 So teaching to identify plants and especially grasses can be very difficult through a video. So I feel like these slides are going to be the next best thing in terms of an in-person instruction and as far as some of the really identifying characteristics and some of the control methods that we have to control some of these undesirable species. So we're going to go through slide by slide here, talk about some of the most common plants that we have to identify and control. It's by no means the end all be all. There's many different species out there especially depending upon where you are in the southeast or in the U.S. for that matter. But we're going to discuss in these slides some of the most common that we see here in the southeastern United States. So one of the most important things to consider when identifying a plant is the anatomy of that species. So with plants, animals, insects, or otherwise there's many different identifying characteristics and anatomical components that you'll have to familiarize yourself with. This makes identification a lot easier in the long run. It's nothing that comes overnight. It takes a little bit of study and into practice. But when going over the anatomy over time it'll stick with you and you'll begin to really identify plants pretty quickly in the field through just a field manual or a key or whether you're sitting back down at the desk or dining room table keying through some of those plants that you may not otherwise be able to identify right there on site. So some things as far as the stolons that these plants produce, rhizomes, some of the root structures, the veins and the leaves, the color of the leaves, a lot of times with grasses you'll pay a lot of attention to the ligules, the collar, the oracle structures, the sheath, things along those lines and also the inflorescence or the seed head and how that's exhibited. So over time this anatomy will come to you but it does take practice on a little bit of know-how in the long run and you'll get better off. So we'll begin discussing the identification and control of undesirable cool season perennial grasses and these are by far the most common that we begin with when talking about an old field renovation and that's primarily because these cool season perennials out compete the warm season grasses. It doesn't mean the warm season grasses aren't there it's very important to scout for those as well but most often we'll kill the cool season first and then begin to see the warm seasons after that but we'll discuss them both here. Here in northeast Alabama I deal with a lot of tall fescue. Tall fescue is a very common forage variety we see it widely spread in all types of areas and it's one that's very common to have to remove just like we've discussed in video one of this series at the Graham Farm and Nature Center it was our main culprit in that old field mountain pasture but you'll see that it's characterized by some glossy shiny leaves if you look at it from a distance you can kind of see a little bit of a sheen to those leaves not exactly dull or matted. The seed head is what we can call a compressed panicle it has kind of that open panicle structure but the seed itself is somewhat compressed at the end of those panicles. Around the collar there you'll see somewhat of a identifying characteristic and you know we term those white ears that are coming right around the leaf collar there and the leaves also have very prominent veins almost a little bit rough to the touch and if you pull it up by the roots you'll see that it has very short rhizomes compared to compared to a lot of other cool season grasses that's an identifying characteristics and in that bottom right picture even though it does show somewhat of a bunching growth habit like that which is something that we'd like to see with a lot of our native and beneficial vegetation it is side-forming which is a big reason why we'd like to get this off the landscape in addition we don't see a lot of browse or a seed value for our wildlife. Next up is orchard grass it has somewhat of a matte blue appearance it really sticks out in fields where maybe it doesn't completely dominate you can see almost these blue patches and I've got a picture coming up that better visualizes that but it has those open panicles almost a a bushy some sort of a seed head a little round ball if you will. The sheath on a orchard grass is very very flattened out along the stem there as you can see in that centered picture with with that really tall ligule that again lays against the stem so the ear that that terminology really starts coming into play with sheath and ligule that's one of those things that you'll really have to key in on when identifying grasses and if we dig down closer towards the soil surface there at the roots you'll see they show a very white stem compared to a lot of other grass species that we're dealing with and if you would cross section those leaves it will have somewhat of a V shape those are all identifying characteristics for orchard grass and here it is clumped next to fescue and you can see with the fescue there on the left again a little bit of that that shiny leaf you can almost see the ribs from that picture even next to that matte blue color on that orchard grass side by side they can they can really stick out and you can see the color of that orchard grass coming through very very nice way to be able to identify that even from a distance. Next up is brome grass now we have several variety of brome grasses that pop up all throughout the southeast these are some of the more common ones that we'll find in in Alabama and again they're not they're not overly common but there are areas where they do