I've adopted a local neighborhood park in Cedar Park that has endured years of extreme mowing; it also has a few wooded areas, one of which is very "natural" but is overrun with thickets of ligustrum and nandina. Adopting the park started, for me, with really wanting to remove those invasive species from the woods, but it's grown into my attempting to survey the shockingly diverse native species present, convincing the parks department to stop mowing in a drainage area to help with water infiltration and runoff in what seems to be an area with high groundwater and a natural seep, and creating a low-mow wildflower area. In addition to the bluebonnets my neighbor and co-conspirator has been seeding there for years, I've started attempting to increase diversity in the area by seeding with local ecotype wildflower seeds that friends, myself, or native plant rescue have collected. It's all pretty exciting!
I somewhat impulsively applied for a gift garden for the park, and won! So now I'm also going to create a more deliberately landscaped butterfly garden area around the park sign, which is really fun and exciting and will be a beautiful public face for the project. Unfortunately, this spot is probably one of the most damaged in terms of its soil health--it has been consistently mowed down to about one inch tall, the soil is compacted, and they recently dug up and installed piping for a water fountain in the area.
I'm trying to think through how best to speed up succession and quickly rehabilitate the soil in this area so that native perennials and milkweeds can thrive. I'm not sure whether there's bermuda grass--I certainly hope not. I'm also doing this on a shoestring budget. I don't have a johnson-su bioreactor, but I do have a chipdrop pile that has been quietly rotting under some oak trees for about a year and a half. Do you think that would make a suitable bio-inoculant, mixed with fungal foods like seaweed, humic acid, and rotted woodchips/leaf mold from my own yard to tuck the new plants in? I also have access to biochar, which I could charge and spread over the area to try to really pack the microbes in. If only the city would let me burn the area! Or if someone could lend me a bison or two... I don't want to sheet mulch, which is what I've done in my own yard when creating pocket prairies and gardens, both because I want to preserve some of the existing species and I'm not sure whether there's bermuda grass.
Anyway! Short version of question: how would you quickly rehabilitate the soil in a roughly 10x20 foot area in a public park that has been mown within an inch of its life to favor native perennials over weeds and bermuda grass?
Meghan!! What a cool opportunity, it goes to show you don't have to own land to make a significant difference to soil health. Plus, as with all urban green spaces, nurturing this site will have such an impact on the community from beautification to improved water infiltration and beyond.
Unless it was a monoculture of some kind, like all bermuda grass, I agree with you that sheet mulching probably isn't the way to go for this site. Even if there is some Bermuda grass, it sounds like it’s being outcompeted by other weedy species at this time (common for CoA parks).
There are a lot of different ways to go about this, and there’s no one specific right way. If there were an ideal, it would be to ensure all soil health principles are at play – some of which might require action on your part, others less so.
For an area of this size (10’x20’) I’d consider the following:
1. Broadfork
I’ve broadforked an area this size myself and it was a great workout ha, you don’t have to do it all in one day and you can always ask someone for help! If you don’t own a broadfork, try to borrow one (if you know any small farmers I’m sure they’d have one they could lend you for a day).
This will hopefully only have to be done once to help break up compaction and allow your biological amendment to get down in those cracks.
2. Biological Amendment / Inoculation
Huge fan of your chipdrop situation – if you dig in, and it looks pretty broken down then I’d say go for it, use it in place of johnson-su compost for an extract and you can use the chunkier bits as light mulching. Mix those feedstocks you mentioned and the biochar with the extract right before applying (as opposed to letting them sit together / brewing). Application can be as simple as using a watering can and walking at a consistent pace to get the liquid into the broadforked area for a soil drench.
This is one thing you can do throughout the year to try and move the needle on succession – keep adding fungal-abundant composts/extracts.
BTW, I like that you’re prioritizing fungal foods and not adding simple sugars, this context probably doesn’t need that. 👍
3. Biochar
Depending on how much biochar you have, you could mix this with soil or good quality compost and add a solid topdressing to the area too / backfill those broadforked holes.
4. Transplant – if you can
I expect it could be hugely helpful to add some transplants in addition to seeds to help get the butterfly garden established. Transplants (even if they’re small from seed-starts) will have a better chance to shade out some of the undesired plants growing and, in theory, start establishing the plant-microbe relationships that you want across that whole area as seeds germinate.
