Ep. 633: Creating Better Hunting by Managing for Native Habitat and Ecosystems with Kyle Lybarger

native ecosystem focus. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you by First Light. This week, on this show, we are wrapping up Habitat Month with a bang and what I'd say, a bit of a philosophical twist of sorts. Yeah, I'm gonna throw a curveball at you here right at the end of our series,

because you know, that's what I'm here to do. I'm here to surprise and delight and educate, and that's what we have in store for you today as we've got one more Habitat discussion for the month with our guest Kyle Liebarger. Now, Kyle is an Alabama resident and hunter, so shout out to tell you folks in the South. He's a graduate from Alabama A and M with a forestry degree. He's a consulting professional Forrester, the founder of the Native Habitat Project, and a bit of a social

media video star. They call these kids TikTokers these days. I think who's He's come to widespread notoriety by way of these educational videos that he's sharing all across social media about native plants and wildlife ecosystem management and restoration and conservation. And he's someone who I've actually had a number of different folks reach out to him and say, Hey, you shou really talk to Kyle. You should talk to Kyle. But just recently, somebody I really respect, a Forrester and

land manager and conservationist himself. This person reached out to me and said that he sees Kyle, or he sees in Kyle the beginnings of a young Craig Harper. And if you don't know, Craig Harper is one of the absolute foremost i mean, top of the line, top of the top of the top educators and communicators about wildlife habitat management. So that's a high compliment indeed. So that's why I'm excited to have Kyle here, and it's also because I think the topic we're going to discuss here

is a needed way to cap this month. You might have noticed the past three weeks of discussion, there's been a lot of chat. There's been a lot of focus on hunting. You know. By that, I mean there's been this very strong focus on how our habitat, projects, improvements, manipulations, how they can make our hunting better, very tactical stuff. You know, plant this plot in this kind of way,

it'll help you get a shot out of deer. Put in this betting area in this kind of way and this kind of size, you have a better chance than an archer shot. Whatever it is, something like that, And that's good stuff. It's fun stuff, it's helpful. I enjoy it just as much as the nuts guy. But Kyle, our guest today, wants us to consider more than just

hunting when we get to working on our properties. He wants us to zoom out a bit and look at the whole ecosystem, all the animals, all the plants, everything in they're all tied together, and consider if we can do more then just manipulate these places to kill more deer, maybe we can restore and steward and create something that has a far wider positive impact on the land and

creatures around us. That's our topic of conversation today. It's why expanding our view of land management to focus not just on deer, but on the goal of restoring the entire native ecosystem is worthwhile and how we can each do it. We talk native grasslands, pollinators, wildflowers, water quality, food plot replaced, creating native food plot screens, timber management,

creating wildlife openings, and a whole lot more. Really, so, please, if you listen to the first three episodes in our series, please listen to this one too. I really think it works as a perfect bow to wrap around this whole month long series. You know, the ideas discussed across these four weeks, they don't need to be considered separately or as kind of an either or kind of decision. You don't need to take you know what Bobby and Toby said last week, and then take what Kyle's didn't tell

you today and choose between the two. It's my belief that we can actually incorporate all of this different thinking into a new amalgam in our own mold of what we're trying to achieve and the things that matter to us. We can, in my belief, improve our deer hunting and manage for the entirety of the ecosystem. We can steward native grasslands and still create great food plots. We can have better deer hunting and also help birds and bugs and quail and water quality and carbon secrustation and all

sorts of stuff like that. That's possible. So I'm very excited about this discussion covering all of that kind of stuff. But this brings me this kind of ties into another topic I wanted to mention here and exciting. I'm trying to stay exciting, but I'm combining within a word announcement and exciting announcement that i want to share with you about something I've been working on here for a while and it's going to be kicking off in about a month.

Something I'm calling the Working for Wildlife Tour. You see, there's all sorts of incredible events across the country put on by states and conservation organizations that bring together hunters and anglers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve wildlife habitat restore ecosystems, clean trash, and so much more generally in many different ways giving back to the public

lands and waters we love so much. So a lot of what we've talked about over the past three and a half now four weeks has been about how you can do this kind of good stuff on private lands. Well we can also do that kind of stuff even if you don't AI on land. You can do this kind of stuff on public lands and waters. And there's all sorts of these events all over the place that need volunteers, but they're slipping by under the surface without a lot of attention and not as much participation as

they need. And I want to help change that. So this year, with the Working for Wildlife Tour, we're going to shine a spotlight on a bunch of these different volunteer habitat days across the country. And as part of that, I'm actually going to go out there and attend and participate in these events myself, hopefully bringing along some of my friends from Meetator and First Light to work on improving our public lands and our waters. And I'm inviting

you to join me. You know, I talk to you guys every week here on the show, as do a bunch of other folks at Metator, but we rarely get to connect with you, our community members, in person anymore, and I want to help change that. So I'm excited to meet a bunch of you at these habitat days. I want to answer your questions, I want to hear your stories, sign some books, give away some free stuff, and then get our hands dirty together doing good stuff

for wildlife. And I do think from what I understand, each of these volunteer events will be followed by some kind of social shindig afterwards as well, So not only are we going to work for wildlife, but we're gonna have a good time and meet some like minded folks too, So that's, you know, that's a win win as far as I'm concerned. Now, the specific details for these events, for each one of these events that are gonna be

part of the tour, that's still getting ironed out. We're just about there, but I want to button up a couple more things. But I can tell you we've got events starting as soon as late March and running all the way into October, and I'm gonna be visiting locations as far east as Massachusetts and as far west as Idaho. We're trying to cover just about each major region of the country, so hopefully there's gonna be something that's within

a reasonable drive for all of you. I'll announce the specific details for each of these individual events here on the wire Hunt podcast, on social media, on the Mediator website, and all those places, so stay tuned for the specifics. But this is the basic gist. This is what I want you guys to be getting ready for. I'm excited it's almost time to hit the road do some work

for wildlife. And I do really believe this. I really do believe that we each have this ability to give back to these places and critters that we enjoy so much. As hunters and anglers, we can make a difference. And I'm just excited to go out there and do some of that work right there alongside you. So I want to meet you guys. I want to shake your hand. I want to pick up some trash next to you. I want to stack some brush, cut down some vases, plant some trees. Who knows what I am looking forward

to it. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for more on the Working for Wildlife Tour very soon, probably as soon as maybe next week I'll have more and I'm just excited, very very excited. So with out of the way, let's get into this week's conversation. Let's wrap up our month long Habitat series with my chat with Kyle Liveburger. Here we go, all right now here with me straight off of the Wild Turkey Convention extravagance that

just happened. We've got Kyle Liveburger from the Native Habitat Project. How are you, Kyle? Oh? Doing good other than a little bit horse from two days of talking nonstops. So working working on get my voice back, but hopefully we'll make it there this podcast without any problems. Did you did you enjoy all that turkey talk? Oh? Yeah, no, man, it's uh, that's that's that's my favorite thing to do.

And that's uh, that's probably why why they make content, because my wife gets tired of hearing me talk about it, and so it's nice to be around a bunch of people who actually want to listen and uh hear about that kind of stuff and have conversations. So it's a it's a good man. Yeah, yeah, being around like minded folks excite about the same things, that is that's a recipe for a good time. And I guess that's why I'm excited about today too, Kyle, because we're in the

midst of this. We're actually wrapping up our Habitat month on the podcast. We've spent you know, all February talking to people about different ways to manage habitat, to improve land, to work the ground in one way or another, to you know, help wildlife populations and deer hunting or any of these other things that a lot of our folks like to do. Um. But I'll be honest, a lot of our focus this year, in this month has been, you know, our guests have been pretty tactical, pretty hunting focused.

We've talked to a couple folks recently who take a you know, a very strategic, tactical approach to doing stuff like just to make the deer hunting better and and that's something that you know a lot of people are interested in. I've certainly learned a lot from it. I find a very interest. But there's this other part of the habitat topic that we haven't talked about as much

this time. We've talked about in previous podcasts with other people, but this month it just hasn't been kind of the It just hasn't been as prominent as some of our other discussions. And so when I was thinking about who I wanted to bring on to kind of close this thing down and to wrap it up and tie a bow on it, you came to mind, because your work, especially how you've shared some of your philosophies and ideas around managing native ecosystems, has really flourished and gained a

really strong following in social media. You've got a massive following across Instagram, a TikTok, and your YouTube channel, all these different places where folks have really found your message to resonate with them, This message that you seem to have around managing for native ecosystems, not just for one critter, but really trying to bring back what was here, what should be here, and what could be here in a way that helps, you know, reach all sorts of different goals.