become quite invasive and we do not need these on the landscape there's there's no wildlife value that comes from these so just going over some of these quickly we've got smooth brome it's characterized by leafy smooth and very narrow blades as you can see there in the upper central part of this slide we've got soft brome and rescue grass and we begin to really differentiate these from the seed head itself field brome there the lower picture is also a very common one we see in Alabama and perhaps even the most common is this cheat grass or downy brome that seed head as it as it droops over and the hairs that come off the little spikelets there those are very distinctive characteristics of cheat grass or downy brome perennial rye grass is one that is very widespread a very common forage for cattle and livestock it's got somewhat shiny leaves in in the bunches you can you can really begin to see some of that vibrant green vegetation and again that has a bit of a sheen to it as you walk throughout the field and there's ways that we can very very easily differentiate perennial rye grass from annual rye grass we'll talk about annual or annual rye grass here in just a moment but with our perennial rye grass they will have unclasped oracles uh whereas our perennial rye grass or i'm sorry our annual rye grass has a clasped oracle that begins to kind of reach around the stem there also our perennial rye grass has onless seed where our annual rye grass is on and on is a small little spike or hair like structure that comes off the end of each and every seed produced and you can see in this photo on the right there are no little spikes coming off of the or hairs coming off of those seed heads on this perennial rye grass so let's talk about some cool or some of our undesirable cool season grass management considerations and strategies so for for all of these species that we just overviewed if the field has advanced growth it's a good idea to get in there and mow or bush hog it a few times or you can mow it and burn it in the late summer and fall and what we're doing with this multiple mowing or this mowing and burning is we're really trying to get rid of the heavy thatch that could otherwise interfere with our herbicide applications additionally if we mow and multiple times or mowing burn we're also promoting fresh growth and vegetation that vibrant and fresh new growth does really well for taking on herbicides and getting a better control and kill of these undesirable cool season grasses when we spray these we're talking about two quarts of glyphosate it's ideal if we spray these in the late fall and early winter after we've had a few frosts that's when these cool season grasses again are up and bright green vibrantly growing and going to be taking on this pesticide now after spraying there's usually always going to be a thatch layer it's a great idea to come back in and burn that off just prior to the native grass emergence in the spring a lot of times that's in that made april time frame depending upon the weather and your location in the southeast but we're really just trying to get rid of that debris or that thatch blanket if you will so that we can spur on that native seed bed make sure that it gets good sunlight good soil moisture and is able to grow as as readily as possible no to that you know at the bottom of the slide i've got that you can also burn or mow and burn in late winter and then spray these cool season perennial grasses just prior to that native grass emergence in the spring so again you'd like to have that burn or that spray go on in you know that march april again make march march and april time frame depending upon where you are in the state that's another option but sometimes we don't quite get as good of a kill and control that way which is why we'd much rather recommend that you go ahead and spray in that late summer or i'm sorry go ahead and spray in that early winter time frame is a good visual of the thatch that can develop after spraying this can be seen in video three feel free to join us for that as we talk about the prescribed fire equipment and site preparation at the grand farm and nature center once that fescue was killed and controlled it was going to be pretty important to come back in and remove that so we did that through a prescribed fire you can see on the left hand picture there all that debris on the ground was certainly limiting sunlight and was going to stifle that native seed bank so after the fire there on the right you can see some bare soil and certainly after the rain that followed that little bit of ash and and duff that was on the surface there uh was dissipated so we had a nice clean open seed seed bank and and site preparation for that native bank uh of seed to hopefully respond so that covers the undesirable cool season grasses now let's move on and talk about some of the undesirable warm season perennial grasses that we may see and that may require control on some of our earliest accessional sites bermuda grass this is this is really one of the veins of this early successional vegetation management it has dark narrow leaves and the issue this is such a trouble is because of the deep and heavy rhizomes that bermuda grass produces you see in that upper upper center picture there some of those rhizomes are are an eighth to a to a quarter inch there's a lot of energy stored there bermuda grass is is very capable of taking and handling a lot of pesticide a lot of chemical so it's a very resilient plant that just has virtually no benefit or value towards the deer and turkey and other wildlife that we're trying to manage it's one that we want to aggressively eradicate it does produce by seed it produces