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All about firebreaks | Wild Turkey Science #456 · Natural Resources University

• 0:00
  you know serving that role as a firebreak really well but it's also a plant that's super attractive
• 0:07
  and nutritious for deer and turkeys and it can serve that attraction purpose and sneak around
• 0:13
  and find a you know a gobbler coming to it to strut in or something like that. I would guess
• 0:18
  that the majority of the turkeys that I've killed I have used a fire break at some point in that hunt.
• 0:33
  Welcome to Wild Turkey Science, a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow. I'm Dr. Marcus
• 0:40
  Lashley, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida. And I'm Dr. Will Goolsby,
• 0:47
  Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Auburn University. We're both lifelong hunters
• 0:52
  and devoted scientists who are passionate about hunting, managing, and researching wild turkeys.
• 0:57
  In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research, speak to the experts in the field,
• 1:03
  and address the difficult questions related to wild turkey ecology and management.
• 1:08
  Our goal is to serve as your connection to Wild Turkey Science.
• 1:17
  Yeah, you kidnapped us counted by about 12 seconds.
• 1:23
  Oh, I was early?
• 1:24
  Yeah, you know all those really crazy good ideas you just had.
• 1:31
  Yeah.
• 1:31
  Completely lost to the world.
• 1:32
  Lost to the ether and I'll never remember them again either.
• 1:38
  Yeah, so that one like grandiose point that would save turkeys completely that you just made,
• 1:43
  can you repeat that?
• 1:44
  You know that didn't come from my head.
• 1:46
  You know, I did have a listener tell me recently that we talk too much at the start of these
• 1:54
  episodes.
• 1:55
  Well, I've had two listeners that told me that we didn't talk enough.
• 2:01
  Well, that's what I told him too. I have heard people say that they enjoy the back and forth,
• 2:06
  but he definitely did not.
• 2:09
  He wants us to jump right in with both feet.
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  So, he wants us to not be listenable.
• 2:14
  We already aren't for a lot of people.
• 2:20
  He's just coming on and he wants to get his advice and he's eager to get back out there
• 2:24
  and put it on the ground, I guess.
• 2:25
  Yeah, well maybe we could get Charlotte to start putting a stopper in there.
• 2:30
  Yeah.
• 2:31
  When does the good stuff start?
• 2:33
  Charlotte, if you could mark that in the YouTube episode so that folks can just skip ahead to that
• 2:38
  point.
• 2:39
  My only concern is that on some episodes, they may never get to that point.
• 2:43
  Yeah, it'd be funny if she had a couple of, like in an episode, she puts the point way
• 2:50
  out at the end.
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  She's like, hey guys, where did you get on topic?
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  Yeah, did you guys ever say anything worth listening to?
• 2:59
  So, this is going to be a good one and another really management relevant one that was driven
• 3:08
  by a listener request.
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  Yeah, and we get a lot of questions about it and talk about it and it's super relevant
• 3:14
  to everything we talk about from a habitat management standpoint, for sure.
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  And we've never really put a lot of focus on it.
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  It's just one of those logistical things that you don't think about talking about unless
• 3:25
  somebody asks you to.
• 3:26
  Yeah, exactly.
• 3:28
  So, do you want to break the ice or do you want me to?
• 3:31
  Well, I was going back to the emails to see if I could find the listener so that I could
• 3:36
  give him credit for that.
• 3:38
  It was from a listener, Ben Allgood, and he said, I'm trying to condense it down.
• 3:47
  He wrote a good bit.
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  Basically, he asked for input on when to use green firebreaks, disc firebreaks, blown in,
• 3:56
  and so forth, so that would be helpful.
• 4:02
  Nice.
• 4:04
  So, when do you use different firebreaks and why?
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  I think that's a great, great question to dive in on.
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  Do you want me to start?
• 4:14
  Yeah.
• 4:14
  Okay, looks like you're still checking email or something.
• 4:18
  Well, I'm making sure I turn it off so it doesn't ding the whole time like it just did.
