Habitat 2003

This fall (Oct 1)  I was finally accepted into The Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program (WHIP).  The Aerial photo at right shows the accepted plan. This basicly an enhancment of the plan John Murphy prepared for me last year.  The foodplots were all planted this spring, though in some cases you would be hard pressed to determine what crops were planted where due to the weeds.  My farm may not be much for crops but it will sure produce weeds with the best of them.  I have come to the conclusion that as much as I would like to avoid the use of herbicides, they may be a necessity for a few years anyway.

I planted RoundUp Ready beans this year and actually sprayed the bean plots in the East 60.  The results have been amazing, the deer have eaten the plants down to 4-8" in height and are still in there cleaning up the beans as I write this in Nov.

The plan shown will be fully implemented in 3 years.  This first year I'll be putting in all the warm season grasses (the light blue areas) and improving the timber in the upper left corner of the pic.  The following two years will be putting in the trees and shrubs, +-1200 trees and 9000+ shrubs. The esitmated cost of the plan is 12K but  WHIP picks up 9K of it.  Your and my taxes at work on something I believe in for a change.

This fall I sprayed RoundUp in all the warm season grass areas and disced up all the firebreaks in preparation for burning in the spring.  This will be followed by a second application of RoundUp and Plateau prior to planting the grass with a No-til drill.

The timber stand improvement involves cutting two .5-.75 acre clearcuts and then replanting with desired tree species, primarily oaks in this case. The chainsaw's going to get a workout this winter for sure.