by rhizome and it produces by stolons or the runners and a lot of times if you've been in a bermuda grass lawn or hayfield you've seen these runners moving along it's just a very aggressive plant and able to reproduce in a lot of different ways um the seed heads characterized by those three to five uh slender very fragile delicate uh spikes but bermuda grass is one that we want to get off the land okay next up is dallas grass uh it has rough wide uh leaves um with hairs that you find at the base as well and if you look up this to the seed head it comes up very often in these three to five uh alternate alternating spikes almost almost like a like a like a tree stand ladder going up um one seed head on each uh on each side of the uh stem there alternating back and forth it has a very tall ligual you can see a very good example of that in that upper right photograph with uh again hairs uh that you'll see at the base and short rhizomes um much like the tall feske we described earlier dallas grass also has short rhizomes but with this being a warm season grass uh pretty easy to differentiate between those two behia grass uh very common in south alabama we do see some here northeast alabama as well but not nearly as prominent as the mid southern part of the state uh fairly easy to identify uh through the little v-shaped spikes uh that that seed head will put up very characteristic of behia grass sometimes you'll even see three on the end of there but most often too but it's this j-shaped purplish rhizome that really gives behia grass away uh when you get down there and dig at the sod layer and and begin to uproot behia grass you'll find that purplish j-rooted rhizome and and you'll know you have behia grass it's very distinctive of that species vassie grass is another one that we do see uh intermittently throughout the state here in at least in the northeastern area where I work it does pop up every now and then but that that raceme uh seed head there uh as it comes up the stem and begins to put out the small little spikes of of seeds in those groups of 12 to 15 that's very distinctive of vassie grass it has a whitish mid vein and a very rough leaf um and that extremely hairy liggy will like you see there in the upper right corner and the roots can be pretty fibrous as well not exactly easy to pull up uh vassie grass but if if you do you'll see um some some pretty uh some pretty strong and fibrous roots there next up is johnson grass it's another undesirable that you'll see pop up especially becomes obvious later on in the season as it reaches that you know three four to even you know six foot in height uh it really sticks out in the field it could be seen from a long ways away it has that brown open panicle for a seed head uh that very distinctive white midrib and that tall liggy will uh that you see there uh johnson grass is pretty distinctive fairly easy to recognize especially once it's mature like i said you can see it from a long ways off in the field so now let's talk about some of the considerations and control options that we have for some of these undesirable warm season grass species so it's ideal to burn or mow in the wintertime that's going to really help to reduce the heavy thatch it's going to otherwise be there and interfere with herbicide contact uh a lot of these plants that we're trying to control these grasses have very thin leaves and not a lot of surface area so it's important that we get good contact um so with a lot of the warm season you see listed here bermuda, dallas grass and bahaya the vassi grass and johnson grass as well it's important to allow this grass to grow and then spray it prior to flowering ideally in that april the maytime frame that young actively growing vegetation that's getting good herbicide contact is going to control better than other situations where you have more mature plants and where you have trouble contacting those leaves but we'll start stepping through them here so for bermuda grass it's really ideal that we go at it with a mazapier bermuda is a very tolerant plant and a mazapier does a nice job at getting really broad scale control on an otherwise headache of a grass here so 24 ounces of a mazapier if you're using a four pound product or 48 ounces if your product only has two pounds of active ingredient is going to do well to control that bermuda grass now with dallas grass we've got uh also vassi grass and johnson grass it can be controlled with 12 ounces of a mazapier or that three quarts of glyphosate bahaya a little different now we can do two ounces of that methylpheron methyl commonly known as escort and also the four to five quarts of glyphosate is also an option there you've got to increase that rate a bit more than what you had for that early prescription with dallas grass vassi grass and johnson grass bahaya is much more tolerant and with all these a good surfactant is methylated seed oil that does really well to help to contact and coat those small fine leaves of these grasses now it's important to consider too that if you're looking to spray after these plants have flowered you're going to have to increase these uh these chemical rates that i just had mentioned to you so once these plants have flowered their tolerance really increases and really no matter what you do as far as spraying you're going to have to do some follow-up treatments and do some surveillance it's very easy to miss spots and you'll certainly see that in the in the grand farm and nature center site that we have in a previous video where where i did indeed miss some spots and that that just happens bouncing around some of these fields you have to go back and do some touch-up later on of course you've got