5. Multiple-Seedings – if you can
I’m learning that seeding in spring and fall (or really any time) for the first couple of years will inherently increase the germination rate (simply because there are more seeds) which aids in increasing the timeline to establishment. This may seem wasteful, but if seeds aren’t being carried off by water / erosion, they have a chance of germinating once the conditions are right for them (as the soil health improves). There will be some loss to birds and squirrels which is pretty hard to avoid, and another reason people tend to seed multiple times.
PS: you prob already know, good seed-to-soil contact is needed for native seeds. You can mix them with some of the biological amendments you have (or a cup of healthy soil from somewhere in the area), then “be a bison” and walk on the seeds to smoosh them into the soil a bit. Then water in, ideally with an extract!
6. Prevent Run-off
If there is any chance of this garden site flooding or if it’s on a slope or located at lower ground then I would urge you to take some erosion prevention measures. I’m currently having to do this for my backyard pocket prairie, so I have some ideas if this is applicable.
I’ll be curious how successful you are in getting the city to reduce mowing, I expect it will be challenging – in my experience they tend to say and do two different things. My friend and prairie restoration practitioner, Lewis Weil, advises using bluebonnets in public areas because they signal “don’t mow”, even to blow&mow crews. Additionally, he’s learned that adding a border to a garden can signal “these weeds are intentional”, even if it’s just made of repurposed rocks or logs.
^I’m sure none of this is new to you, Meghan, but I hope it was helpful to think through an order of efforts! Let me know what you think.
Meghan, I wanted to let you know I've seen your submission and expect to respond here later this week once I'm out of the woods on some deadlines. Thank you for all the context you provided, I look forward to coming back here to share my thoughts!
It is my sincere hope that animals, matching their particular skill sets to our food waste system will be upgraded from dependents and 'food bots' to certified "Municipal organic waste diverters".
Honestly, we need critters more than ever to help digest our excess nutrients, compose ingredients faster, and spread soil microbes better.
I love this vision, Pat. I don't often think of animals being part of the food waste solution but I think you're totally right, it's yet another missed opportunity to leverage the incredible gift of animals' guts and manure.
Interestingly enough, while my city is just giving me a 'talking head' to discuss things (not really happening), the county is very interested and is willing to check in with those folks( with more than 5 acres of space, lucky beings) who 'waive' out of the mandated hauling.
Across the board, the chefs and owners don't want to see the nutrients wasted either.
My experience with various representatives of conservation programs has been very hit and miss, once you find the truly dedicated and passionate conservationists in the system, it brings so much hope. Community organizing can be hugely helpful too, which it sounds like you've got a leg up on with your band wagon there! Glad to hear it.
Exactly so with finding folks in government clogs actually believing the same thing. Thank you for those kind words. It gives me energy to getting the discussion going further.
Hi Andie! I'm a huge fan of your work and am actively doing my best to improve the soil health of my husband and I's 50 acre ranch with cover crops, mushroom blocks, building a Johnson-Su, etc!
I'm reaching out with a question that I'm hoping you can help me with ...
Our land has very sandy soil and is primarily made of oak trees, pines and cedars, plus a TON of yaupon (and native grasses such as little bluestem, beauty berries, etc.). We just received NRCS funding to clear 24 acres of brush (yaupon) from the property with the requirement that the yaupon must be mulched.
We've been advised by land clearing companies that the most cost effective way for us to mulch 24 acres of dense yaupon is to use a machine that will drive over the uprooted piles and shoot the mulched yaupon out onto the soil. This will result in about 2" of mulch laying on top of our sandy soil, and potentially some will be mixed in as well as they smooth out the land.
Is this a positive or negative for the health of the soil?
Most likely, the clearing will take place in May/June and we will be seeding native grasses/flowers/forbs in Spring 2025.
Will the layer of mulch negatively affect the seeding?
ALSO — although we must have the yaupon cleared by the end of 2024, there is some flexibility on timing.
With soil health in mind, would you suggest clearing the yaupon in May/June so that it allows some time for the mulch to break down prior to seeding
OR
will this leave the soil exposed over the summer, so it's best to wait until after the extreme heat (Sept?) to remove the yaupon?