• 4:23
  Yeah.
• 4:23
  Well, I think this is a great question.
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  It's one of those times that a lot of creativity, there's a lot of slack, I think, as Craig
• 4:32
  said, in this and what you're using and why and where.
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  So, what I normally think, I mean, principally, the firebreak has to be good at what it's
• 4:44
  supposed to do, which is make it, you know, make fire stay where it's supposed to be so
• 4:49
  that you can burn safely.
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  So, that is the key consideration first, but the type of firebreak that you use can
• 4:58
  vary quite substantially.
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  Sometimes, on a side, you may not need one.
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  Maybe you already have a firebreak because there's a big lake there or something, right?
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  Like, or, you know, utilize features that are already inherent to the property.
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  Maybe it's a road or a ditch or whatever.
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  Maybe it's just a hardwood forest and you don't have conditions where that'll even burn.
• 5:21
  Yeah, exactly.
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  Like, you've got lots of ways that can be, but when you're deliberate with them, I like
• 5:32
  to consider, I think one thing that's not considered enough, I would say, I guess, that
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  comes to mind to me immediately is those firebreaks can provide some really great opportunity
• 5:45
  for hunting and also for productivity.
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  And I think, you know, trying to integrate them into the landscape so that they make
• 5:54
  the property more huntable and they potentially add to productivity of your turkey population
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  are key considerations that you should think about.
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  Some ways that you can do that, you know, he mentioned in that message a green firebreak.
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  Well, what does that mean?
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  Well, usually what we're talking about is you might disc a fire line.
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  Maybe that's in a, you know, down along a roadside or daylighted road.
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  Ideally, we're getting full sun and part of it.
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  It could be a woods road or, you know, a fifth row and thin or, you know, something like
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  that where you're disking an area and then you're going to sow it to something that's
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  attractive.
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  I really love, you know, like a firebreak down the edge of a woodlot where you're going
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  to get high turkey use to top sow that with crimson clover or something like that.
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  And it can be, it can serve multiple purposes, right?
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  So in that case, that green firebreak, the plants when they're green and growing are
• 7:09
  not flammable.
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  So you can burn right off of it or stop fire when it hits it.
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  So it's serving that role as a firebreak really well, but it's also a plant that's
• 7:21
  super attractive and nutritious for deer and turkeys, you know, and it can serve that
• 7:27
  attraction purpose and, you know, can be an excellent deer stand on it, you know, that
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  kind of thing and sneak around and find, you know, a gobbler coming to it to strut in or
• 7:39
  something like that.
• 7:40
  Yeah.
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  You know, that's really what I think about when I'm thinking about a green firebreak.
• 7:45
  Yes.
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  We're deliberately placing those in a place that's key for hunting purposes or maybe
• 7:52
  productivity depending on what you're doing.
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  And you're deliberately using it as a firebreak when the vegetation's too green to burn.
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  Yeah.
• 8:03
  I like that.
• 8:04
  I really like what you said too about how it, how firebreaks can facilitate hunting.
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  Because I sit, I'm here sitting here thinking about it and it's like, I would guess that
• 8:14
  the majority of the turkeys that I've killed, I have used a firebreak at some point in that
• 8:20
  hunt.
• 8:21
  Yeah, even if it's just for sneaking around in the woods to get in position, but, you
• 8:28
  know, setting up on them, especially if you've got something in there that's good, you know,
• 8:33
  good eating and has good structure for strutting in, like that can be a really effective way.
• 8:39
  Yeah.
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  One of my favorite food plots, if you will, that I have ever hunted during the deer season
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  anywhere, it was a really creative idea.
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  And I'm sure we'll get into more of these as we kind of walk through this and think
• 8:54
  about it more.
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  But there's an upland pine stand, you know, kind of starts coming down the hill, transitions
• 9:01
  into hardwoods.
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  And then you've kind of got a hardwood, like a hardwood slope.
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  And then it went into like a hardwood flat.
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  And then right there at the bottom of the slope where it transitions into the flat,
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  there was a firebreak there.