So that is a long winded way of saying, Kyle, I'm curious to you or for you, why does this matter? Why do native ecosystems matter to you? Why has this become your life's work? And um, well I got a short little story um back in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I was I was in school for forestry with a concentration of wild life. I was working for the state Fish and Wildlife, and I had this hunting property that I was managed. Is about forty acres and you know,

mostly timbered, and it had several small open spots. And I tried to make those little open spots bigger by cutting down a but just cedar trees. And this is before I knew anything, before I knew most of my native plants. And I went through. I spread the whole place with glaifa say, to try to turn it into a food plot. I even brought in trailer a trailer load of like composts to try to build the soil up, and that all washed away the first year. But the next summer I was in there, I noticed where I

cut down those cedar trees. It was just like a rainbow of color of just different plants that I had never seen before. I mean, I was in forgery school. I'd graduated forger school, and I had no idea what these plants were. And I'd realized that's what used to be on the interior of that field, and I had killed it off. And try to make a food plot. So I took what was you know, make a long story short, after I took the time to figure out

what these plants were. I invited a botanist friend out there with me, and he was just in awe of what was there, tons of rare species, state listed species county records that have never been documented in my county. Before I realized that I had, I had sprayed and killed off something that was better for wildlife and what I was trying to plant there. And and man, that's

what I think. That's the moment that that kind of flipped a switch, like, hey, maybe this is what I should be managing for, and maybe these plants are what I should be looking for on other properties. So as I as I, you know, as I became a forester and was working on a lot of private lands, I was looking for a lot of those same species that I saw on that on that property. And they weren't they weren't almost properties most places were they were mowing

them and um, you know it was close canopy. But when we'd go in there and do a timber harvest any we'd start seeing some of those things species. Maybe not the diversity this place has and I've come to figure out the place that I first started with was one of the higher quality sites in my area. So but even if I could find half the plants on

a property, that place was pretty diverse. And I wasn't finding that most of the time on ninety percent of properties, But every now and then I'd come across and and it was those properties that I found them on that had the most wildlife diversity. There was turkeys, they still

had turkeys or quail, and they had great dear populations. Um. And and that's when you know, you know, I'm very add and I'm I can't sit down and listen, but when I'm very visual and when I when I saw that for myself, I was like, man, this is the way to go. This is what we should be doing. Um And as hunters, man, that's uh, we're the We're the ones out there putting in the time and the money and uh, you know, buying equipment to do this kind of stuff. And you know, maybe this is what

we should really be focused on. So um, you know, a long score short. Now got the Native Habitat project and try to try to make other people see the lot like I did. Yeah, So imagine you were on an elevator and uh, hardcore deer hunter land manager steps on the elevator with you, and you're gonna go up to the twentieth floor. So you got a couple of minutes, but it's not a ton of time before he's going to hop off that elevator and go to his room

wherever he stand. Maybe you guys are at NWTF, you're at the convention together, and you know that this guy is the typical whitetail hunter and land manager. He puts in a bunch of food plots. He maybe does some timber cutting or some hinge cutting to create a couple of betting areas, but he's got a bunch of monoculture food plots, and all of his work is dedicated just

to growing big deer and shooting more big deer. How would you how would you present your philosophy to this guy, and how would you pitch him on considering it if you had just these few minutes to kind of get across to him, like, hey, here's the different way I'm recommending, and here's why it might be worth considering. What would you tell that guy when you're managing a place with about diversity when you've got sometimes hundreds of species of

grasses and sedges and wildflowers and rubs. If you're providing food year round and not just food your brows. You're providing insects for turkeys and quail. UM, you're providing cover for those deer. UM, you're providing cover during fawning season for those does. You're providing a food source during finding season, a food source during hunting season. It's it's a year

round uh. You know that's these ecosystems, these native ecosystems, they don't have room for plants that aren't pulling their weight um year round, or they don't have they don't have UM. I guess they don't have space for um just monocultures. And that's why most of our native species don't form monocultures. UM. And there I am getting this. We're probably on the nineteenth floor now, but UM, you know, not just managing for deer, We're managing for an ecosystem.

And the more biod diversity you have, the more things that you're providing year round, and they're not just one that one species and just providing food like a lot of our food plant stuff are it's providing it's providing brows, but it's also providing seeds that is producing when it flowers, and it's providing its attracting insects, it is providing cover that one plant, you know, one native plant is doing multiple things that maybe that one species you're planting a

as as a monoculture can't do, and so you're less likely to not have that one thing that you're lacking. And sometimes, you know, people hunters don't realize that, you know, what they're doing in the landscape is leaving out something

you know they might not have. They're like, where's my turkey? Well, you might not have that cover, But when you're managing an ecosystem, you don't have to worry about that because you're going to have pretty much everything and there's not going to be any limiting factors most of the time. So what if this person on that elevator with you is thinking to himself, well, man, when I look out there on the property like that, mother nature is already

doing this. It's already managing the ecosystem. I'm seeing trees here, I see grasses here, I see stuff all around. You know, why do I really need to do anything, or how could I really make an impact in some way that's actually better than just planting my food plots. Like I put in a food plot, I see this instant change to that person. You know, I guess what I'm trying to say here, not very clearly, is when you say manage for a native ecosystem, why do we need to

quote unquote manage a native ecosystem. Shouldn't it naturally be doing that something someone might be saying, yeah, Well, for one, we've removed fire from the landscape, and most of the time that disturbance is what would have kept these is diverse. When you even on some of the best rendants I manage, if you remove fire landscape, little blue stems going to take over. And then you're going to start seeing a decrease in wildflowers. And you're thinking wildflowers, Why do I

give a crap about wildflowers? They're a wildflower. All of this to wildlife is a thing that attracts insects for their you know, bull for turkeys and quail to consume, and a thing that produces seeds for them to consume. M So it's not really a wildflier, it's a it's a food, it's the thing something that's providing a food source. Um. And so we've removed fire from the landscape, but we've

also introduced invasives to the landscape. So on most properties I go on, there's invasives everywhere, whether it's non dative turf grasses or invasive shrubs you know, cerecio, les, dizam and these invasives don't act like dative species. They want to take over and form monocultures most of the time. And so that requires us to go in there initially and remove those invasives and created that give that environment

back to those native species to thrive again. Um. So to me, those are the two you know, big reasons that we now have to step in and play a role on these places. Yeah, what about this? You know you talk You mentioned natives versus invasives a lot, and there are I guess there's there's two kind of Devil's advocates positions on this. One would say, you know, why

does it really matter at all? Like, you know, if if if the deer eating it, why does it matter if the if the turkeys are hanging out in it? Why does it matterfests native or invasive so that's question number one. How would you argue that? In question number two is um, you know we are we are? How do I describe this? This is the way of the future, Like this stuff keeps happening, Invasives are moving in, everything is spreading all over the place. There's nothing you can

do at this point. It's a lost cause this is a new normal. Those would be two possible Devil's advocate positions to your native habitat philosophy. How would you address those two things? Well, first of all, you just because a deer eats something doesn't mean that's good habitat because they're basically a goat. You know, you could put a deer in a in the richest neighborhood in Alabama. You could put a deer there and they're going to survive.

And I know that's something a lot of deer hunters don't want to hear, but dad gum, I mean, look at other wildlife species and they're I mean, they're highly they're specialist, and they have to have insects, so they have to have flower and seeds there, or they have to have a certain type of cover or they can't reproduce deer. I mean they can basically live anywhere. And then you know, there's plenty of deer hunters that can attest for that, you know, killing giant deer in the

middle of urban areas. And so for one, that's that's not really a measurement of how good an ecosystem is um And so we have to look at what kind of you know, what species are the canary in the coal mine that are are telling us, hey, maybe this ecosystem isn't what it should be. And those are the specialist species like coel and turkeys, and those are species that we're seeing declines in across the country. And not just those species, but also non game species songbirds and insects.