Loren, these are such thoughtful questions and for that reason alone I think you'll be very successful on your land! Also, congratulations on your NRCS funding, I know that's not always an easy process.
Couple of follow up questions:
- Will you have livestock of any kind this year and next?
- In the 24 acres of brush - is there an overstory or understory that will be preserved? or is it mostly JUST yaupon in that area and all of it will be removed?
- What method of seeding do you expect to use when it comes time?
As a disclaimer, I've not had experience with this level of clearing & land management, but I'd like to offer some considerations from my perspective as a soil biology specialist and how that ties into vegetation on the land.
The Pros of mulching the yaupon: it will keep the biomass on the site, returning it to the soil. With it being a woody biomass this should encourage saprophytic fungi which is expected to help build organic matter and aggregates in the sandy soils.
The Cons - weed pressure - if there's no overstory OR understory and it will mostly be a cleared, mulched area you could expect weedy species to start cropping up. This is one reason I asked if you might have livestock - to help feed on that vegetation.
Rate of Decomposition: The amount of time it will take for this mulch layer to degrade will depend largely on rainfall. The more moisture you get this year, the happier the microbes will be and the more decomposition will occur, but things will slow down should we have a drought and it will be even worse if there is no overstory in that area. My instinct is to do the mulching sooner rather than later so it has a chance to breakdown before your target seed date next year.
Livestock Integration: if you have livestock you could paddock them off and provide supplemental feed atop of the mulched area so they'll add manure to the site which could help increase decomposition and, should they also graze any vegetation that comes up that will help minimize weed pressure prior to seeding. You'd want to move the animals according to holistic management methods so as to concentrate their impact and move them across the 24 acres. (If you'd like to consult with someone to guide you on the use of livestock in this way for your specific site, I'd be happy to connect you with HMI Educator & Regenerative Rancher, Christine Martin)
Seeding: you're really going to have to let your observations inform the decision of when to seed. We want native seeds to make seed to soil contact, fine bits of mulch shouldn't be of concern, but if it appears like many seeds would land on large patches of woodchips then I'd hold off (or if practical, you could consider scraping back the mulch when you're ready to seed - if allowed per your NRCS terms - and using it in compost or to mulch another area)
PS:
I'm learning the hard way that seeding natives is not at all like seeding covercrops for groundcover - they can be slow to germinate and may take a few years before taking off in earnest, many prairie restoration folks do multiple seeding events as things get established (i.e. spring and fall seeding events until desired density is reached, though as you can imagine this can get expensive!).
On the other hand, low germination rate is a reflection of land management practices and whether or not we're creating the conditions for those plant species to thrive. This is a huge benefit of holistic mgmt, often the use of ruminants wakes the seedbank up so much so that most regenerative ranchers don't even seed natives. They (the seeds in the seedbank) must think the bison are finally back <3
There is no understory. There will be an overstory of trees (oaks, large cedar and pine) over about 50% of the land. The other land that is currently exposed has all native growth so hopefully we’ll get the same on the newly exposed land 🤞🏼
Re: livestock — we’re not in a place to bring them in yet but we will get them in 1-2 years and I already have a consultation set up with Christine for Monday!
Re: Seeding — I’ve been told broadcasting will be sufficient and I plan to attempt this myself. (That being said, I’m happy to take any advice you have on this and will continue to do research on the best strategy.) I have also heard of the challenges with native seeds and am planning to inoculate the seeds with the compost from my Johnson-Su Bioreactor. Hopefully this helps!
I’ve very happy to hear you think the mulch will be a benefit. We’ll move forward with the clearing in May with a goal of seeding next Spring. Fingers crossed for rain and good decomposition in the meantime!
Thank you so much for your help, I REALLY appreciate it!!
Yay! So glad to hear you're meeting with Christine.
Isn't it interesting that native growth is nearby? Makes me wonder how the land was managed in the last 100 years or so that made such a significant difference between that area and the yaupon area.
I'm not sure if this would be helpful, but wanted to put it on your radar, Texas State Parks & Wildlife has a seed drill that they rent for free!
