some stages of forestry and and as far as, like, what's happens from the ground level all the way to the canopy level. So, first off, first thing, about early successional habitat, it is, it is the nutrition side of how you're going to feed your wildlife. It's, it's the, it's the protection side of how you're going to protect your wildlife. Let me give you an example Turkeys. So one of the we're we're, we're getting right into this One.
Speaker 1:You know one thing that I hear landowners talk about a lot and do a lot is I want to cut everything but my oaks. Have you ever heard? Have you ever heard that? So let me, let me. Let me tell you. You know why. That's not necessarily what you need to do, and I'm not here to tell you that I've had it all figured out for a long time because I haven't. I've had to, over the years, take one little thing, and and and, and, then it connects the dots like you were wanting to do. Here's the deal we know. Let's just use that scenario Cut everything but the oaks. So you're cutting a few hoax you're cutting. You're cutting all your pulp wood out. You're cutting. You're cutting all your mid story trees out. You're cutting all the sweet gums all the sweet gums, everything.
Speaker 1:Well, all those trees fit into a mid story level. They might. An oak can fit into a canopy level, so. So for instance y'all this is what I'm saying At the top of the of the forest, that's the canopy level, Okay, that's the top of the trees. Then you're going to go down into kind of an, into the mid story level, Okay. And then you're going to go down into the understory. That's going to be, you know, that could be into that.
Speaker 1:That's in that early success, Early success. You have a type, and then and then into the ground cover which is kind of you know, basically, on the fourth floor, we cut everything but the oaks. We're eliminating, completely eliminating the protection layer for turkeys, for waterfowl, for everything. And so hawks and owls who get up in that high canopy looking down, they have no issue, they don't have to worry about, they literally can watch it and fly down and get it. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to protect them from when that eagle or when that owl or whatever is flying down. He can't get to them because his wings would get caught up in those saplings or mid-stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's. I think you know we obviously put a big emphasis on trapping raccoons and you know I think that's important, but at the same time you don't even think about protecting the poults with, you know, sweet gums or with understory trees. Because I mean we've put such a big emphasis on all sweet gums you know for wildlife that don't really do much and they might not drop acorns but they're still producing cover and they're protecting the poults from predators from above. And so obviously I'm not saying a sweet gum is the magic ticket, but I mean if you're looking at a property that it definitely has a place in those understory, mid-story trees. They definitely have a place in your plan to protect. And I mean, you know I like to say it this way they were created.
Speaker 1:They didn't. They weren't created for nothing. I mean, if you know, if he created it, there's a purpose for it and you just got to find that purpose and you got to kind of build around it and make sure, diversifying, that you've got mid-story understory, early successional canopy.
Speaker 2:Everything should work together Well you just have to manage it correctly, because I mean, sweet gums will be great for protecting poults, but if you just let the property grow up and it's all sweet gums, you know, ten years down the road it's not going to be good for wildlife. But you have to know its place and you have to know how to manage it, to where you're keeping it in that stage and you aren't letting it take over the oaks or you aren't letting it take over you know early successional habitat or stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you one thing that you're gonna, you're gonna get into, probably in the kind of the probably civic culture stage. Okay, in these classes we call sweet gums trainer trees for oaks. So if oaks always grow, always grow slow, and so if a sweet gums running right beside it and it's, and it's growing fast, I mean a sweet gums gonna grow almost like it's fast, if not faster than a pine tree, that oak is gonna hang right in there with it and grow right up beside it, and so you're gonna get speed of that growth and you're building the merchantable level of that timber, of that stem with. So sometimes we, we, we don't value trees that might not meet your wildlife goals.