Last year I applied for financial aid through the NRCS EQIP program. I met with a biologist last week and he called back this evening with some suggestions.
I have 4 very small food plots on my place of only about 1/8-1/4 acre each. I told him I really wanted to clear out and burn around these plots to increase them to about 1/2 acre each.
He said the only help NRCS could offer with that is paying $165 per acre towards the brush clearing and $125 per acre for planting native grass. This means I would get about $300 financial aid and the brush clearing would probably cost me about 3 times that. If I sign the EQIP contract, the brush area cleared MUST remain in native grass for a period of time (I think 10 years). So I could not plant food plot blend seeds on the cleared areas but I could continue planting my little 1/8-1/4 acre spots in whatever I want.
First question I have is, is it worth it? Me having to go majority out of pocket anyways, would I be better off forgetting the $300 financial aid and just paying for it all so that I can plant whatever I want? The native grasses that would be planted is a mixture of switchgrass, blue stem, partridge pea, and other natives. Would these natives still be attractive to wildlife? I know deer will eat some of them but if I really want to draw deer in to hunt, would you say I'd be a whole lot better off planting the usual wheat, oats and rye?
Second question involves herbicide.
The woods are a mixture of pine and oaks but mainly 8 year old junk trees like maple, sweet gum, poplar and other low value. He suggested aerial herbicide to kill off all broadleafs and keeping three 5 acre tracts in a 3 year burn rotation.
The financial aid would pay about 100% of the ariel herbicide and burning cost. My concern is killing off all the mature, nut producing oaks. Many are probably 40 yrs old. I really don't like the thought of killing off these big oaks to create better browse. But wanted to know others opinions on this.
Thanks
I have 4 very small food plots on my place of only about 1/8-1/4 acre each. I told him I really wanted to clear out and burn around these plots to increase them to about 1/2 acre each.
He said the only help NRCS could offer with that is paying $165 per acre towards the brush clearing and $125 per acre for planting native grass. This means I would get about $300 financial aid and the brush clearing would probably cost me about 3 times that. If I sign the EQIP contract, the brush area cleared MUST remain in native grass for a period of time (I think 10 years). So I could not plant food plot blend seeds on the cleared areas but I could continue planting my little 1/8-1/4 acre spots in whatever I want.
First question I have is, is it worth it? Me having to go majority out of pocket anyways, would I be better off forgetting the $300 financial aid and just paying for it all so that I can plant whatever I want? The native grasses that would be planted is a mixture of switchgrass, blue stem, partridge pea, and other natives. Would these natives still be attractive to wildlife? I know deer will eat some of them but if I really want to draw deer in to hunt, would you say I'd be a whole lot better off planting the usual wheat, oats and rye?
Second question involves herbicide.
The woods are a mixture of pine and oaks but mainly 8 year old junk trees like maple, sweet gum, poplar and other low value. He suggested aerial herbicide to kill off all broadleafs and keeping three 5 acre tracts in a 3 year burn rotation.
The financial aid would pay about 100% of the ariel herbicide and burning cost. My concern is killing off all the mature, nut producing oaks. Many are probably 40 yrs old. I really don't like the thought of killing off these big oaks to create better browse. But wanted to know others opinions on this.
Thanks