We're seeing decline in those numbers. And that's because those things were really, really really depend on our native ecosystems. And so so look at those look at those species, and do you have those on your property, because in North Alabama, I'm lucky to see a covey of quet once every year or two um. And it's because those

are the ones who can't stand those invasives. So if you only care about deer and you don't care about those species, and yeah, I mean, let your property get taken over with invasives because the deer, I mean, they're they're gonna be just fine. Um. But it's those other things that aren't going to be just fine. And and I think those are those species are worthwhile as well. Um, I mean they're I want to make sure we still

have those species around for future generations. On hunters, because your kids and your grandkids they're probably gonna be deer hunters, but they might be interested in in turkey hunt or quill hunting. And so when you're managing deer with this, you know, by managing native ecosystems, you're you're giving that option to your kids and grandkids to also you know hunt woodcock or rabbits or quail and all those other species that are very you know, they're specialists and really

depend on these native ecosystems. Maybe I hope that answer to it. Yeah, yeah, Now what to what about the second part, which was it's a foregone conclusion everything invasive is going everywhere. There's no way we can return to native everything because we've already changed so much. What do you say to that person, No, it's we can. You can make a difference on a property. Um, And I see examples of that every day. Um, And it's and

it's really about how you manage it. Yeah, there's situations where you might be fighting an invasive and you're not having any luck with it, and you're like, man, this is a lost cause. Well, it could have been your It could have been your your strategy, that could have been the problem. You could have had a bad strategy

or an approach. So for example, if you've got an understory full of private and autumn olive and bush honeysuckle, or and you go in there and you do a timber harvest and you know, bring in a ton of sunlight, and then you come in with a multure and just start spraying it. And then that same year you come in and try to plant new hardwoods. Well that gum, I mean, you set yourself up for a very bad situation because the first thing you did was bring in sunlight,

which is going to make those invasives explode. So you probably should have gone in there before you did a timber harvest and mulch those invasives spent several years spraying those stump sprouts to come back, which is it's very easy because all those species, for the most part have green leaves in the wintertime, and so you can go through there with glyphasate and spray it and you're not

going to kill your native species that are dormant. And once you've got that under control, then you can come in into your timber harvest and then you can come in and plant new harvest trees if that's what you want to do. But it's really all about the approach, because yeah, there's there's a lot of approaches that I've done to get rid of invasis where I was like, man, that was just a lost cause. I think I might have made things worse. But it's really about the strategy.

So you have to sit down and figure out how to approach it first, and then it might be something very simple and might I mean to me, that's a very easy approach to getting rid of you know, riven automotive or honeysuckle um. For having that option to spray them in the wintertime and not kill your native species, that makes it a whole lot easier and easier to accomplish. But it's easy to see how you know, somebody else who didn't go that route could have, you know, made

it worse. And then you know, then they've kind of like, you know, they're kicking themselves and down on themselves for for uh you know, you know these invasives and they just give up on human trying to get rid of them. So um, just learn, learn what you get, learn what you have on your property, learned the invasive species, and then spend a year trying to figure out how to get rid of them. And I think approach should take

to get rid of them. And that's where, you know, I started a group Native Habitat Managers on on on Facebook and we were in the you know there you have the Habitat Managers group on Facebook, and there was you know, about eight of us guys in there who were really managing native ecosystems, and we were like, hey, let's start our own, and let's start it. You know, we want a group that has hunters in there and nine hunters. We want botanists, we want foresters because those botanists,

those foresters, they know how to manage these places. They know the plants, and you know, they usually know how to get rid of them. And so we've made the community of hunters and nine hunters, which is we were like, this is going to go you know this is going to be awful, but it's actually gone really well and

there's a very little conflict in there. And now it's become a place where you can go and ask questions like, hey, I've got these invasives that I'm just really overwhelmed with who's had success, And then you get a you know, just last week we had a comment section full of people managing Japanese steel grass and having success getting rid of Japanese steel grass, and even myself, that's one that I almost have giving up on on my property, but

it's because I was going about it wrong. I was trying to get rid of it in a way that probably wasn't the smartest way to get rid of it. And now you know, I've got the group, and I've seen how all these other people are having success, and you know, this year, I'm gonna try what those guys have been having success with. So learn your property, learn what you have that's invasive, and go to a group like Native Habitat Managers and say, hey, I've got this invasive,

how are y'all getting rid of it? Or go to the top and just search Japanese steal grass and you're gonna get ten posts of people talking about how to get rid of Japanese steel grass. So it's really it's not a lost calls. It's it's definitely a worthwhile task and you'll be thinking yourself for doing it, and you know, maybe three or four years from now, but you'll be

thinking yourself. Yeah, yeah, So I heard you talk once about you know, not only does managing for the ecosystem in the way you're discussing and managing for versus invasive not only does that actually help, you know, in a tangible hunting kind of way, or like help you in reach whatever your wildlife goals are, but there's also maybe a little bit of a I don't know if moral obligation is the right word for it, but there's there's some kind of obligation we have to give back to

these places since we're taking from them as hunters, right. And then also not only that, but also the public perception of what we do and how how we manage

might be viewed. So, for example, if all we do is plant food plots because we want to kill more deer, that does not nearly have the same optics as US hunters who like to claim that we are the original conservationists managing and helping and trying to restore and protect and conserve the entire ecosystem, and pollinators just as much as bees, or just as much as bucks, and you know, songbirds just as much as turkeys. Um can you can you speak to that a little bit? Am I am

I explaining your position right? Or the man perfect? That's that's that's exactly how I feel. And you know, we, for one, you know, as as hunters, there's things that we're we've done in the past, that our granddads or our dads have done, and that we're we've already seen the light on. And even if you're somebody who who isn't into managing native habitats, you see that. You see

how you know, as as hunters haven't evolved. Um. And And it's not to say that the pastoration didn't know what they were doing or that they were you know, out to do harm, but they made mistakes and those are mistakes that we need to learn from and do our best to not do those again, because you know, let's say, you know, let's just for example, Bradford pair. Somebody in North America Brad Bradford pair and started putting it on the market. Well, who's getting blamed for planning

that Bradford pair. It's not that person who brought it to market. It's the homeowners um in the in the area. And we don't want to be, you know, hunters don't. We don't want to be in that position to where we're like, all right, yeah, we brought in autumnolive. We brought in um, what is it not trifoli and orange bicolored lesbediza. You know, these invasive species that that are

now reckon havoc can cause it harm we brought in. Well, let's learn our lesson from those and let's manage native ecosystems, because we essentially become bulletproof when that happens. If if we're the ones out there managing native ecosystems not just for deer, but for you know, all wildlife as a whole and trying to improve biodiversity or trying to you know,

as a as a hunter. In my area, I've been going around on roadsides and if I find a rattlesnake master and I'm like, man, I haven't seen that around here much at all. I grab some seeds of that rattlesneak master and I'm now growing plugs of it or planted on my hunt property. And and just to you know, for selfish reasons, I'm improving the plant communities on my hunt property and essentially improving my wildlife populations on my property.

But to the public, I'm conserving a plant species, And to me that's just you know, as a brownie points. The more brownie points we can get to the pub get from the public, the better chapids and our grandkids are going to be able to hunt in the future because we're the ones actually out here doing real conservation work, and not just the conservation work that we think is

going to make us kill a big deer. The conservation work that's gonna that's managing ECOSISMS as a whole and improving dear populations and those you know, non game species populations as well. So I don't know, I think it's just a way to make hunters a little more bulletproof from the public. And that can't hurt that can um, That can only be that can only benefit us in the long run. So that's why I really push on that. I think it's as hunters, um we should really get

back to focusing on conservation first. And I think, you know, back in the day, that's why that's what we're focused on. When you know, when hunters started out, that's what our main goal was was conservation. And I'm not saying that's totally shifted, but I don't think that's the main focus anymore, and I think we should get back to that. And and uh, I don't know. It's just the little things, man,

that's that's the kind of stuff I enjoy. I probably enjoy finding rare wildfliers on the side of the road bringing them back to my property more than I do hunting now, just because it's a you get a whole lot out of it, man's and that makes your you're

hunting experience a whole lot more enjoyable. But you're sitting there on your property and you you know what those deer are walking by, and you know what they're consuming, and you know you had a hand and make sure this negative ecosystem was back and intact and the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, So I guess the next thing, if I'm well, I am listening to this, but if I were listening to this on the other end of the microphone or on the speakers, and this resonating with me.

I think the next thing I'd be thinking as well, how do I start, like, how do I how do I incorporate these ideas or this philosophy into a property management plan? Is it? Is it as simple as well, I got to go out and just kill every invasive

species I can find? Or is it I got to get rid of my food plots and put in grasslands, or is it you know, how do you incorporate these ideas into a plan, into you know, a management philosophy For someone who is a deer hunter wants to improve their hunt, but also wants to start doing these things

you're talking about, how do we start thinking about that? Well, so, at the bare minimum, if you're listening to this and you want to know what you can do and this takes no effort at all, don't plant invasive species on your property. Um, don't contribute to the problem, because you know, as somebody who's walked a ton of private land, everyone

has invasives. And the problem that invasives are such a huge problem, Like we've we we have three thousand or like thirty one hundred native species in Alabama we've introduced sixty five hundred species in the way. Did I say that right? Did I say thirty? I said thirty one hundred. In Alabama, we've introduced sixty five hundred species of an invasive species to the US. I'm not talking non native wow, and I'm not talking soybeans are non native, but they're

not invasive. Um, there's nothing wrong with soybeans. If you want to plant soybeans on your property, go have at it. You're not gonna cause problems for future generations about plant soybeans. I'm talking sixty five hundred species that are invasive. We've introduced twice the amount of invasive plants in the US. Then there are native plants and one of the most biodiverse states in the country, and that's alarming. So at the bare minimum, just make sure what your planting isn't invasive.