We’re a regenerative lawn care company in Georgia. We've got a client who's had a very difficult time growing anything in his backyard since some construction on an ADU occurred 3 years ago. We took a soil test (mand it showed a very high pH level: 7.3. They are trying to grow Kentucky Bluegrass, which has a recommended soil pH of 5.5 to 6.5. Any thoughts on an effective way of acidifying the soil on his property? Normally we are trying to reduce the acidity, not increase it.
My instinct is to put your efforts towards making this soil more fungal. Fungi produce organic acids which naturally effects pH. This also aligns with the expected fungi:bacteria preferences of perennial grasses.
If this grass has already been receiving fertilizers, ask if it's been nitrate or ammonium. If nitrate (NO3), try switching to ammonium (NH4) while also taking efforts to inoculate with fungal-dominant soil amendments* and/or incorporating humic and fulvic acids.
Rationale: ammonium is the form nitrogen will naturally be provided in a more fungal dominant soil system, and humic and fulvic acids will also be produced by fungi. Adding these and observing the effects should be informative! If things are looking up consider leveling up on fungal inoculation* and tapering ammonium and then the organic acids over time.
*fungal inocultion ideas - honestly, I'd try to find someone to source johnson-su compost from and use it either to top dress or use as an extract (more economical) - even if you were to buy this from a hobbyist, this source of fungi is far better (more diverse and abundant) than what you can find in most products that claim to have fungal spores. And remember, a little fungal-dominant compost can go a long way.
ALTERNATIVELY, if the client is up for it you could recommend starting with an annual grass/groundcover to get something growing quickly (consider shade tolerance if applicable), treating with your biochar/humates and inoculants and work your way towards a perennial like Kentucky Bluegrass. As a recently highly disturbed site, the troubles with a perennial are not surprising, nature doing its thing!
I hope this was helpful, don't hesitate to respond with any follow-up Q's and I will get to them as able in the coming days :)
Hi, Andie!
I've adopted a local neighborhood park in Cedar Park that has endured years of extreme mowing; it also has a few wooded areas, one of which is very "natural" but is overrun with thickets of ligustrum and nandina. Adopting the park started, for me, with really wanting to remove those invasive species from the woods, but it's grown into my attempting to survey the shockingly diverse native species present, convincing the parks department to stop mowing in a drainage area to help with water infiltration and runoff in what seems to be an area with high groundwater and a natural seep, and creating a low-mow wildflower area. In addition to the bluebonnets my neighbor and co-conspirator has been seeding there for years, I've started attempting to increase diversity in the area by seeding with local ecotype wildflower seeds that friends, myself, or native plant rescue have collected. It's all pretty exciting!
I somewhat impulsively applied for a gift garden for the park, and won! So now I'm also going to create a more deliberately landscaped butterfly garden area around the park sign, which is really fun and exciting and will be a beautiful public face for the project. Unfortunately, this spot is probably one of the most damaged in terms of its soil health--it has been consistently mowed down to about one inch tall, the soil is compacted, and they recently dug up and installed piping for a water fountain in the area.
I'm trying to think through how best to speed up succession and quickly rehabilitate the soil in this area so that native perennials and milkweeds can thrive. I'm not sure whether there's bermuda grass--I certainly hope not. I'm also doing this on a shoestring budget. I don't have a johnson-su bioreactor, but I do have a chipdrop pile that has been quietly rotting under some oak trees for about a year and a half. Do you think that would make a suitable bio-inoculant, mixed with fungal foods like seaweed, humic acid, and rotted woodchips/leaf mold from my own yard to tuck the new plants in? I also have access to biochar, which I could charge and spread over the area to try to really pack the microbes in. If only the city would let me burn the area! Or if someone could lend me a bison or two... I don't want to sheet mulch, which is what I've done in my own yard when creating pocket prairies and gardens, both because I want to preserve some of the existing species and I'm not sure whether there's bermuda grass.
Anyway! Short version of question: how would you quickly rehabilitate the soil in a roughly 10x20 foot area in a public park that has been mown within an inch of its life to favor native perennials over weeds and bermuda grass?
Meghan!! What a cool opportunity, it goes to show you don't have to own land to make a significant difference to soil health. Plus, as with all urban green spaces, nurturing this site will have such an impact on the community from beautification to improved water infiltration and beyond.