a seed bank these plants are responding from so you'll have just some natural um production come back in from the the prior year seed bank and just these carpet grasses are difficult to to control and contact and and like i mentioned with the bermuda grass they can just be very resilient so they can take a lot of chemical so you want to be vigilant in spot spray uh you can go back out with a one percent mix of a mazapic or a mazapir if it's a two pound product and then also a five percent glyphosate solution it depends on what you're trying to control as well we got to make sure we we identify what the problem grass is and spray it appropriately but that's what i'd done in the picture up there on in the upper right that was a patch of bermuda grass that had come back from a previous um mazapir spraying so i'd gone back out with that five percent glyphosate solution just spot spraying that small patch there and and actually probably should have just gone back with the amazapic right off the bat i did have to spray that patch several times throughout the summer with that glyphosate solution but it is now under control and we're looking to see what comes back next year and also we do have an option and somewhat of a a pre-emergent application if you will that if we know we've got some undesirables of crab grass dallas grass or goose grass we can go back out with a 12 ounce a mazapic application just prior to that grass germinating and get some good control that way too sort of a preventative a pre-emergent control for those species so just know that it really is going to depend on what species you're looking to control in terms of the the warm season grass and then we can give you a good roadmap to follow in terms of being the most economical and inefficient with your chemical selection and application so we've identified and discussed control for some of the most common perennial grass species that will manage in alabama now let's also talk about some annual species and some broadleafs that we'll have to control as well so here we have an annual cool season grass annual ride grass it's very similar to our perennial ride grass that we discussed earlier except the characteristics are pretty much just the opposite of what we talked about with the perennial with this annual ride grass we see on the seed spikes there the on seed that we do not see with perennial ride grass we also have clasped oracles you can see in that center picture where those oracles begin to wrap around the stem very elongated that's a great way to identify annual ride grass but just like perennial ride grass annual ride grass has that dark shiny leaf and smooth edges but this is a very common forage grass we see it a lot in food plot mixes a lot planted for livestock forage and then also even for a soil stabilization and erosion control as well very widespread throughout the state we do have some annual warm season grasses as well I've mentioned crabgrass just a moment ago and then also goosegrass sometimes these can be confused especially we see it a lot with lawn lawn managers but we have to make sure we identify these as well in the in the warm seat or in the early successional management that we're trying to conduct here as well so crabgrass has a creeping growth it has very fine hairs very very long stolons that run across the surface of the of the ground there and the seed head is three very fine spikes sometimes even more than three goosegrass on the other hand it lays very very flat to the ground and what's known as a prostrate growth and it's very whitish in the center that's one very good way to identify goosegrass and the stems are very very flattened the seed heads aren't quite as identifiable between these two with that goosegrass also putting up that that two to six spikes but you're really looking for that whitish flatten stem here we'll switch away from grasses now so here is a perennial warm seasonal legume that gives us fits as wildlife managers cericia lespedeza this is one that is very commonly planted for erosion control and was recommended years ago for wildlife enhancement it was it was hoped that quail would eat the seed and they certainly do but the digestion uh the digestibility for that seed just isn't there so the benefit is is very minimal for lespedezan or cericia lespedezan wildlife there are other species of lespedeza but it's cericia that we really are looking to control here it's a very deep rooted plant it will grow upright with a very fine stem and as it matures and later on in the season you will see it lay over but it's characterized by that little teardrop leaf and when it's flowering puts up these small little white uh cream colored even a little bit a bit of a pinkish he with a purple spot on the upper upper side of that flower uh but this is one that can be very difficult to control and if you see it in your early successional areas or on your wildlife properties it's one to be very aggressive with some annual forbs that we may find to be an obstacle are thistles uh those do very well to come back in and colonize disturbed areas if some surrounding uh lands have thistle or if they're already on the site you're looking to manage uh that's something to consider control for they grow in what's known as a basal rosette which you can see in the in that that lower picture below that flowering thistle and that's a great time to control thistle we're in when they're in that young growing stage after they've bolted like you see uh in the left picture there and put out a flower uh by that time it's very difficult to control that plant with chemical uh that really the only options we have at that point are through severing the taproot with the