2023-2024 Preseason
Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2023 9:04 pm
Been busy working on projects and equipment trying to take advantage of the second dry summer in a row we have had. Rare occurrence to get work done. Last year I posed a bunch about the freshwater marsh cleanout and blind project we did. This year we are focused on two 100 acre fields at the far south end of the farm. These fields have been grown up for the last 5-10 years full of cattails and phragmites. Both fields are between 0-1' of elevation so they require a pump to completely drain and that pump was broken when we bought the property. Last year we put in place new water control structures and we got the pump fixed this year and were able to dry everything out. We aerially sprayed both fields this summer and got a good kill on one of them and an ok kill on the other. Burning is what we really needed but they put in place a burn ban in early July just as we were ready. We mowed what we could but it was so thick it was giving the equipment hell. Last week we spoke with the fire marshall and found out that farm fields were exempt since we are planning on having these planted in rice in the spring. We lit them up on Saturday and got one of the fields burned really well. We will run a disk across it next week.
The image below shows our plans for this unit. We are going to beef up the cross levee to handle ATV traffic with a big blind in the middle. The north half of the field will be managed as moist soil. We will take out all the sub levees in the bottom half of the unit and it will be a reservoir where we keep 1-2' of water on it year-round and grow submerged aquatic vegetation.
The field that you can barely see at the very top of the picture is the one that didn't die as well with the spray. We are in the process of mowing it and will then burn and disk it if it stays dry for a couple more weeks. It will probably be a rest field that we keep 6-12" of water on.
The image below shows our plans for this unit. We are going to beef up the cross levee to handle ATV traffic with a big blind in the middle. The north half of the field will be managed as moist soil. We will take out all the sub levees in the bottom half of the unit and it will be a reservoir where we keep 1-2' of water on it year-round and grow submerged aquatic vegetation.
The field that you can barely see at the very top of the picture is the one that didn't die as well with the spray. We are in the process of mowing it and will then burn and disk it if it stays dry for a couple more weeks. It will probably be a rest field that we keep 6-12" of water on.