Habitat Series: The Importance of Mid Story Trees & benefits of early successional habitats

 Discover how early successional habitats, those dynamic places between field and forest, serve as more than just nutrition for wildlife—they are a sanctuary offering both nutrition and safety. We delve into why native plants in your food plots can be game-changers during droughts, and the importance of diversifying plant structure—not just for aesthetics but for the very survival of the animals we cherish. This episode promises a fresh perspective on the traditional food plot, guiding you to cultivate an environment that's not just about the seeds you plant, but learning how to tap into all the benefits of early successional habitat.  

February might bring mud, but it's pure gold for designers offering invaluable insights for your planning. No high-profile guests needed here—just a deep dive into the world around us, drawing back the curtain on the lesser-appreciated mid-story trees that anchor our ecosystem's diversity and serve as a haven from predators. Join us as we prepare for the upcoming habitat season, ensuring that when the trails dry and the cover grows, you're ready with a plan to maximize your property.  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

All right guys. So last week we kind of touched on early successional habitat and we really dived into like diversity and what that looks like. And we did some burning a couple weeks ago and we kind of wanted to touch more on early successional habitat and you know what that looks like and how you can, you know, manage it and the different ways that you can go about that, and so we kind of wanted to go in a little deeper into what that looks like.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Yeah, yeah. So you know, when I think about early successional habitat, it's a few years back I just kind of didn't understand really the structure of the plants, like kind of what is the purpose of it? And over the last few years, really diving into it and seeing that it doesn't, it's, it's definitely fits into your nutrition. That's the kind of the base of your nutrition. But it also is the base and very important factor for security, for for turkeys and, you know, for, for for all wildlife.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Really, let's see, let's just, let's just, let's just dive into, let's, let's start on the food plot level and then let's go into kind of a little bit behind the food plot and into your kind of that side of things. Then you know to me, when you're diversifying your habitat, when you diversify your early successional habitat, that needs to be monthly, that needs to be quarterly, that needs to be planned out to where, wherever you are for here, for instance, you know the late, late, late summer, early fall consistently is in a drought. So if you know those things, if you know those stresses that you have on your property, plan for it and and the way you do that is tap it into nature, tap it into the native plants. So to me, I like to have natives in my food plot because if it, if you get in a drought, those are going to help provide.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Nutrients yeah but then.

Speaker 2: 2:17

But then I love to have around. You know, if I have a big field, it really doesn't matter how big the field is. I Like to have a little bit taller plant around the edge. That is, it's early see, seasonal, but it's on like a 18 inches, 36 inches. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yeah, well, you want to just manage your plant structure because, like, obviously we all talk about food plots and Planting food plots and you know most of the time it's weed or clover or something like that. But even if you're planting a food plot and you get sun hemp or you get Egyptian weed or something taller that I mean, when you look at it it doesn't look like your green clover field but it still has benefit because you're providing cover for the pulse. You're providing you're helping with the soil health. I mean sun hemp and Egyptian wheat are great at building soil health and so, like, whenever we think of food plots, we always think of you know, let's plant soybeans or let's plant clover and that's great.

Speaker 1: 3:14

But also look at stuff that provides structure in your food plots and you know even the edge effect and having 10 to 15 yards on the edge of, you know, with early successional habitat, that's still your food plot. I mean you still need to manage that accordingly. You know, don't just let it grow up. And you know, only focus and all you know, put all your money on the food plot, put some time and focus on the early successional habitat or even providing cover and security in the food plot. You know whether that be. You know plant trees, you know like apple trees, or you know just plant, taller plants.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that for for me, for years I was, I was like I want a beautiful food plot and I don't want anything growing in that food plot because I wanted to like focus on the plant, you know, focus on the clover. And now that I've kind of looked into really what wildlife look for, they want to feed while they have security, you know. I think that's why later in the year, you see, all these does together, you see, you know there are turkeys together in flocks. They're trying to protect themselves. And so to me, you know, you've got to think like a turkey, you've got to think like a deer and if you can provide like, for instance, it's instilled, it is instinct in a turkey and in a duck that anything that flies above them they're going to stop what they're doing and and eye them all the way until it's no more a threat. That's to me that just gives me so much information that if I provide them an opportunity to eat while they're protected, my plot just got more attractive to them.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Yeah Well, and there's a fine line, because obviously you can't grow corn and shade or you can't grow soybeans under a tree, but use all your resources to where you have some protection in the food plot.

