How To Plant Smartweed For Ducks

An ATV sprayer is a very effective mode to control problem weeds like sesbania, while leaving desirable species such every bit grasses and sedges unharmed.

An ATV sprayer is a very effective style to command problem weeds similar sesbania, while leaving desirable species such as grasses and sedges unharmed.

The annual smartweeds respond best to early spring drawdowns and favor the wetter areas of impoundments. Shown here are ladysthumb and Pennsylvania smartweed.

The tiny seeds of almanac smartweeds are highly favored past teal and pintails. Seed production in the first year after disturbance tin exceed 2,000 pounds per acre.

Barnyardgrass, commonly called wild millet, is found throughout the land. It thrives in moist atmospheric condition.

Hemp sesbania, or java weed, has very fiddling value for ducks. It tin can too shade out plants like grasses and sedges.

Reddish-rooted flatsedge differs from other sedges in that it produces more than seed above the ground and no tubers below.

This photo taken in late May of an impoundment named "State of war Dog," tuckered earlier in the month, shows a barren landscape of cracked mud.

Dry for only two months and under extreme drought conditions, the smartweed is charging on while the sedges accept died in State of war Dog.

Finally dry enough to support a tractor, a strip of sorghum sudangrass was planted for hunter cover, and the impoundment was flushed.

Afterwards being flushed again in September when the smartweed was putting on a seed caput, War Canis familiaris was flooded in Nov for hunting.

Don't be surprised to see pintails in your flooded moist soil areas long before opening day of duck season. Pintails can often be found with blueish-winged teal in September.

This impoundment was tuckered in February and immune to abound up in natural vegetation. What you run into here is a June mixed stand of barnyardgrass, red-rooted flatsedge, cattail, sesbania and smartweed.

Mowed and flooded in September, the impoundment held nearly ane,000 ducks for two weeks prior to the Thanksgiving opener. Mallards, pintails, gadwall, widgeon, shovelers and coots fed in the pond and cleaned upwardly virtually 12 acres of thick algae.

The soil manager'south best friend is the disk. Several years afterwards being disturbed, moist-soil impoundments don't produce as much seed as they did in the first two years later disturbance.

These three annual plants — sprangletop, barnyardgrass and smartweed — produce big amounts of seed in the first year or 2 after disturbance.

Disking is an fantabulous mode to fix back succession, reduce undesirable weeds and encourage the growth of grasses and sedges that attract ducks.

If you lot recall land comeback and vegetation manipulation is for deer, non ducks, read on. There are steps y'all can have at present to ensure waterfowl flock to your holding this autumn.

All too often duck hunters ask the infamous question: "What can I plant for ducks?" Almost hunters have visions of corn, milo, rice and soybeans in their heads when they call back of food for ducks.

In agricultural-dominated areas like the Delta, that's where people see most of the wintering waterfowl equally they ride down the highway. Flooded agricultural fields are important to waterfowl, but to say that all a duck needs is flooded corn would be like proverb all a human being needs to eat is mashed potatoes.

Of course, we all know a well-balanced nutrition is a key aspect of healthy living, and that concept is no dissimilar when it comes to wild animals.

Many times public country hunters desire to know what wildlife officials are going to institute for ducks. But if you've listened to waterfowl managers and biologists talk much, you have probably heard the term "moist-soil."

What in the globe is that?

Well, according to the Wetland Management for Waterfowl Handbook produced by the Mississippi River Trust, Wildlife Mississippi, Natural Resource Conservation Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, moist-soil areas are typified past seed-producing annuals such equally smartweeds, wild millets, panicums and sprangletop.

Moist-soil wetlands historically occurred where openings existed in bottomland hardwoods. Forest openings were often caused by high winds, catastrophic floods, beavers, fires, etc. Planting moist-soil areas is not necessary because native plant seeds are abundant in oft flooded soils. Over 2,500 pounds per acre of seed tin exist produced in a properly managed moist-soil area.

Go natural

With that clarification of moist-soil, one can only deduct that the Proficient Lord seeded the earth with many things that feed waterfowl, long before John Deere and DeKalb always put their products on the market place.

"What are the benefits, if any, of moist-soil plants over agricultural crops or planted food plots?" I asked Ed Penny, waterfowl programme leader for the MDWFP.

"Lesser line, the seeds last longer when flooded, they provide substrate for invertebrates because there is more found material than in soybean or corn plants, and you can flood them before," he said. "Since moist-soil areas provide invertebrates, seeds and embrace/construction, ducks probably prefer moist-soil near of the fourth dimension except when it's extremely cold and they need to make full up fat reserves and admission carbohydrates they get from grain crops."