Unless it was a monoculture of some kind, like all bermuda grass, I agree with you that sheet mulching probably isn't the way to go for this site. Even if there is some Bermuda grass, it sounds like it’s being outcompeted by other weedy species at this time (common for CoA parks).
There are a lot of different ways to go about this, and there’s no one specific right way. If there were an ideal, it would be to ensure all soil health principles are at play – some of which might require action on your part, others less so.
For an area of this size (10’x20’) I’d consider the following:
1. Broadfork
I’ve broadforked an area this size myself and it was a great workout ha, you don’t have to do it all in one day and you can always ask someone for help! If you don’t own a broadfork, try to borrow one (if you know any small farmers I’m sure they’d have one they could lend you for a day).
This will hopefully only have to be done once to help break up compaction and allow your biological amendment to get down in those cracks.
2. Biological Amendment / Inoculation
Huge fan of your chipdrop situation – if you dig in, and it looks pretty broken down then I’d say go for it, use it in place of johnson-su compost for an extract and you can use the chunkier bits as light mulching. Mix those feedstocks you mentioned and the biochar with the extract right before applying (as opposed to letting them sit together / brewing). Application can be as simple as using a watering can and walking at a consistent pace to get the liquid into the broadforked area for a soil drench.
This is one thing you can do throughout the year to try and move the needle on succession – keep adding fungal-abundant composts/extracts.
BTW, I like that you’re prioritizing fungal foods and not adding simple sugars, this context probably doesn’t need that. 👍
3. Biochar
Depending on how much biochar you have, you could mix this with soil or good quality compost and add a solid topdressing to the area too / backfill those broadforked holes.
4. Transplant – if you can
I expect it could be hugely helpful to add some transplants in addition to seeds to help get the butterfly garden established. Transplants (even if they’re small from seed-starts) will have a better chance to shade out some of the undesired plants growing and, in theory, start establishing the plant-microbe relationships that you want across that whole area as seeds germinate.
5. Multiple-Seedings – if you can
I’m learning that seeding in spring and fall (or really any time) for the first couple of years will inherently increase the germination rate (simply because there are more seeds) which aids in increasing the timeline to establishment. This may seem wasteful, but if seeds aren’t being carried off by water / erosion, they have a chance of germinating once the conditions are right for them (as the soil health improves). There will be some loss to birds and squirrels which is pretty hard to avoid, and another reason people tend to seed multiple times.
PS: you prob already know, good seed-to-soil contact is needed for native seeds. You can mix them with some of the biological amendments you have (or a cup of healthy soil from somewhere in the area), then “be a bison” and walk on the seeds to smoosh them into the soil a bit. Then water in, ideally with an extract!
6. Prevent Run-off
If there is any chance of this garden site flooding or if it’s on a slope or located at lower ground then I would urge you to take some erosion prevention measures. I’m currently having to do this for my backyard pocket prairie, so I have some ideas if this is applicable.
I’ll be curious how successful you are in getting the city to reduce mowing, I expect it will be challenging – in my experience they tend to say and do two different things. My friend and prairie restoration practitioner, Lewis Weil, advises using bluebonnets in public areas because they signal “don’t mow”, even to blow&mow crews. Additionally, he’s learned that adding a border to a garden can signal “these weeds are intentional”, even if it’s just made of repurposed rocks or logs.
^I’m sure none of this is new to you, Meghan, but I hope it was helpful to think through an order of efforts! Let me know what you think.
Meghan, I wanted to let you know I've seen your submission and expect to respond here later this week once I'm out of the woods on some deadlines. Thank you for all the context you provided, I look forward to coming back here to share my thoughts!
It is my sincere hope that animals, matching their particular skill sets to our food waste system will be upgraded from dependents and 'food bots' to certified "Municipal organic waste diverters".
Honestly, we need critters more than ever to help digest our excess nutrients, compose ingredients faster, and spread soil microbes better.
I love this vision, Pat. I don't often think of animals being part of the food waste solution but I think you're totally right, it's yet another missed opportunity to leverage the incredible gift of animals' guts and manure.
Thank you for that validation!
Interestingly enough, while my city is just giving me a 'talking head' to discuss things (not really happening), the county is very interested and is willing to check in with those folks( with more than 5 acres of space, lucky beings) who 'waive' out of the mandated hauling.