And they're still invasives and some of these snood plot seed mixes, but you know the majority of food plot mixes are totally fine, and you're not going to do anything wrong unless you're doing what I did, and when go in and kill off a really biodiverse area. But my advice is is find your worst area on your property. If you want to put food plot, which I'm I'm

all four. If you want a food plot on your property, find the worst area, Find the plus spot where maybe you have a ton of fescue or a ton of lespediza, or you have privet taken over. Clear that area, get rid of those invasives. Plant your food plot there, um, but make sure it's a mix that doesn't have invasive species in it. So I think, you know, at the bare minimum, as hunters, we should stop planting invasives or things that can become invasive or things that are going

to be permanent on the landscape. And the next um, the next landowner is gonna have to deal with we don't we don't want to add anything that isn't going to allow our native plants native university thrive. Um. You know. But yeah it's starting to do. You know. That's that's the first at the bare minimum, um. But if you really want to make a difference on your property, get rid of invasis you know, um, figure out what the worst place on your property is, figure out where what

plants you have that are problems. Get get the I naturalist app man. I love the naturalist stapp. There's other great apps Picture this or Google Lens and things like that, but on our Naturalists you can go around and take pictures of plants and it'll tell you what they are. You can find out if they're native or invasive, and you can look at a map to see where other people are seeing that plant in the country, which to

me is really awesome. There's plants, there's native plants that I found in Alabama that nobody else in Alabama has documented yet. And that's how I discovered. I discovered new species for the state that way on properties. They weren't my properties, there were other people's properties. But man, how cool would that be to find a new plant species

on your for the state, on your property. But do that, figure out what you have that's native and what you have that's non native, and just start trying to get rid of the non natives and start trying to encourage the native species, and then do like what I did. You know, if you find some cool native species on a roadside or something, yeah, you know, collect some seeds and introduce those of your property, improve upon the native plant communities, and try to get rid of the non

native of the communities. That's a good place to start. And that looks a little bit different than woodlands and then a dozen fields. You know, you're going to deal with different invasive species in different areas. Um And I can't tell you what's going to be invasive in your area because you know, in Tennessee, thirty minutes from my house, everybody's dealing with with a tree of heaven alianthis in my area, we don't have tree of heaven. That's not

a problem yet. Um So, just very short distances invasives that people are dealing with, changes and the way to manage those changes. And that's why it's a You got to learn what's under property and learn what you're dealing with the first first of all. And to me, that's the best first step you can take to to do the kind of things I'm talking about. Yeah, so almost you gotta do. You need to do a survey of what you're working with to start right, taking invent take

an inventory. Yeah and uh, you know, with our naturalists, you can create a list of what's on your property. And that's something I've done on my place. You know, five years ago, I spread and killed off on my fescue. Every year I walked through my property. Oh, in the afternoons, me and my family walk around that field. I use I made mode trails around the field that I use as I use a fire lines, but also uses walking

trails fool with my family. And every year I walked through, I take pictures of anything, any plants I haven't seen before. And I've got a whole inventory of what's native or what's what's returned to my property after killing off that rescue And man, as I you know you're a landowner, how cool would it have been if oh, how cool is it going to be for the person who owns the property effort you if you've got a list of

what you're seeing now in twenty twenty three. Man, how if I had a list of the plants people were seeing on a property back in the nineteen nineties, that'd be so cool. I'd like to have a as complete of a list that's possible of what was growing there so you can you can, then now thirty years later, as a landowner, know what's changed, what's still here, and what's not here. That's going to make you a better

land manager for that property. So to those private landowners out there, to me, that's one of the best things you can do. Take an inventory, have a list of what's growing on your place now, and even what invasives you're dealing with. Talk about what invasives you have that you're trying to get rid of, and and make you make put it that in a format that you can pass it on to the next landowner, whether that's your kids or somebody else. Yeah, yeah, that would be that

would be pretty cool. So we've done a survey, we've got an inventory, we know what's out there on our place, and we're thinking, okay, you know now, now what's next? And you mentioned how there's kind of there's some significant differences between it here if you're working with open areas versus if you're working with timbered areas. Um, let's talk openings,

let's talk grasslands, that kind of stuff. You know, first off, why in particularly we've talked kind of generally, but can you can you cover a little bit about why native grassland ecosystems are so darn powerful and important for all sorts of stuff out there? That gum, I mean, I'll talk, I'll talk. I'll talk in the hunters language. Look at the prairie states. I mean, look at the deer killed

in the prairie States. That's that's the difference. I mean, and in the southeast, and fact, most of North America was grasslands. It was our dominant ecosystem. And in the southeast it was the same. Most of our dominant ecosystem. Down here, we're grasslands, but we have a longer growing season, we have warmer temperatures, the more moisture. So a lot of the southeast turned into forest pretty quickly once fire was moved. Um. But the majority of the main, the

main ecosystem here were grasslings and those those grasslands or powerhouses. Man, when he comes to deer like, I mean, this is this is stuff I was learning, you know, five years ago reading Craig Harper's books. Um, I mean he but you got like fifty pounds an acre of deer food in a close canopy forest, in an in an open field of natives, there's upwards two twenty five hundred pounds

of food per acre. That's to me, that's that's enough right there to make a hundred realize how important these grasslands are too, not just deer, but all these other wildlife species as well. The amount of deer food in the grass and far exceeds man. You'd have to have you know how, I can't do the math off the time of my head, fifty fifty acres. You'd have to have fifty acres of those canady for us to do what one acre of of a grassland can do. They're

just powerhouses. And they provide a ton of cover for fawns. If you hate man, if you hate next predators and and fawn killers, make sure your property has that cover first and a and a good bit of it, not just one acre that they can come check and walk through the whole thing real quick, and and see what's what's laying down in there? Give your give your what is it? Ah, gosh, Jerry Jerry Clour down here on the radio, give them, but give him a fighting chance.

Give give your give your turkeys, and give your fawns a fighting chance. Man. And then they don't have a fighting chance that they don't have that cover. Um. And and you know your quail that that have disappeared. North Alabama used to have prairie chickens. I know up heels Away y'all had prairie chickens. But nobody knows that the Southeast had prairie chickens. We had so much prairie. We had prairie chickens um and they're even more grassling independent

than quail. But our quail are disappearing. Our turkeys have disappeared in North Alabama. I mean, they're My county's the worst in the state for turkeys. And and uh, you know, bringing back these grasslands, you see that immediate response even my front flower beds. Man Like, in my front yard, I converted part of my yard to native prairie and it's maybe maybe twenty foot by sixty foot and I

filled it full of native wildfliers. That first year, you could audibly hear the amount of insects in it, like just like that. It went from dead silent to the noise was almost deafening, the amount of insects and pollinators. Using this little little bitty strip and you you take that twenty foot by sisty foot area and turn it into twenty acres, think about the amount of food that is for turkeys and quail, and the amount of brows that is or deer, an amount of cover that is.

I mean, it's that's the thing is people have to see this for themselves, and it takes a little experiences like I had in my front yard or I had, you know, killing off that prairie on that Hunt property. It takes a little experiences like that for people to see it for themselves and be like, man, there's really something to this, Like we're starving these things to death, and not just you know, not just deer. I mean, dear,

we're starving them to death too. When you're starving deer to death, I mean that's you're a you're you have a real problem there where you have a brows line because deer, and you're so far from from correcting that. I mean, it's you're really you're really deep. Then you're really deep into it. It's gonna take a lot to fix it. But the grasslands are the first or the

first answer. Man. If you can take something, if you can take an open end and turn it back into a grassland and provide that year round food and cover and and I mean, that's the best thing you can do on a property that has a lot of close can to be timber. I know that, yeah, and and and not none of that, But can you speak a little bit to the benefits that native grass lands have to to water quality or carbon sequestration or any of

these other bigger, bigger things. Yeah, so obviously they're they're cleaning water. They're they're those deep root systems. So they native grasses have roots I mean anywhere from eight to fifteen foot I mean, and some of your wildflowers are

the same. And these big long tap roots um. And that's allowing what's that What that is doing is basically doing what what uh what tillage ravages do of those you know, they're breaking that hard pan, They're they're going way way deep down to the soil, reaching nutrients that you know, fescue and like these shorter root grasses can't reach. And so they're bringing that nutrients to the top and that's building your soils and that's improving your soil quality.

