Wetland Work Underway

I have started the annual work that needs to be done to keep a wetland thriving and maturing! The native grasses have been sprayed on the roads and penisulas and are now weed free and looking good! As soon as the ground dried out enough my first step was to go in and mow all of the cattails in order to dry them out enough to burn. After letting the cattails dry for a week to ten days I secured a burn day and lit them up!!! Got to be careful, as the fire has a way of getting away from me but I managed to keep it where I wanted it this year. Once the burning was complete its time for the chisel. I chiseled all of the thick cattail areas in order to pull the root balls up to the surface and allow them to dry and bake in the sun, as that seems to be the best way to kill them. The root balls were allowed to dry a week to ten days and then hit with a disc to further chew them up. I repeated this process several times in the month of June to ensure a good kill! I am still playing hell killing all of them, since they were out of control when we bought the ranch but we are definately gaining on them!