Across the board, the chefs and owners don't want to see the nutrients wasted either.
Its a good band wagon to be on.
My experience with various representatives of conservation programs has been very hit and miss, once you find the truly dedicated and passionate conservationists in the system, it brings so much hope. Community organizing can be hugely helpful too, which it sounds like you've got a leg up on with your band wagon there! Glad to hear it.
Exactly so with finding folks in government clogs actually believing the same thing. Thank you for those kind words. It gives me energy to getting the discussion going further.
Hopefully I'll have the 'dog and pony show' all perfect when I speak at the https://www.crra.com/conference in August.
Copy/Pasted from an email from Loren:
Hi Andie! I'm a huge fan of your work and am actively doing my best to improve the soil health of my husband and I's 50 acre ranch with cover crops, mushroom blocks, building a Johnson-Su, etc!
I'm reaching out with a question that I'm hoping you can help me with ...
Our land has very sandy soil and is primarily made of oak trees, pines and cedars, plus a TON of yaupon (and native grasses such as little bluestem, beauty berries, etc.). We just received NRCS funding to clear 24 acres of brush (yaupon) from the property with the requirement that the yaupon must be mulched.
We've been advised by land clearing companies that the most cost effective way for us to mulch 24 acres of dense yaupon is to use a machine that will drive over the uprooted piles and shoot the mulched yaupon out onto the soil. This will result in about 2" of mulch laying on top of our sandy soil, and potentially some will be mixed in as well as they smooth out the land.
Is this a positive or negative for the health of the soil?
Most likely, the clearing will take place in May/June and we will be seeding native grasses/flowers/forbs in Spring 2025.
Will the layer of mulch negatively affect the seeding?
ALSO — although we must have the yaupon cleared by the end of 2024, there is some flexibility on timing.
With soil health in mind, would you suggest clearing the yaupon in May/June so that it allows some time for the mulch to break down prior to seeding
OR
will this leave the soil exposed over the summer, so it's best to wait until after the extreme heat (Sept?) to remove the yaupon?
Loren, these are such thoughtful questions and for that reason alone I think you'll be very successful on your land! Also, congratulations on your NRCS funding, I know that's not always an easy process.
Couple of follow up questions:
- Will you have livestock of any kind this year and next?
- In the 24 acres of brush - is there an overstory or understory that will be preserved? or is it mostly JUST yaupon in that area and all of it will be removed?
- What method of seeding do you expect to use when it comes time?
As a disclaimer, I've not had experience with this level of clearing & land management, but I'd like to offer some considerations from my perspective as a soil biology specialist and how that ties into vegetation on the land.
The Pros of mulching the yaupon: it will keep the biomass on the site, returning it to the soil. With it being a woody biomass this should encourage saprophytic fungi which is expected to help build organic matter and aggregates in the sandy soils.
The Cons - weed pressure - if there's no overstory OR understory and it will mostly be a cleared, mulched area you could expect weedy species to start cropping up. This is one reason I asked if you might have livestock - to help feed on that vegetation.
Rate of Decomposition: The amount of time it will take for this mulch layer to degrade will depend largely on rainfall. The more moisture you get this year, the happier the microbes will be and the more decomposition will occur, but things will slow down should we have a drought and it will be even worse if there is no overstory in that area. My instinct is to do the mulching sooner rather than later so it has a chance to breakdown before your target seed date next year.
Livestock Integration: if you have livestock you could paddock them off and provide supplemental feed atop of the mulched area so they'll add manure to the site which could help increase decomposition and, should they also graze any vegetation that comes up that will help minimize weed pressure prior to seeding. You'd want to move the animals according to holistic management methods so as to concentrate their impact and move them across the 24 acres. (If you'd like to consult with someone to guide you on the use of livestock in this way for your specific site, I'd be happy to connect you with HMI Educator & Regenerative Rancher, Christine Martin)
Seeding: you're really going to have to let your observations inform the decision of when to seed. We want native seeds to make seed to soil contact, fine bits of mulch shouldn't be of concern, but if it appears like many seeds would land on large patches of woodchips then I'd hold off (or if practical, you could consider scraping back the mulch when you're ready to seed - if allowed per your NRCS terms - and using it in compost or to mulch another area)
PS:
I'm learning the hard way that seeding natives is not at all like seeding covercrops for groundcover - they can be slow to germinate and may take a few years before taking off in earnest, many prairie restoration folks do multiple seeding events as things get established (i.e. spring and fall seeding events until desired density is reached, though as you can imagine this can get expensive!).