with the hand shovel and and actually removing that plant because those seeds would mature and spread from that point on generally thistles will have spine tip leaves and that that pinkish purplish flower but there's several species the most common we see in my part of the state anyways musk thistle that's very typical for alabama in general I believe uh next up is dock we're primarily looking at curly and broad leaf dock that pictured there in the center is curly leaf it is one that that can become an issue and you can see that you know when you have that much of an area uh dominated in shade and and reducing growth around it from those great big leaves that it puts out you can imagine where a field full of dock can be can become a problem and broad leaf is very similar in form as well but it also grows in a basal rosette before it bolts like you see in that photo and it has very shiny waxy broad leaves and and really sticks out with that with that large leaf it's one that you can see pretty easily uh next up there we have coffee weed also folks will call it sickle pot as well it has a very compound uh pear shaped leaf it's one that will grow up in that in that three to five foot um uh height and again it will stick out fairly easy from uh from from even a distance that the those bright vibrant pear shaped leaf using isn't matures and puts out the yellow flowers very easy to see and if you crush that up or you're working around coffee weed you will smell somewhat of an odor that somewhat resembles coffee anyway a perennial for that we have to manage is some of these plantain species that being buckhorn or broadleaf plantain when black seed grows very similar to broadleaf it also grows in a rosette like we've already mentioned for some other plants previously but you'll see these very prominent veins on the leaves regardless of the plantain species and it sends up that dense and upright seed spike it's a very prolific plant that can really become an issue for some folks and some of the early successional areas that they have and and even on on the food plot side of things as well so we've showed you some of the top offenders or management issues that we see pop up in some of these old field renovations but it's important to know that we have options towards managing the vegetation towards the species that we're trying to produce or or attract uh in this case for the presentation and for deer and turkeys we're talking about native grasses forbs and legumes with just about a 30% grass coverage that's where we really see the most use in these sites when we keep that grass at a somewhat lower percentage so we have options that's primarily through herbicide or chemical control prescribe fire and also disking in some cases so with these tools we're not talking about coming back in with any type of mowing that's not really much of an option for us here and that's just because mowing is really going to promote undesirable non-natives it's going to allow a lot of the woody growth to re-sprout and really build up a lot of thatch that's going to greatly reduce the use especially for turkeys and upland birds you know that thatch at the ground level really reduces their mobility and really kind of causes somewhat of a predator sink and reduces their use of these old field sites so we don't like to see that thatch build up and also mowing you're out there destroying cover and structure and and mowing over rabbits deer fawns nesting turkeys or whatever else is used using the field at that time so we're not talking about mowing here but when it comes to chemical controls we can select those that are more controlling towards grasses broad leaves and also woody growth for that matter now there are some of these that are listed on these species or these these vegetation types such as the grass here we have a mazapik and glyphosate listed now a mazapik and glyphosate are selective towards particular grass species but they're also going to kill some broadleaves as well so when we spray you know a field for multiple different issues glyphosate is is certainly an option because you're going to be able to control multiple vegetation in the species at at one time but if you know you're going to go out and just primarily select for a certain grass variety we can be very selective in that option also for controlling broadleaves you see a mazapik listed there as well but also very selective broadleaf chemicals that we have as an option to choose from at the same time so again we can pick the most economical and efficient chemical for for whatever we're trying to control in the field now for woody control we're not always just talking about a foliar or you know over-the-top spray application we've got other options there as well known as hack and squirt cut stomp and also basal bark applications where we can go out in the field and and really be effective at controlling those woody growth that otherwise wasn't controlled for some of the other methods like prescribed fire and speaking of fire it's a fantastic tool and one that's really going to be heavily relied upon in a lot of our situations here for old field management and really we're focused on the frequency timing and intensity of these fires as those are really what's going to dictate the response of these of the vegetation and of the site that we're trying to manage and we have ways with through fire we can promote broadleaves we can promote grasses and also control woody growth but a lot of times when we're out here not only just trying to keep that 30 grass coverage but a lot of times our fire is going to be applied based on how much woody growth we're looking to have for the species that we're trying to