I burned off a small (8 acres) pine woods today. Burning is one of the best management tools for the timber and for wildlife. Controlled burning reduces the risk of wildfire by keeping too much fuel from accumulating, reduces insect and disease pressure, and recycles nutrients, stimulating the growth of wildlife beneficial plants, such as sericia lespedeza, rather than hardwoods and privet hedge.

Starting a backfire.


After the backfire has created a buffer between what you want to burn and what you don't want burned, you can start a headfire.


Backfire and headfire about to merge-mission accomplished.


I'm going to have those pines thinned down to a "plantation stand" this Summer. I am going to put a livestock fence around the pines and the adjacent field, totaling about 20 acres, and make an area where I can train and run bird dogs in a contained area. The fence will contain the dogs. I have Winter wheat planted in part of the field, and I'll let it stand all Summer. I will plant other food plot type stuff, corn, grain sorghum (milo), browntop millet, sunflowers, Egyptian wheat, etc. this Summer. I'll leave some standing for cover, and mow and harrow some down. We don't have many wild quail, and I'll supplement them with pen raised birds for training and recreation. The picture below shows one end of the field and some of the pines.

__________________
Georgia On My Mind

I burned off a small (8 acres) pine woods today. Burning is one of the best management tools for the timber and for wildlife. Controlled burning reduces the risk of wildfire by keeping too much fuel from accumulating, reduces insect and disease pressure, and recycles nutrients, stimulating the growth of wildlife beneficial plants, such as sericia lespedeza, rather than hardwoods and privet hedge.

Starting a backfire.


After the backfire has created a buffer between what you want to burn and what you don't want burned, you can start a headfire.


Backfire and headfire about to merge-mission accomplished.


I'm going to have those pines thinned down to a "plantation stand" this Summer. I am going to put a livestock fence around the pines and the adjacent field, totaling about 20 acres, and make an area where I can train and run bird dogs in a contained area. The fence will contain the dogs. I have Winter wheat planted in part of the field, and I'll let it stand all Summer. I will plant other food plot type stuff, corn, grain sorghum (milo), browntop millet, sunflowers, Egyptian wheat, etc. this Summer. I'll leave some standing for cover, and mow and harrow some down. We don't have many wild quail, and I'll supplement them with pen raised birds for training and recreation. The picture below shows one end of the field and some of the pines.

__________________
Georgia On My Mind

Very nice wildlife management project.
Best of luck to your dog training efforts as well.

Mike

__________________
Memory of Randy Freas-Rimfired

Controlled burn is 32 years of marriage......

......AND fire thins out the ticks.

I hate ticks.

__________________
Life Member NRA Since 1985

+1

Isn't about time someone did that for Atlanta again?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by redlevel:
I burned off a small (8 acres) pine woods today. Burning is one of the best management tools for the timber and for wildlife.
************
CONTROLED BURN: A great tool, WHEN PROPERLY done. Yours appears to have been done very nicely. Well done... great job. When I was a Conservation Officer here in Michigan, we had many controled burns. They were not easy to bring off. We were required to have enough fire control people, and their equiptment on hand, a proper burning index (Low enough to prevent unwanted spread, yet high enough to get the degree of burn desired.) My recollection is it always improved the timber stand, or the habatat, which ever was the desired purpose. Aspen only start anew with a fire, or cutting. Certain stands of pine need a fire to open the cones to reseed. Remember ....ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FORREST FIRES.

__________________
Life happens while your making other plans