On the other hand, low germination rate is a reflection of land management practices and whether or not we're creating the conditions for those plant species to thrive. This is a huge benefit of holistic mgmt, often the use of ruminants wakes the seedbank up so much so that most regenerative ranchers don't even seed natives. They (the seeds in the seedbank) must think the bison are finally back <3
Wow! Thank YOU for the thoughtful response!
There is no understory. There will be an overstory of trees (oaks, large cedar and pine) over about 50% of the land. The other land that is currently exposed has all native growth so hopefully we’ll get the same on the newly exposed land 🤞🏼
Re: livestock — we’re not in a place to bring them in yet but we will get them in 1-2 years and I already have a consultation set up with Christine for Monday!
Re: Seeding — I’ve been told broadcasting will be sufficient and I plan to attempt this myself. (That being said, I’m happy to take any advice you have on this and will continue to do research on the best strategy.) I have also heard of the challenges with native seeds and am planning to inoculate the seeds with the compost from my Johnson-Su Bioreactor. Hopefully this helps!
I’ve very happy to hear you think the mulch will be a benefit. We’ll move forward with the clearing in May with a goal of seeding next Spring. Fingers crossed for rain and good decomposition in the meantime!
Thank you so much for your help, I REALLY appreciate it!!
Yay! So glad to hear you're meeting with Christine.
Isn't it interesting that native growth is nearby? Makes me wonder how the land was managed in the last 100 years or so that made such a significant difference between that area and the yaupon area.
I'm not sure if this would be helpful, but wanted to put it on your radar, Texas State Parks & Wildlife has a seed drill that they rent for free!
Links for more info:
https://tpwd.texas.gov/landwater/land/habitats/post_oak/upland_game/pub/
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/TXPWD/bulletins/34ceafc
Just a thought: there are folks like https://yauponbrothers.com/products/live-yaupon-tree-1-gal making a business selling the native paint.
We’re a regenerative lawn care company in Georgia. We've got a client who's had a very difficult time growing anything in his backyard since some construction on an ADU occurred 3 years ago. We took a soil test (mand it showed a very high pH level: 7.3. They are trying to grow Kentucky Bluegrass, which has a recommended soil pH of 5.5 to 6.5. Any thoughts on an effective way of acidifying the soil on his property? Normally we are trying to reduce the acidity, not increase it.
My instinct is to put your efforts towards making this soil more fungal. Fungi produce organic acids which naturally effects pH. This also aligns with the expected fungi:bacteria preferences of perennial grasses.
If this grass has already been receiving fertilizers, ask if it's been nitrate or ammonium. If nitrate (NO3), try switching to ammonium (NH4) while also taking efforts to inoculate with fungal-dominant soil amendments* and/or incorporating humic and fulvic acids.
Rationale: ammonium is the form nitrogen will naturally be provided in a more fungal dominant soil system, and humic and fulvic acids will also be produced by fungi. Adding these and observing the effects should be informative! If things are looking up consider leveling up on fungal inoculation* and tapering ammonium and then the organic acids over time.
*fungal inocultion ideas - honestly, I'd try to find someone to source johnson-su compost from and use it either to top dress or use as an extract (more economical) - even if you were to buy this from a hobbyist, this source of fungi is far better (more diverse and abundant) than what you can find in most products that claim to have fungal spores. And remember, a little fungal-dominant compost can go a long way.
ALTERNATIVELY, if the client is up for it you could recommend starting with an annual grass/groundcover to get something growing quickly (consider shade tolerance if applicable), treating with your biochar/humates and inoculants and work your way towards a perennial like Kentucky Bluegrass. As a recently highly disturbed site, the troubles with a perennial are not surprising, nature doing its thing!
I hope this was helpful, don't hesitate to respond with any follow-up Q's and I will get to them as able in the coming days :)
Oh, and here's a great write up on turf & microbes: https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/holen/article/2008aug22.pdf
Thank you!