Does this mean ducks don't similar rice fields and flooded corn stubble? Certainly not, just in the grand scheme of things, when you put cereal crops and natural plants on the tabular array and meet which 1 has more to offer a duck, moist-soil areas come out on height.

Look at a comparison of several cereal grains and native seeds in the Waterfowl Management Handbook. Betwixt milo, rice, crabgrass, barnyardgrass, smartweed, curly dock, sedge and Devil's beggarticks, which 1 practice you think provides the nigh calories?

Devil's beggarticks comes in beginning, followed by smartweed, milo and curly dock.

Which practice you think provides the most poly peptide?

Beggarticks wins again, followed by milo, curly dock, crabgrass and sedge. In fact, beggarticks leads the pack in crude fat, barnyardgrass in crude fiber and crabgrass in ash. Withal, higher yields from plants like barnyardgrass, which is the state-cousin of Japanese millet, tin outweigh higher nutritional values from plants like beggarticks.

Now let's expect at how many ducks tin can feed on ane acre of grains vs. natural plants per twenty-four hour period. This is described as duck-employ days, or DUDs. The figures are based on temperatures between 30 and seventy degrees and ducks the size of mallards.

An acre of unharvested rice can feed 29,364 ducks per mean solar day, whereas an acre of harvested rice can feed only 138. An acre of unharvested corn feeds 25,669 ducks per 24-hour interval, and an acre of standing soybeans feeds 3,246 ducks. However, an acre of harvested beans tin can feed barely 35 ducks per day.

Compare that to an acre of flooded hardwoods, which feeds 191 ducks and average moist-soil that feeds i,386 ducks per day. Now if yous manage your moist-soil areas intensively, you lot can feed from 11,000-14,000 ducks per twenty-four hour period!

But does this mean you should go wall to wall with smartweed? No. Ducks need the crops for high free energy during cold atmospheric condition and they need the woods and button bush areas for resting, feeding and loafing. A mixture of habitat types is really what you are looking for if y'all have enough area to do information technology.

However, simply leaving these moist-soil areas alone and watching them evolve may non ever be favorable. Natural succession changes these areas loaded with seed-producing annuals to perennial plants, shrubs and somewhen trees.

Of course, every bit one grassy area slowly reverts dorsum to trees, a tornado or colony of beavers creates another opening in the woods. But with a limited amount of acreage to work with, and not having the luxury of 100 years of spare time to await on Ma Nature, what does one do to keep a prime wild millet area from naturally defaulting into a hardwood timber stand?

You've got to manage it.

Active management

"What is moist-soil management"? I asked Rance Moring, land manager for the infamous York Forest in Tallahatchie Canton.

"Moist-soil management is the manipulation of native grasses and plants to heighten habitat for local or migrating waterfowl and shorebirds," said Moring, who manages 5,500 acres of prime waterfowl habitat between the Tallahatchie River and the Bluff Hills near Crowder.

When I asked him if he felt managing his 350 acres of moist-soil areas was equally important as the hardwood bottoms and agricultural crops on the York Woods holding, he said that it was simply as much a part of his direction scheme as was the flooded corn and timber. This comes as a pretty potent statement from a man who can flood 3,000-iv,800 acres for ducks in whatsoever given twelvemonth. Amidst several thousand acres of rice, corn, soybeans and mature, acorn-laden hardwood timber, moist-soil areas are still important.

"They are cheaper to grow and more drought- and insect-tolerant than agricultural crops," said Moring. "You lot accept to exist able to place the plants and have an understanding on how to maximize the desirables and suppress the undesirables.

"Passive management does not work. If areas are left undisturbed, you lot volition notice a transition from annuals to perennials then to woody stem vegetation. I would strongly recommend disking at least every two years in a moist-soil unit.

"If you leave units undisturbed for more than two years, the vegetative composition starts shifting from predominantly annuals to perennials. I find that implementing an agricultural rotation in my moist-soil units gives me the greatest benefits. The farming practices of seedbed grooming, timely awarding of herbicides and residual fertilizers aid maximize my potentials in moist-soil units."

Spring drawdown

I asked Penny if he would recommend the drawdown of water levels at specific times to encourage certain species like grasses over others like coffeeweed or cocklebur.

"Yep," he said. "If you lot drawdown too early, you will become more marginal plants (like aster, less desirable smartweeds, beggar ticks).

"Afterwards into the spring when the soil and air are warmer, you volition get more desirable plants like barnyardgrass and smartweeds. To me the all-time guide for growing barnyardgrass is to spotter local rice farmers to see when they are planting rice. That'due south when y'all're going to get your millets to grow. Began a gradual drawdown; one board at a fourth dimension every week in early April."