Speaker 1: 5:23

I mean you don't need to plant trees in your whole food plot, that's not what we're saying but have, create, you know, some sort of security for the birds and you know it might be corn. I mean corn's taller and you know during the growing season the leaves are so thick that I mean you wouldn't have to worry about the bullets. You know getting, you know I don't know you wouldn't have to worry about hawks getting them in the, you know, in taller crops. But there's ways that you could plant trees or use your mid-story that you already have. I mean you know you got species like Elm and you know Dogwood and stuff like that. You know that's already growing on your property most likely, and you could use that to your advantage. I mean they're already in the mid-story helping to protect your poults from owls or hawks and stuff like that. That's in the, you know, above the canopy or in the upper canopy.

Speaker 2: 6:11

Yeah, so we're going to dive into those two things you just talked about. First, let's talk about the food plot. You know, if you really study turkeys, most of the time they like to gather in the corner of a field or something. So you could have you a few, a few scattered or an orchard in the field, to where you can kind of bring them out a little bit further and kind of, you know, if they're in the center of a field, you know, if you provide a little bit of structure out there, they're going to, they're going to be able to utilize that field more. But now let's go into what you, what you just talked about mid-story, that is, that's forestry, that is that is really the basis of what you really need to be focused on, more than food plots. So what he just talked about, what Jack just talked about, was mid-story. So you have a ground level, ground cover, and that's going to be that. You know that could be corn, that could be whatever that could be.

Speaker 1: 7:24

I mean that could be, yeah, it could even be honeysuckle or, you know, even privet in some areas.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I mean, if you haven't managed, yes, so then you have that level and then you got the next level, which is mid-story. These two type trees they can be oaks, they can be sweet gums, but there's a lot of trees that we just undervalue dogwoods, ironwood, what are some of them? I'm sure you got elms and you know.

Speaker 1: 7:52

And then you know sweet gums that at the right stage could be a mid-story and you've got all these trees that when you think about sweet gums it's like, oh, I don't want sweet gums. And you know, managed correctly, you can use them to kind of help provide some of that cover for turkeys. And dogwoods to the same. I mean dogwoods, you know, in that lower canopy or mid canopy. I mean they're great at protecting the polts.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Yeah, so think about this, think about this. This is cool to me. So in forestry, you know, when you're buying timber or you're, you know you're cutting timber. You see, like an AM or a hackberry that doesn't really have a good quality stick of you know stem of timber most of the time, but it's like it's short and it's like branches everywhere.

Speaker 1: 8:42

It's spread out.

Speaker 2: 8:42

It's spread out. Okay, so we know this. We know that what we just talked about a minute ago is those turkeys are going to eye predators until that predator disappears from their field of view. One of the biggest mistakes that I've noticed, and I've made to my too is I hear land owners say this all the time. I want to cut everything by my hoax. I'm in it for, you know, for wildlife. Okay, let's talk about that. To me, everything that's in nature was designed and has a purpose. Codes. They have a purpose. You might not like that. You might look and see them take out a fawn or a weak deer, but that's how you get your diseases out of your herd. They have a purpose. Trees that aren't quality timber have a major purpose and it's security cover.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Well, and you know sweet gums. I mean they grow so quick that they help oaks. I mean they kind of help steer oaks as they grow.

Speaker 2: 9:55

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 9:57

You know, on some properties people might look at them. You know, oh, we want a big oak. You know I don't know forest where there's no competition. You know there's some prairie grass and it's super pretty and you know it looks great. And in one area you know that's great but at the same time that's not really what the wildlife need. I mean, sure the acorns are, you know, help feed the deer and but you need that cover and that mid-story, even if it's just a little bit of cover in that mid-story you need a little just to help protect the poults which is diversity.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, you know it's, you can have both, but you know, I think that one thing that we hear a lot is where's the? Where are the turkeys? You know, where are the ducks? Where are these things? You know, and I'm not, I'm not blaming anyone, I'm not. I just think that, all right, if you really look at it, we're managing pine plantations and we're burning them and we're killing all the understory, which it has benefit, it does, but you're also getting rid of all your mid-story.