That's also allowing that water to slow down those tall grasses when water hits it, um that water slowing down and it's now easier for it to penetrate down into your aquifers. And that's cleaning water. When water can get down to our aquifers, it filters it before it even gets to our streams. UM. But talking about carbon, your forests and forests are storing most of their carbon above ground, in the in the timber, in the logs, and so

you're you're storing that carbon. If you cut that tree down and use it as a wood product, that carbon is then stored in the home for however long that home exists. But eight of grasses and Forbes, man, they're storing eighty five their carbon underground. And that's why you know down you've got the black Belt Prairie of Alabama. These prairie soils are just really dark and rich from

all the carbon stored in them. And when a fire goes through a grassland, it's burning the tops of those grasses, but it's not really in the carbon that it's already stored underground. When you have a fire or a wildfire, now that's been you know, that's you're gonna get me off on a different topic there. But when when you know, a fire goes through a forest, it's burning up all those stems and leaves and sticks and down logs, and

and it's releasing take carbon back in the air. When those logs fall down and they rot on the ground, that carbon is released back in the ground. So it's not necessarily that grasslands are better at sequestering carbon, because forests are better at sequestering carbon. Grasslands just store carbon in a safer place to where it's likelihood of being released again is very low. So when it comes to that, grasslands are better carbon sequester or better store or storing carbon.

But um, is that that makes sense? Last one? Yeah, that makes sense? So okay, So grasslands are going to be incredible producers of food, of cover, They're going to clean our water, they're in store carbon, They're gonna do all these incredible things. I want some How do I do it? I've got some I've got some openings on my property, let's say. And actually, here here, I'll give you a real life example. I have a property I have permission to do some stuff with as long as

I don't mess with the crops. So I can't do a ton. But like, my main openings that I have are power lines, and the power lines are just full of like I'm not exactly sure what kind of cool season grasses, but its fescue or some kind of turf grass that's doing nothing. How do you recommend transforming something like that into a healthy native grassland that packs a big punch for wildlife? Well, what's the history on that power line? Has it been farmed? The power line has

not been farmed. This is just like grassy cutting through a piece of timber kind of stuff, all right, So that's when you're going to take a different approach it. It still has a native seed bank, you think it still has some natives in that seed bank that can respond. What you want to do is go in. I'm guessing you know you got a lot of fescue and cool season grasses. You can go in during November, you know,

sometimes March. I prefer doing it in the fall. Going in the fall and when most everything else has gone dormant, and you're gonna you're gonna want to do it on a day that's in the fifties. Um, so you're you know glaphy sad is working, or your herbicide whatever you're using, and and spray those native grasses. You can even use a grass selective herbicide on those and only kill them the native or the non native grasses that are green. So spray those, kill those off, and maybe run a

fire through it. And it might take you a couple of years. You might have to come back through the next year and do some touching up, but kill off that at a non native grass and see how that seed responds, See how it responds by just not mowing it, by bringing fire back. And that's what I did in my pasture. And I've had a great response I've had. You know, I think I've got fifty six species of native wildfliers and grasses down there that have come back on their own um. And you can you can watch

the videos of that on some of my pages. There's one where you see just tons of black eyed susan, those yellow flowers in the background. That's my past year. That was once rescue and now it's a solid blanket of yellow just from the seed bank and just from not mowing it. Because that first year that these you're gonna get a lot of pioneer species, just like you would have forest. There's secessional stage, successional stages, and uh

so you're gonna get those pioneer species. You're gonna have a lot of ragweed um, the stuff you find in old fields a lot of the time. Yeah, it's gonna take it's gonna take longer for your native your perennials to establish. So some of those um, some of those take three years to get fully grown and established, but not not mowing that during the summer for several years allows those natives to flower and go to seed, and that seed drops on the ground, so you're gonna get

more the next year. It's gonna multiply, So you know that first year. Really you can go in there even with some native wild flower plugs and adds some native wildflier plugs to it the first year, and those are gonna grow and go to seed, and you can you'd be surprised just how one wildflower plug being able to grow and go to seed, how that will multiply year after year if you're not mowing it while it's flowering or before it goes to seed. And that's how I

on something like you're talking about. That's probably how I'd approach it. I'd kill the fescue, maybe add a few native plugs if you can find them for your area, if you want to find if you've got some native seeds available in the southeast, we don't our closest one. It's Roundstone in Kentucky, but up your way, where's where's your place exactly southern Michigan. So there's I don't know about Michigan, but I know I think Ohio and Indie

and Illinois. I mean those there's there's stay native seed producers in those areas, so you can probably get some from them, and after you kill at rescue, that'd be a good time probably go through and just throw out some of those by hand. And um, you don't have to drill them. If you have a if you can get a native seed drill from a from the you know, nurcs or something in your area, UM, you could run through and drill that. Um, that might be a good

option to first year. But to me, honestly enjoy just seeing what comes back from the seed bank. Um. And then um, if it's not the response I was wont then I can go through and add some plugs or throwing some seeds. But to me, it's fun seeing what just comes back on its home. Yeah. So in a situation mind specifically, UM, I did a prescribe fire once and actually had the power line company come when I was doing it and flip out on us for doing it near the power lines. So I've been gun shy

to ever do that again. Can you can you do this and have success without the fire? Just doing that? Cool? Season spraying or is the fire really key? Yeah, I mean that can you can have good results from that. Um. And then and then you're gonna, like I said, let a flower go to seed, and then in the in the winter, you can mow half of it, um, leave half of it standing, so it's acting as cover. Um. But um, you know, mow it every now and then just to keep it from growing up in trees. But

alternate because that's the main thing. You don't want it to grow up in trees. But you're also not going to get the response you would from fire. I mean, fire is really uh, that's that's the best way. And man, you must have got really unlucky for that to happen, because I've never I've never I've burned under tons of power lines and they've I've never had an issue with it. But yeah, I don't know if they threatened threatened me with all sorts of stuff and it got me nervous

to ever do it again. But maybe I just caught the wrong guys on the wrong day and they were making it seem like it was way more risk it. I even had a I even had a fireman buddy with me, So it's like we had we were doing everything right. We weren't too close to the polls. But man, they really gave it to us that we weren't supposed to be doing that. And I don't know so. So what they say is that if that smoke is sticking us, that the electricity can arc through the smoke down to

the ground. Um. But that's what you if you google it, that's what it says. But take this for what it's worth. UM. Probably I was in the I took a prescribed pirate training class again this year with some buddy's of mind who wanted to do it just to just to uh, just because I was. The last time I took it, I was. It was twenty fifteen and I was had no idea what I was even doing then. But I

just took it again as a refresher. And it was with one of the one of the best prescribed burners in the I considering the world, probably has done more prescribed fires than anybody else in the world. It's not his three This guy burns like three hundred days a year. Um. I mean he'll do like five hundred burns in a year, doing multiple burns a day on different properties. Um. But he's he's like he burns under power lines and doesn't worry about it. He said, he's never had a problem

with him. Um, but for the longest, I was scared because I saw something about it being able to arc. But I still haven't had that issue, and I've started burning in power lines again. Nothing's happened. But UM, don't don't take my word for that, right If I'm not I'm not liable. Yeah, I want so let's see you. Um So what about You know, a lot of folks buy a property and there's some tillable on it, and you know, one of the if they don't want to plan all that tillable and food, or if they're not

going to rent it out. Um. A lot of folks look at programs like CRP UM or something like that. What are your what are your thoughts on those commons? CRP mixes or you know, pheasants forever mixes that a lot of folks use, um, different stuff like that. If you're in a government program that's going to pay for some of that work, you know, what are your thoughts on those things? Make sure it has a lot of biodiversity in it. If it's mostly native grasses, steer clear.

I've seen places. Hold on one second. I've seen places that people have planted some of those mixes in and it was almost all non native excuse me, it was almost all native warmpses and grasses, so blue stem, big blue stem, switch grass, indian grass, gamma grass. And what happens is that takes over and you don't have any of the forbes. You don't have any of the things that are really attracting insects, you don't have any of

the things that are getting browsed by dear. You don't have any of the things that are producing a lot of edible seeds dropping on the ground. So it really sets you up to make it hard to get any more native diversity in there because those native wormses and grasses are really aggressive. So make sure it has a lot of forbes in that mix when you plan it. So that's my advice. And make sure it's an area

that you can burn. I've seen places where people did a mix like that and they're like, well, I can't burn it um and or I can't bow it because it's wetmost of the year, And then you've got five years worth of native wormses and grass thatch built up, and man, that's not not that's not very good for wildlife. It's gonna be really thick and there's not gonna be anything in there for a deer to eat, and it's gonna be too thick for things that use this nest

and cover and stuff. So, um, make sure that's one of my advice. Maketure is an area that you can burn and make sure there's a lot of forbes. Yeah, so okay, that that leads me to the next question, which you alluded to some of the things right here.

