Delay fall bush hogging for pollinators?

[RickB]

The down side is that if you wait that long, you will end up with an ever increasing amount of weeds in your field. There is or was a federal program which paid people to not mow until late August, when nesting birds had raised their young and wouldn't get killed. OTOH I'm trying to knock back an invasive plant (Autumn Olive) in my mother's field, and make it a point to mow in July before the berries have time to mature. Birds will eat those and drop them miles away, spreading the plant farther.

Exactly. There are consequences to all activities. A balance of cost/benefit is only determined by looking at the big picture.

 

[ruffdog]

Instead of planting beans or corn, a friend of mine planted 80 acres of a mixture of wildflowers. Different flowers will bloom at different times of the year so the fields change colors.

 

[JamesHW]

 

[ovrszd]

I have 70 acres in USDA Pollinator program. Cutting cannot be done prior to 15 July or later than 01 Sep. Cutting is limited to invasive species control. A field can only be 100% cut by special permission.

 

[Oaktree]

I have 70 acres in USDA Pollinator program. Cutting cannot be done prior to 15 July or later than 01 Sep. Cutting is limited to invasive species control. A field can only be 100% cut by special permission.

I'm confused. I'll admit I'm not familiar with growing seasons in Missouri, but those dates seem backwards. You'd think July 15-Sept 1 would be prime wildflower season and that cutting would be discouraged during that time.

 

[ovrszd]

As someone mentioned, don't want to cut dyring nesting season. Don't want short growth going into winter.

 

[YLee Kioti]

Nice reminder and confirming my actions of a non-educated novice. Rains are coming in finally and went out to cut the weeds. This acre and half had hug patch of tall skinny plants with tiny purple blooms. Loaded with orange and purple butterflies and bumble bees. So I only cut around where the coastal was growing. Want the coastal to overtake the front pasture. Left them a about 80 square yards of the plants since coastal has not taken hold there. Slowly watched them migrate over to the portion.
So do not feel to bad about destroying their habitat.
I did out of ignorance cut down a shrub loaded with Monarchs this spring. Luckily the shrub did not die.
Could not identify the plant but had a soft fragrance.

Soon as I learn what it is, may plant a few more to help increase the butterfly population.
A side note the hummingbirds are back! yeah....don't take much to excite me.:laughing:

 

[jmc]

OP here.

The like minded responses here are encouraging.

Someone once compared our environment to a game of Genga- a stack of blocks where the idea is to remove a block without the stack collapsing. Fun part of the game is that eventually, removing a block will collapse the whole structure, thanks to all those previously removed blocks that didn't collapse it immediately. Not fun in real life though.

USDA came out today on planting a pollinator friendly area up here. She knew every plant on my property and if it was native or not.

Waiting for her proposal on what is a two year process of mow, glyphosate, mow, glyphosate, plant, mow high when the unavoidable weeds form seed,... She also said the for first two years or so, most of the seeded native plants are developing their root system and you just need to be patient. She estimate a native wildflower seed mix at $1200/acre.

 

[ovrszd]

It's very, very expensive.

 

[jmc]

It's very, very expensive.

Yeah, since that meeting, I was thinking of you with your 70 acres.

For my small plot, I'll probably just eat the seed/Roundup cost to avoid paperwork and just depend on USDA for guidance. I hope that $1200/acre isn't because our government is subsidizing most of the seed.