Speaker 2: 11:05

You're getting rid of you know, you know to me in my, in my, you know, if y'all visualize, you know a poults, think about poults and baby. You know poults and you know their first few months. We're thinking about grasses, right, we're thinking about those little spots of them to run under. I mean, a hawk can run, he's gonna fly right into that grass and he's gonna get that. However, if you have a tree there mid-story, poor timber, aome, hagbury, sweet gum, something that's that's providing some structure above them, when that hawk or that eagle or owl comes, comes down to attack, he, he, his wings are gonna get caught up in that. He can't get, he can't fly into that in a kill's position.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Well, and you don't even need trees to that. I mean, even if you have early successional habitat where you have you know some bushes and stuff like that, you know that. I mean that does the same thing. And so we, we aren't talking. You know you need some. You know older sweet gum, that kind of helps protect. I mean, all you need is let your field grow up a little bit, have that early successional habitat where you're diversifying the age class of the plants, whether it be you know honeysuckle growing on some plants, or you know blackberry, raspberry, something like that, just enough to, you know, help put a barrier between the polts and its predators.

Speaker 2: 12:35

It's like this, it's like this If you, I've got a field that it's like a five acre field and let's imagine if I was out in that field and all of a sudden I started getting bombed, I started getting out of. If I have to run all the way to the to back into the woods, yeah, I can do that. But what if I had a tree or some kind of, some kind of structure 20 yards from there? I'm not saying to change up your entire food plot. I'm just saying provide some security, cover out in some of those open areas. And, like you said a minute ago, you don't, you don't have to have those mid story, you don't, you definitely don't. But what we're?

Speaker 2: 13:17

But when you want to take your early, there's levels of your early successional, you know. So I go from anywhere from six inches to 18 inches to 36. That's a food source type situation for me. That's how I manage that early successional for nutrition. But then I also have every tree, every sapling is in my inventory. I use it, you know, to provide nutrition for wildlife. So I have to allow those trees, those saplings, to grow.

Speaker 2: 13:51

And when they get four or five, six years old, you know they're what? Six, eight feet tall, maybe, maybe six feet to five, six, seven feet tall. Yeah, that's gonna. That's gonna. You're gonna jump into two things. You're gonna jump into the vines, which is the honeysuckle, so they're going to be climbing up that sapling. You're going to be able to provide, when that sapling gets a little bit taller, a little bit more shade. It's going to get rid of a little bit of grass, a little bit of forbs and that's going to provide some of that ground cover that you need. But being able to switch and diversify out your early successional to where you don't lose it all at one time or you don't have it all at one time, yeah, Well, you want it at different age classes.

Speaker 1: 14:43

And that goes into how you manage it, because if you just let it grow up, then it's not, it's slowly going to lose its value to wildlife, Because I mean wildlife aren't going to look at the big sweet gum thicket that I mean it might provide cover, but there's no other food source there. And so it's like, well, you have to manage it correctly. And so once you're that those species get big enough, go in with a bush hog or go in and burn it, spray it, whatever you have to do, and restart it. And so I mean you could bush hog it and turn that into the food plot and then let the food plot grow up. You know, and you're back and forth and I don't know.

Speaker 2: 15:17

What Jack's saying is right. There is. You've got different tools in your bag and some you know. If I can burn it, if I can burn it and I can get a sure enough kill on it, I'm going to go fire every time because that's the quickest way for me to, you know, to produce.

Speaker 1: 15:33

And most cost effective way.

Speaker 2: 15:37

It's. There is a fertilization process that happens in composting, okay, and when you let this stuff decompose and lay down, you're putting nutrients back in the soil. So what does that mean? That means that I'm not going to just say that the most valuable thing you can do is burn. I'm going to say that it is a tool. I'm going to have some of that, but I'm also going to have some of these areas that have saplings that are, you know, six, eight feet tall, that I'm going to bush hog and you're like, hold on a minute. They told me that that you, you know, the bush hog is the most unaffected tool. You don't need to do. That's not true.

Speaker 1: 16:20

You just have to use it right.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Because if you go and bush hog everything.