manage you know particularly to that site a lot of times when we talk about deer nest or I'm sorry deer fawning and holding cover that's that vegetation that's you know you're looking at that three to six year even six to nine year interval to keep that really heavy woody growth so just go through some examples here when we want to talk about promoting broadleaves and this is this is a in general recommendation lots of caveats go into fire applications but when we're looking at broadleaf promotion we're looking at late growing season burns and longer intervals at that three to six years but like I mentioned you're going to get a little bit more woody growth with that longer return interval we can promote broadleaves with more frequent one to two year fires but we're going to have to have some chemical control in there in terms of reducing the grass coverage to allow those broadleaves to flourish we can promote grasses through frequent one to two year fires and the late dormant season that's important is the is the timing for that promotion of grass woody control frequent one to two year burns do a nice job at controlling woody growth as long as they're good high intensity growing season burns we've got to have the temperature up high enough to essentially boil or girdle and top kill those woody sprouts that we don't uh or that we're trying to reduce coverage in the field we can also come back in with a heavy disking at a one to four year interval and have some reduction that way as well but like I mentioned too we're going to have some patchy burns a lot of times when you get woody growth in the field you're going to see patchy burns as the field doesn't carry or we don't get the temperatures up where we need to and you'll come back in with chemical control as well so we don't necessarily just rely on fire or just rely on chemical it's it's generally going to be an app application of both and these two slides the chemical and fire management that's a whole another presentation in itself I just want to touch on these to know that there are tools available towards maintaining and managing these early successional areas and this is somewhat of a difficult presentation to give because there really is no one size fits all approach for old field renovation or maintenance in the long term it's really going to be very site specific towards your seed bank and well your problem species you start with and growing conditions and things like that it's going to vary quite a bit so usually killing out the existing problems is easy because they're they're generally going to be these cool season perennial carpet grasses that we've talked about here today but predicting what's going to come back or be uncovered isn't quite as easy sometimes what you get growing back on that sites what you want very beneficial towards the species you're managing towards but sometimes it isn't and certainly there can be patches of desirable vegetation and and then pretty you know a little bit further on down the field there's something else you need to spray or get rid of and it could take several years and several sprayings for the site to develop and really be as beneficial as possible towards what you're managing towards so we have to be able to come back in and ID those plants and spot spray them and hopefully enjoy it or at least learn to because you have to be doing a good bit of it if you can identify these plants when they're young spray them out until something good comes back in its place is going to be is going to be the the way to success herbicide and fire applications are available towards managing and teasing these areas back and forth just like we mentioned we've got several options out there for molding and and managing these areas towards the deer and turkey like we talked about today but also other species game and non-game as well so it's also important to you to know that the response on that site can change over time especially as we run several fires through there the seed bank can be exposed and the plant community can change so it's not necessarily that you get the site where you want to be and then walk away from it and just know that you can run a fire through there every few years and maintain it the site will change it's going to be dynamic and you'll have to be out there and and and walking through it every every season to make sure that it's meeting the management goals that you have for that area so resources these are some some resources that are very good on answering the questions of what is this is it good is it is it bad what do I keep what do I kill when do I spray it when do I burn it when do I disk it these are all questions that a wildlife manager is going to ask themselves and especially folks that manage food plots or early successional vegetation like we're here for today so it's these are all three good resources to brush up on plant ID and then also in that managing early successional plant communities for wildlife in the eastern us that's a very good one for discussing control methods as well so these are some resources that I find very valuable and so do some of the other folks that I that I work with and and and help on a yearly basis so please consider joining us as we continue on with this four part series in video four we'll evaluate the response so by video four we're no longer discussing some of the management issues in detail nearly as much as we are some of the beneficial species and some of the quality response that we have from the site there at the gram farm and nature center essentially in that video four we spray we wait and then we go back and scout and visit the field and talk about the good and the bad that we see