But but maybe you can expand on if you do have one of these areas, if you do have a spot where you were able to plant some kind of native grass and forb mix, if you've got ground in CRP, if you've got you know, powerline that you were able to convert like I just talked about, and you've you've done it. You got you got this habitat out there. But what's the right way to manage it? What are your you know, recommendations for how often to create some

kind disturbance in the right way to do that? Well, so that's the way I do it is is I'm I'm if you're ever questioning anything managing native ecosystems, can ask yourself, what's going to be the most diverse? How can I make how can I diversify this so it's not all the same. Um So my advice is split it up, Split it up in several sections, as many sections as you want. Make it a checkerboard. Make it

look like the American flag if you want. I mean, it doesn't matter, and burn like or burn or mo one section, leave three sections, burn another one in the fall, burn another one in the spring. Make sure you're leaving half of it standing at all times. And that's gonna

make sure you always have cover. You always have a place for wildlife to escape, and you also always have something greening up or something that's gonna You know, burning in the fall really benefits your wildflowers and your forbes because right now, I don't know about where you're at, but in Alabama, things are starting to green up and

it's all those forbes. You're seeing a lot of forbes greening up, and they drop their seeds at the end of last summer, and those seeds hit the ground, they cold stratified, they started germinating, and now they're growing if I did a burn run now in the spring, it's going to kill a lot of those forbes that are starting to sprout. And then late summer your native forms and grasses are going to come in and take over. And so spring burns manage for more native on seas

and grasses. Fall burns really benefit your forbes and your wildflowers. So mixing it up on your property doing a little bit of both. Do a growing season burn if you have to. If you're dealing with woody plants like trees and briars or whatever, and you don't want them there, and there are species that you don't want there, you know, if they're a native like plums or hazel nut or something I mean, or sumac I mean, those are going

to be good for wildlife. If it's something you don't want, to a growing season burn to kill them, or do

a fall burn to trying to kill them. It's really, you know, depends on what you're what issues you're having, And that's why you know, splitting it up into different sections and diversifying it helps because you might see, hey, this section is starting to get a lot of trees in there, maybe I should come in here and mow it or treat it with herbside or whatever, and you're not having to do that to your whole entire place, So submit it. I've split up those fields and you

can do it with mode lanes. I like mode lanes because I can use those mode lanes as fire lines. And if you're a deer hunter, yeah, you can plant those mode lanes and clover if you want um and use that green clover as a fire line. And there's different,

all kinds of different things you can do. But that's that's my answer to everything, because I had to figure out a lot of these questions on my own, and so when I try to think through that through my head, I'm like, what's going to be the best for my adversity.

What's going to make my property the most diverse? Because when I make my property the most diverse, I'm more likely to have what that deer needs dear in a specific time of year, so he's not having to go off my place looking for something, you know, some kind of habitat or something that he's looking for. I've likely got it on my place because I've persified it and I've got those I feel that's mostly forwards I've got to feel that's most native ones and grasses. I got

a strip that's a lot of thickets. You know, you've got a lot of thickets species in there, all thorns and hazel nuts and plums and crab apples, and you know a lot of your native shrub species. So he's you know, a deer's got that kind of habitat. Quail and turkey have that kind of habitat. Just make it as diverse as possible. And that's you know, that's the benefit of natives. I mean, we have a lot of native plan university in the US, and and and they

all provide different things. I mean that one plant can do you know so much. I mean, and not to hate on. Not to hate on like um, let's say Egyptian wheat. Like you've got an Egyptian wheat um strip that you were using. Um, not to hate on it. But like if you can plant, if you can plant switch grass, and you've got ragweed in there, you've got you've got some different silk films or maximilian sunflowers and um ironweeds and golden ross and taller herbacious species um

mixed in there. Um one of those herbaseous species, like one of those native grasses in that mix that you're using there is going to provide more than that Egyptian. We can just one of those native species. It's gonna you know that, just you just used the one that people hate the most, like ragweed, I mean, or golden rod, like even the gold I hate golden Just use common golden rod. I got it in my passion. It's a problem that common golden rod is gonna. It has um,

It has insects that depend on it. It has goldfinches that are gonna eat the seed heads off of it and stuff. It's it's it can get browsed on by you know, all kinds of different things deer and rabbits um. That Egyptian wheat doesn't have. None of our native insects use it as a host plant um. None of our native insects are adapted to using it as a as a stemmed over winter, and none of our native bird species are used to having it as a food. So worse because they don't really know to go to it

all the time. It's not providing brows, I mean, it's the things that one not a native plant can do is very minimal to what one native plant can do. And then when you say, when you throw in dozens and dozens of native plants into that mix, man, that's when it really becomes a powerhouse compared to you know, a monoculture of a non native. So diversity, man, diversity is really the key. And so if you're asking yourself, what should I do to my property, make it more diverse?

Add more native plant diversity into it, because you can't go wrong. So you bring up Egyptian wheat, which is a popular screening you know plant. I've used it myself, Um, I have to. And um, another one that folks talk about more and more often is muscanthus. Um. So I've got two questions for you related to this. Number one, can you can you convince me why I shouldn't use muscanthus?

And number two, Um, you talked about how adding diversity to you know, these different different things would be better. But if you had to specifically give me your best recommendation for a native screening mix or option, what would that be? So basically, why shouldn't I use muscanthus? And then secondly what would I what should I use? Instead? Yeah? Well that's really the one I wanted to use it

as an example thereat. But uh, and I would never I would never try to convince somebody to not use Egyptian wheat because Egyptian wheat, for one, it's not gonna it's not a perennial. It's not gonna be there for decades and decades and decades and become a problem for the next landowner. Even even if it's not invasive, even if it just stays in the spot that you planted it in and it spreads by rhizomes like muscant this does. It's you know, that's that's really the problem. I mean,

Egyptian wheat is is non native. Yes, I don't hate nonnatives. I plant nonnatives in certain situations. Um, but Egyptian wheat is not going to become invasive and it's not going to be there. It won't even be there two years from now. Um. But that's the problem with muscant is is people are like, well, it's sterile. You know, we've heard that before from a lot of things. Um, but let's just say, let's just pretend yes, it is sterile and it's not going to spread by seeds. Well, it's

spreading right now. Because we're planting it, and we're putting it on properties all across the country, hunting properties, which are you know, look across the landscape. I'm gonna go the long route with explaining this, but look across the landscape. Look at all the different land uses. You've got agriculture, you've got housings, neighborhood development, pastures, and I mean, there's

not many places for native plants to thrive. The one place where I believe that native plants can thrive the most are on hunting properties and rural hunting properties. Yet our rural hunting properties are underattacked by a lot of these invasives that are brought in from you know, the horticulture trade, to these neighborhoods and stuff, and so you're getting a lot of these neighborhood landscaping plants escape on

your property. I don't know about you, but I have more invasives than I want to deal with my own property. The last thing we should be doing as hunters is planting something that's going to take more ground away from our native habitats. And so that's exactly what mescantus does. Even if it doesn't spread by seed, it's just like bamboo, you plant in one spot and that one rhizomeie plant isn't going to come up. It's one stem. It's not

going to stay one stem. Each year, those stems multiplied, it's rhizomes multiplied, and it and it grows, It spreads by rhizomes and it and it fills in that space to where no natives can grow in there. Like if it's a solid monoculture, there's no diversity in there. And so it's another we've just essentially created another thicket of

bush honeysuckle. And how invaluable it is to wildlife. This is the same thing we've we've taken more of our North American ground and where native North American species should be, and we've put a you know, a non native species in this place that our wildlife can't utilize. They can't use it as a food source, they can't use it in the same you know, as the same nesting habitat that they would really like to um. And you're gonna say, yeah, it provides even more cover. I'd say it provides too

much cover for for our certain wildlife species. It's too much um and it's too thick for them to utilize the way they should or the way they want to um. But um, I was trying to think, what's the what was the The second part was then, Okay, if I shouldn't use myscantus, yeah, what's my best alternative? Man? For one? Oh, here's what I did on my property is I just

stopped mowing and I just let it grow up. But I've been adding in native plums, native hawthorns, depending on what your soils like, what shrubs you can support those native shrubs or powerhouses. Man like power houses. I saw a possum haul this year that I'm talking. It had to be hundreds of thousands of berries on this thing. The ground was solid red from a from a from a possum hall shrub. That's food. It's called possum all because possums and raccoons and and other things eat it.

And heck, the more you people are like, why would you want to feed a raccoon, the more you can keep your raccoons them less likely it's going to be eating something you don't want to eat, and it's providing food for birds songbirds. So native plums food source, native hazel nut food source. There are also host plants for a ton of native insects, So you're attracting insects to your property, food source for quill and turkeys. Mascantus can't

do any of that stuff. And at the same time, these native plums and hazel nuts are allowing for other native species to grow amongst them. Native grasses can grow in your piece. Um. You know, just the plum trees behind my house, they have wild rye grass growing underneath them, Virginia wild rye, and those produced they were consumed by Native Americans. The seedheads like you would have grain um, and they're consumed by wildlife. The greinhead is um and

tons of wildfliers are coming up underneath them. Um. And so you can plan a diverse mix. That's that's really what I'd like to promote instead of myscantis is hedgerows, native thicket species um, and native grasses and forbes that can grow amongst those. So you can do a multi tier.