Speaker 1: 16:24

It won't be good for the wildlife but if, if you know, we did a burn a couple of weeks ago where it was patchy and that was fine, you know that opened up to where we could go and burn during the growing season if we wanted, but that also opened up. Bring the bush hog in and you know it might be a five by six area, just bush hog, that little area. That'll be stump sprouts and you know mineral, you know stumps for later.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Yeah, you're literally counting your, you know, let's just say the size of your living room. Okay, I don't know how big your living room is, but if you broke that down and said, okay, I need a five or six trees, mineral stumps there, I could have a little bit of clover right there and and and I could have you know a the a stage below those, those trees, that you're having those mineral stumps to, where it's for the next level. I mean, that is, that's diversifying it out to little bitty micromanaged areas and it doesn't have to be on a big scale.

Speaker 1: 17:24

I mean all you need is just break it down, cause if you're looking at what a deer or turkey needs, I mean they need a lot. But at the same time, if instead of going and burning you know 40 acre block, just burn a half acre block right here by the food plot and see how they react to that. Because I mean they don't, they won't use the whole 40 acre block at one time. I mean that's an edge, that's what we call the edge effect.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Okay, so when, when you, if you have a 40 acre block, literally a 40 acre block, they're going to use 25% of the edges of that. They're not going to truly use it. So if you change that up and go narrow, you're going to have a lot more more usable space. The edge is going to be more. And so you know, if you think about a tornado that comes through, have you ever seen a tornado that comes through? It's just like knocks out a big 40 acre block sometimes is big mile wide tornadoes, but most of the time it's little bitty storms that knock that down. A little quarter acre hack, a 10th acre goes, it jumps up and it hits another half acre and they're like is that enough? Well, think about this. He was doing this before you got involved, before we had education, before we had all this stuff. Yeah, I would say that he, if he's doing it, that that system is probably pretty legit. Yeah, so you know everything that you do as a habitat specialist. You need to know it Meaning. You know what they say about don't use a bush hog. What are they saying? Well, they're saying it promotes grasses. That's why you don't need to do it. Okay, good.

Speaker 2: 19:04

Well, if I want to this next year burn this area, I know I'ma burn it. Why don't I go ahead and encourage a little bit of grasses to get that fire to roll through? That I might use chemical or something after that fire, but if I have an issue with fuel loads, grasses play an important role. It's a balance. You know, it's like we, when we were out there burning a couple weeks ago, we had I had a one spot right in the middle that was just grasses. There's no reason for me to burn that right now because I'm gonna be able to use that late May into June. I'll be able to burn that when some of this other stuff I might not be able to carry a fire, if that makes sense. So I'm diversifying out my habitat. I'm diversifying out and using and evaluating the vegetation to know how to use it and manage it best way.

Speaker 1: 20:04

You know, your bush hog is a very good tool, but you can't use it solely, you know, on your property. That's the only way you manage, because if you, if you, only bush hog, then yeah sure, you know people are gonna recommend that you. You know, add diversity in other ways, but use it to your advantage. And if you're planning to burn next year, maybe go bush hog a little bit, just to provide, you know, encourage the grasses.

Speaker 2: 20:28

You know it's one of those things everybody's like well, what is he? You know he might not look you. Just I'm not trying to be like trying to sell services but you know you need to lean on professionals to tell you what to do. It's it's you know, when you plan, when you do these things, it's it's your professionals have been. One, they've gone to school for it, but then two, they've been in the field for it, and if they've done that, they can save you years of mistakes and so everything they've saying different things Cause I mean, when you're in the field, you know and this is your job you're gonna see different.

Speaker 1: 21:06

You're gonna see how it works on bottom land properties. You're gonna see how it works on, you know, higher properties, and so you know it's everything's gonna react differently to it. You know, to your property, and so, yeah, whatever you try on a bottom land site, it's not gonna work on a you know upland pine site in Alabama, and so I think that's where it's so diverse with. You know, there's just so many different variables in it that can change. Yep, I agree.

Speaker 2: 21:33

I agree, all right. So next week y'all we're gonna be talking about what you need to be doing literally right now in February. February is fixing to be here. You know if I'm working on your farm, if I you know the clients that I work with. If I'm not on your farm in February, it's gonna be really hard for me to build a plan, the right plan to where to be able to use what the wildlife are doing. You know why February it's the muddiest time of the year and when it's the muddiest time of the year, I can literally look at the all the deer trails, know what they're doing. I'll be able to lay out design strategies, but you can't really do that in the summertime. You can't. You need to be on it early in the year. So that's what we're gonna be covering next week is what you need to be doing. How can you plan for habitat season? That's here, see ya.