Moring, who says he has an all-encompassing and well-managed drainage arrangement on his property, starts his drawdowns in Feb and has his areas de-watered past late March. This is because he practices jump disking of his moist-soil areas, every bit opposed to fall disking. Both Moring and Penny agree that a drawdown tardily in the growing season, such equally July or Baronial, tends to promote the growth of less-desirable plants like coffee weed and cocklebur. These plants favor germination when temperatures are warmer.

"Early on drawdowns tend to produce more grasses," said Moring. "Annual grasses rank highest to me.

"My goal is to get lxx percentage coverage of barnyardgrass and sprangletop. The remaining 30 pct I endeavor to get smartweed, bidens (beggarticks) and minimal sesbania (coffeeweed). The sesbania is strictly for cover.

"H2o is the cardinal to controlling undesirables. Coffeeweed and cocklebur are going to germinate in the really high temps in summer. Hold water on until the proper time.

"You can reflood cocklebur and scald it to kill information technology in the summer. Reflooding will irrigate barnyardgrass and make information technology grow really well.

"The all-time options for weed control are water, disking/mowing and herbicide, in that club. Fall disking is a proficient control. It opens upwardly areas to put out decoys and sets back succession. It also sets the table to prepare the seedbed for the following spring. In many situations, fall disking works better than spring disking in areas that don't dry upwards until mid to belatedly summer. Bound disking many times enhances growth of coffeeweed, cocklebur and aster, which leads yous to have to spray or mow to control those. Water command, soil disturbance and timely rains or pumping ability are the factors disquisitional to moist-soil management success."

Every bit Penny stated, autumn disking of moist-soil plants is a great management tool and is perfectly legal to hunt migratory waterfowl over. Hunting waterfowl over manipulated natural vegetation is legal, whereas hunting over agronomical crops that are manipulated earlier harvest is not legal.

Fall flooding

"If you have the ability to exercise it, nosotros suggest flooding belatedly Baronial for teal and pintail," said Penny. "If you merely take one moist soil area, I would recommend flooding information technology in late October or early November."

"The start fields I flood are moist-soil units in Oct," said Moring. "I exercise and then to catch early migrating waterfowl in hopes to keep them effectually then they will attract other ducks equally the main migration begins."

Likewise the obvious benefits of fall flooding for early on flights of teal and other ducks, disking and then flooding moist-soil areas less than two inches deep tin can draw shorebirds by the gazillions. Many people don't realize it, but fall flooded duck holes provide valuable and much-needed habitat for dozens of species of birds, non just ducks. Many birds, like American avocets, yellowlegs, dunlin, dowitchers, sandpipers and snipe, flock to these areas.

Likewise, fall mowing and shallow-flooding of moist-soil areas tin can provide an irresistible allure for resident Canada geese and early-arriving specklebellies. And since natural seeds last longer under flooded conditions than do agricultural seeds, flooding moist-soil areas early doesn't mean all of your food source has rotted past the time hunting season arrives.

"Ducks discover thermal comprehend and seclusion in moist-soil areas where at that place is standing vegetation," said Penny. "They demand these.

"Thermal cover is important for waterfowl to get out of the wind and cold. Willows and other trees, coffeeweed and larger levees provide it. At that place is not much cover in a rice field to stay warm, so they have to burn more energy, which means they take to eat more than to stay warm. After feeding all nighttime in grain fields, they will go into the wood and moist-soil areas to hang out the residuum of the day from mid-forenoon through the afternoon."

"I find properly managed moist-soil units take ducks in them at any given time. The ducks use these areas for foraging, loafing areas, thermal protection and pair bonding."

As you lot can see, moist-soil areas total of desirable grasses and other annual plants can provide seeds, invertebrates, thermal cover and seclusion for wintering waterfowl and shorebirds. Water level management is the showtime step in the management process. Soil disturbance every two-3 years is vital to setting back succession and keeping high-yielding annual plants dominant. Summer irrigation and herbicide treatments may be needed for trouble weeds. Autumn flooding attracts and holds early migrants, and belongings water on through leap, after ag fields take long been stale and tilled, benefits waterfowl that are bulking up for their render trip to the nesting grounds.

I'll also let you in on a little hidden secret in moist-soil management. A few well-placed crawfish traps in February and March and a little early on-season frogging in April earlier you de-water your impoundments tin can provide delicious table fare alongside those teal poppers, snipe breasts and goose kabobs.

Have information technology from a fat man — I know what I'm talking about!

Source: https://www.ms-sportsman.com/content/moist-management/

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