If you want to screen on edge your property, plant a row of native plums, hawthorns, whatever you can get your hands on, native native shrub species, dogwoods um like the swamp dogwoods, and then plant a row of native grasses and forbes. And you're you're gonna have a really great screen. That's also we're going to become an excellent nesting habitat for things like quail, and when we can benefit when we can have something that's fulfilling our human need,

which is all Mscantus is doing. It's we're using it to fulfill a human need if we can have something that fulfills that human need. But it's also playing a huge role in our ecosystem, and it is a habitat type that is dwindling in our country that is not common anymore. We're doing a good thing. And and in in twenty years when hunting properties everywhere have M. Scantus on them and everybody's like, dagum, I just bought this

hunting property. I'm gonna deal with this Mscantus first, which, for you know, by the way that mscanthus gigantist is one of the more difficult ones to get rid of with Glasha say. It takes multiple treatments of glass say to get rid of it. Those those landhowners aren't going to be blaming the folks selling Muscantus. They're gonna say, well, dagum, the hunters, the hunters who had this property before us

planted Muscantus. And and the last thing I want to do for my kid or you know, my grandkids is is give hunters a bad look, because I want to make sure that when they become hunters and when they're taking their grandkids hunting, that hunters are looked at as conservation leaders in our country and the biggest conservation powerhouse, which I believe we are. But I want the public to see hunters as that, and I don't want to give the public any reason to be upset with hunters.

And that's just one way. I mean, I think we should become bulletproof. And when we're leading conservation and doing things the right way, will become bulletproof and nobody can say anything to us. I mean, they can't say we're doing things wrong when we are the ones out here keeping North American ecosystems thriving. I mean, I really believe that that's what hunters can be, and I believe that's what most of us already are. But that's to me, that's that's how I see it, and that's why I'm

so passionate about it. I'm not passionate about it because I hate in basis. I mean, I am, but I do hate in basis, but I'm passionate about it because I don't want to give hunters a bad name, and not for selfish reasons, but for reasons that you know, for my kids and my future grandkids. I mean, I want them to be hunters, and I want to make sure that they're gonna be able to do the things

that I love. And that's the mean, that's without hunting, man, that's I wouldn't the Native Habitat Project wouldn't be a thing. I mean, that's the whole reason I'm into what I'm into and I'm out here doing what I'm doing is because I grew up hunting with my dad and my granddad, and I mean that's what I want for my kids and my great great great grand kids. So making sure hunters have a good, good uh you know, pr with the public. I mean, that's that's super super super important

to me. And that's that's all I'm concerned about. Yeah, yeah, I uh, I couldn't agree more with all that, and uh and on them scant this thing, I'm I'm convinced you got me. You got me on that too. So yeah, so I mean, where are you saying? Oh that, and and that's you know, I'm not People think I just hate on invasives, but man like or I hate on non natives and it's not it's not that, man. There's a there's a huge difference between non native and non

native invasives. And and you know, you can you can plant. There's all sorts of things that are non native, like Egyptian wheat that you can plant and it's not going to become a problem. And I you know, we've I worked on a wildlife management area where we had to do with automotive and buy color Lisabetiza and salt tooth

oaks spreading. I mean, yeah, and that's that's a bad word, I know, but I saw for myself salt tooth oaks spreading by the thousands and alcomputing native oak trees and I saw, you know it was that was hunters doing that. I mean, we planted those for wildlife and we were going to do a good thing. And I just want to make sure we learn from those mistakes and we were actually planting things that are going to do a

good thing. And when we plant native we don't have to question whether what we're planting is going to backfire on us in the future because those plants are supposed to be there. So it's a pretty full proof system. If you plant native, you know you're not gonna, you know, regrette it one day. And there's plenty of things that I've planted, and I'm sure I'm sure there's things you've planted,

and half the listeners have planted that we regret. Um, I'm still dealing with rye gras on one of my grasses because I've planted it there and a food plot mix, and it's it's really became an aggressive but um, there's you you know, you can't mess up. What do you plant native? I mean, it's it's pretty full proof. Yeah, And I like something you've said, I think even today in other places you've talked about how natives always carry their weight, like they're never just doing, you know, one

single thing. They're always serving multiple purposes and they're they're there for a reason, and they serve multiple purposes for all different levels of the ecosystem, which is which is a pretty powerful thing man, And then and purposes that you and I will never even be able to cover here, right, you know, we'll never be able to wrap our heads around,

uh what a what a grass? And with a with even one hundred speed on hundred native species out there, will never be able to wrap our heads around what all that ecosystem provides. UM. I mean it's doing things that will never will never even know. But it's too we know what's doing good things. Yeah, let's let's shift in to the timber now. So let's say we've we've done our inventory in the timber. We're starting to do that.

We're walking around, We're trying to id different trees, We're trying to figure out, Okay, what's supposed to be here, what's not? UM. I think there's probably a lot of people they'll be wondering, well, how do I know if this is a good thing to have or not a good thing to have? Where should I manage timber? How should I manage it? Um? What would be some of your starting points for someone who's, you know, wanting to take this native approach and this ecosystem approach and apply

it to their timbered lands. The first thing I do is I I'll look at what's in the UNDERSTORYUM. I also look at the slope aspect. If it's if it's got any kind of hills like we have around here, your north slopes, your east slopes, or really your northeast north slopes are gonna be are are traditionally gonna be close canopy forests. You're gonna have spring ephemerals on those

sides of the hills. And that's why those that's why those spring of femerals are there, because those spring of femberals flower this time of the year before right before the leaves come back on the trees, because they know in a few months when there's leaves on the trees, there's gonna be so much shade that nothing's gonna be able to grow. So those spring of femberals are adapted to close canopy forests. So they're all flowering right now

where there's still sunlight on the ground. But you don't you know, that's on north slopes, northeast slopes, bottom lands, places where there wouldn't historically have been fire, so like ravines, deep drawls, places where there's a lot of moisture where you see two lap popular and maples and beach and lots of hemblogs and things like that. So your south slopes, your ridge tops, your west slopes sometimes your east and

southeast Aasan slopes were predominantly savannahs or dryer. They got sunlight on them throughout the winter and that kept them and they got fire a lot. So those places are where you can manage for savannahs very easily because you know you're gonna be able to use fire. Um, it's gonna be dry enough, that's what's supposed to be there.

And there's usually still remnant savannah species there. So you know all those south slopes and ridge stops and some flat rolling dry places where there would have been cressings in savannahs, do you find around here? You look for remnant trees like post oaks and shinka pins and black jacks, short leaf pines, you know, chestnut oaks, a lot of those upland hardwoods with very real lofty you know, white

oaks have those real lofty leaves. Um, if there's a lot of those real lofty leaf trees there, then you know those are trees that like fire. So you think about think about water oak and willow oak, those bottom land oak species. They have those very tiny leaves that lay flat on the ground, so fire doesn't move through them very well. And that's because they're they're adapted to grow in places that would have had fire. Your upland oaks would have had fire, so they have those real

lofty leaves. And when those leaves burned through those oaks, when those pine needles burned, it got hot. And those upland oaks and those pines are adapted to that. They can handle it. Those hickories can handle that fire. But what can handle that fire is your beach and your maple, some of your tulip, poplars, sweet gums, and those cedars, trees that aren't supposed to be there, that aren't fire tolerant because they can't handle fire. And that's how those

ecosystems adapted. So when you're going into those places figuring out what should be there and what shouldn't, keep those and not all of you can remove some of those upland hardwind species, but you know, keep some of those and remove the species that aren't supposed to be there. Um, And you think about sweet gums, like, how I'm guessing you'll have sweet gums up your way? No, I don't

think so. Well, you probably would know, but they sweet gums, their leaves just crumble man, and you pick them up that just crumble because they grow on bottom land areas, they don't knock fire. So get we're into those species um and and that's going to open things up. And what that's gonna do is you bring a sunlight to

the ground. And that's the first thing you really want to do before you bring fire back to a place, because if you bring fire back to a place and it's close canopy, you're not going to get that response you want. And then it's just gonna be bare soil under there. So you want to come through and kill some of those trees first. You can either do that through you know, the hack and spray girdling um. And this is a great time to remove in faces Tom Bradford pairs and prive it and sure you heaven and

stuff like that. Kill them. You know, this is a great time to take care of a lot of those. But go through and kill those trees that are supposed to be there. You can drop them psalm and drop them down the ground and leave those stumps to re sprout, or you can treat some of those stumps. And you know how I said before, being diverse with it. If you're ever wondering how to go about something. Be diverse with it. Don't don't go through there and just hack

and spray. Don't go through there and just hinge cut if you want to, I mean, but go through there and do a mix of things, like just cut a tree down, let it resprout. Obviously if it's invasive, to cut it down and treat the stump, but treat half the stumps, leave some of them one treated, and just be diverse with it. You want to bring that sunlight in because once you get that sunlight in, you can run a fire through there and you're going to get

a really good response from that seed bank. Then you're gonna get a lot of understory, need of grasses and wildfliers. And I mentioned earlier that close canopy forest that has fifty pounds food per acre. When you open up that canopy bring fireback, you're bringing in not too thousand pounds, but you might be bringing in five hundred pounds of foodbreacre.

And that's only going to improve your wildlife habitat. And those are going to be areas that are perfect for hiding fawns and nesting turkeys, and that's what you want. You want that those trees that are protecting from aerial predators. And you want that grassland complex underneath those trees to provide cover and provide food and attracting six and all those things, a million things I've mentioned before, but that you want that mix of a grassing and a forest.

And to me, man, that's like the optimal ecosystem. Savannahs you got mass producing trees. You got when it's open like that, you get those oak trees that sprawl out with those big limbs, and those become excellent roosting trees, and the turkeys can fly up to them because there's not a lot of shrubs and stuff in the way. You've got if you're using fire, it's open, they could fly up roosting those trees. You've got all the benefits of a grass and you got all the benefits of

a forest. And it's just to me, the ideal ecosystem is there. You know, you mentioned that the couple or three I think different ways you can kill those trees girdling them, cutting them, cutting them, and probably on the herb side. And I guess the fourth you mentioned hinge cut And I like that. I like the point you made about you know, diversify, like everything diversify. That's a great kind of guideline to apply across all of your

different land work. Always have different ways you're doing it. But when it comes to those specific you know, timber management practices, I guess, are there any that work best for certain goals? Like I'm thinking, like, if you're trying to diversify your timber, you know, one of the things a lot of deer hunters are trying to do is like, hey, I want to also make sure I've got some particularly

good betting areas or different things like that. Are there any certain ways of cutting and killing a tree or managing this timber asked for certain goals? Well, you know, providing cover, betting areas, a lot of those methods that people use, like hinge cutting or just piling up trees, I like making brush piles. I feel like those will get utilized a good bit. But these are all just band aids. They're all just really they're not what the

wildlife really want. You're just trying to mimic what's supposed to be there. So if you want those things cover and stuff like that, that's where thickets come in play. I mean around here in the South. Well, that's what Alabama means. Alabama means thick, it clears people who it means clear and thickets because we're we have so much. You know, somebody's thickets and stuffing here. But if you want that, just cut down a bunch of it's gonna

take longer. That's the thing you can. You can cut down those trees and have some barry cover, but make sure your end goal is to make like a thicket of plums or hazel nuts or or you know, dog woods, and there's a meal. You'll probably have a ton of shrubs species up there that we don't have, but get some shrubs in there, and so that gives you the more that's called a woodland. So you have grasslands, and then you have where grasses start going to forest. You

have savannas, which are grasslands with overstory of trees. And then you have woodlands, which are forests with a grasslands underneath a little bit but a lot of shrubs. You got a shrub combonent and so I think that's what woodlands are good at. But also just having shrubs on edges of openings gives you that you know, people love

that feathered edge look kilds. And you talk about using trees, cutting them down and making that temporary feathered edge with those trees, but really your end goal should be to have have it go from forest to rubs to grasslands and have that shrubby complex there on the edge, because that's gonna be great betting cover. So yeah, you use hingecuts, use it. I mean that, I mean, put it, make you a giant wall of down to logs and I

mean a bugs while I gonna bet against that. I mean, but it's all temporary until you can get what's supposed to be there established, and that's kind of should be your end goal of I believe. But you know I mentioned those methods of using saws and stuff. That's the you know those that's my poor boy method, and that's what I can do, you know, when I get off work or whatever. I mean, you can go and do those things. But you can also do it at a

large scale. I mean no, you can use it multures and um, I mean if you really have to, and and you can use logging crews. I do that a lot with my job as force or I did a lot of savanna restorations by having a crew come in and log it and man, that is the that's the best way. If you have a large that's the best way to get a really good response quickly. And you know I mentioned earlier you have you know, you have

those upland hardwood species. Obviously it's gonna be tempting. People are gonna want to go in there and do the opposite of a high grade where you leave. You know, high grading is leaving all the crab trees and only cutting the good trees. So like you're big oak, you know, oaks and and pickrees, and you know the trees are gonna make you money, and leaving the crab trees. You don't want to do that. But you also don't want to go in there and cut all the crab trees

and just leave your big um. You know, you don't want to leave your property covered in giant white oaks because every time the wind blows, you're gonna be You're not gonna be able to sleep at night. You're gonna be like, there's I've got, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of white oaks there that are now up to the wind. They're gonna blow over. So um, what I used to do is I I go in and market and I'm move the maples and the beach and the and the sweet gums and poplars and and

remove your bigger um. You know, make sure you're not just leaving the interior white oaks. But if you have some young white oaks, young oaks and hickries leave like the middle aged ones, you know, compared to the just giant timber quality ones, you can make some money on that.

And um, you know, then it's gonna you're gonna be able to get a logger and they're easier when you say, hey, you can cut some of these bigger white oaks, but make sure you make sure you market because you don't want them to just go and you don't just want to turn a longer and use in your place without marketing. But in the end, what you have a savannah, it's going to grow up in the grasslands and you're gonna

bring fire back to it. But your trees are gonna be those middle aged oaks and hickores and things like you know, short leaf pines or whatever. They're not gonna be so tall that they blow over because you know they've been growing in in a forest with a bunch of trees around them to protect them, so they haven't really put in that root structure that's going to hold

them up. Two wins. But if you leave a lot of the middle aged ones and they're not going to blow over, and it's going to give them times to form those root systems and be get used to being out in somewhat open areas. But that's how you can go about it without just using a chainsaw and a bottle herbside. You can do it at a larger scale

with a timber harvest. If you if you find a good forrester, and if you want to find a good forester, that Native Habitat Manager's page, it's good for that finding somebody in your area that has used somebody for a job like that. Yeah, well, speaking of that Native Habitat Manager's page, that sounds like a great resource. I've kept you here, John away with your sore throat for a good long time, which I appreciate it, but I feel

like I should let you get back to it. So where could folks go to get more resources from you? Where can they see your content and connect with you and all that good stuff? Kyle? Yeah, Well, yeah, we've got I post videos on YouTube and Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, um. And then we have a podcast, um that we we put on pause for a while because Jake and I, uh we both just had newborns within you know, a month of each other. So we were like, for our

wife's sakes, we're gonna put the podcast on Pauls. But we're about to start it back up. We have a lot of good episodes on there, but um, that's ah, that's where you can find us. And um, we're also on Patreon. People donate on there and we use that towards your store and some you know, rare grass and sites and uh, and we're we're about to start We're about to start selling some T shirts with a specific plant species on there. So I mentioned earlier finding rare

stuff on grass or on roadsides. Um, there's some species in our state, like leafy prairie clover that that only has like three populations in the state, and we're gonna start selling T shirts with that leafy prairie clover on there. Um, And all that money's gonna go towards conserving that hopefully hopefully buying some of those properties and make sure they're safe for conservation. So that's something else cool we're doing. So just you can find all that following us on

it on Instagram or Facebook. So but that's about it, man, And appreciate you having me on. Oh yeah, that's uh, that's some really cool stuff. I'm I'm glad that I've discovered your your content and your work and I'm glad you're out there doing it. So thank you for that, Kyle, and thanks for sharing all this with us today. Yeah, I appreciate it to you. Man. Well, I'm happy to come back going whenever of you. Do you ever have any more topics like this, I'd be happy to talk

about it. Maybe maybe next time my voice we'll be back. So yes, yeah, I feel like we're just scraping the surface on a lot of this stuff. So yeah, we'll definitely need to have you on for for a second go around, and I'll make sure schedule at not right after the big Old Turkey convention. Yeah, well I got it. Just so happened. We have a pregnant goat down here in my podcast studio. We have is at my barn and we just had him. Our goat literally had three babies.

As I was walking into the to do this podcast, so I gotta go check on some baby goats too. Yep, priorities we'll get after Kyle. Thanks again, appreciate it man. We'll see you later. And that is a rap. I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoyed this entire month of habitat related discussions. I've certainly learned a lot. I'm excited to get out on the ground doing some of this work myself starting

next week. Mister Tony Peterson, my good friend and partner in crime and a lot of the stuff we do here at Wired to Hunt is taking over. He's going to do an offseason project series. We're gonna talk about all sorts of interesting things. He's going to be talking through scouting and shed hunting and turkeys and all sorts of good stuff that we can be focusing on this time of year as we kind of prepare for that

next phase of the year. So be sure to check back in next week for that, check in for more details for me on the Working for Wildlife tour coming soon, and until the next time, Thanks for being here and stay Wired to Hunt.