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  The landowner opened up the firebreak.
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  So it was still just a lane that was separating the upland area that he burned from the bottom
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  one hardwood forest, but he made it like three or four times wider than he needed to with
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  a dozer.
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  And then that ended up being a clover like strip food plot and it was 300 yards long
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  and it joined the uplands to the bottomland area.
• 9:41
  Right.
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  So you already see where this is going and you could imagine how much of a stopover point
• 9:46
  it was.
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  But I remember like several afternoons and mornings sitting on that strip food plot and
• 9:53
  having like multiple deer and turkeys all in view, just lined up down the food plot
• 9:58
  at once.
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  I mean, at one point, I remember I was hunting out there and there was like a nice 110 inch
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  ish, like three and a half year old eight point out there and a couple of turkeys, a
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  doe group with a couple of fawns in it.
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  And it was just like, it was like Noah's Ark, you know, down through there.
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  And so that lane was not only helping them burn, but it was also serving that purpose
• 10:24
  as well.
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  Well, and that's also, it's often conducive to, I was saying sneaking around, but you're
• 10:30
  kind of alluding to the same thing, like you can get up and down out of the stand with
• 10:35
  deer in the plot or, you know, get set up on it a little down the way from a turkey
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  that's already in it.
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  Like you're, you know, it's giving you a nice vantage point to kind of sneak up on
• 10:48
  them and get in position when you already know they're present.
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  Right.
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  So I definitely think that can be really effective.
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  And, you know, a lot of people were doing that.
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  I see that kind of stuff done, you know, uh, really commonly on the landscape.
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  But I think the thing I'm trying to impress upon you is not just taking advantage of it
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  somewhere and making a food plot, but be strategic about it and try to set that up so
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  that it's maximizing the huntability of it.
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  Yeah.
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  So, you know, just be aware that that can be an effective food plot.
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  And even in the case, you know, let's say you're going to burn at a time when the stuff
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  that you had planted is fallow and it's still flammable, what's still setting you up to
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  go in and disc, you know, a line really easily, right.
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  It's making it logistically easier for you.
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  And I've seen people do that too, where they're just coming along the edge of a food plot
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  and putting in a disc line or, uh, you know, something along those lines to make sure that
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  it's going to hold the fire and it's just setting it up for you to do that easily.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  So one of the ones that I saw that I've seen that was so effective, uh, there there's a,
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  in this particular location, there's a, a CRP field that was originally what it got
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  planted as, and now it's just managed as early succession and perpetuity.
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  And there's a couple of hundred yard long strip that's probably 15 yards wide, 20 yards
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  wide, that's planted in a cereal grain and, and a clover mix.
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  And the others, the others, well, I guess right along is a, a road where, you know,
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  where they drive in and out and then it goes transitions into this upwind hardwood forest.
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  And it's just been such an effective setup because, you know, of the way that it's positioned
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  on the landscape, there's excellent, uh, roosting right next to it.
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  There's excellent nesting and brooding cover directly adjacent and bedding for deer during
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  the deer season.
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  And it's just set up so nice.
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  Right.
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  And it's playing such an important role because they're burning really frequently in that
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  field and it's allowing them to do that easily.
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  But, uh, you know, it's set up such that it's really effective for hunting.
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  Sounds like a cool setup.
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  Yeah.
• 13:32
  So the gold standard of firebreaks, I guess we could go to next, a bladed line.
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  What, yeah.
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  Well, I mean, I guess, I guess short of, like you said, uh, a natural, you know, geological
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  feature or something like that.
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  Like if you've got a lake or a big river or something, of course, that's going to be a
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  nice natural firebreak to have, but, uh, a bladed line is really kind of the gold standard
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  put in with a dozer.
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  And a lot of folks, um, can get help with doing that, you know, free or at least relatively
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  low cost sometimes from the state forestry commission.
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  Um, NRCS has programs that reimburse landowners for putting in those types of firebreaks as
• 14:15
  well.
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  So there are some options to, to get some help with that.
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  Yeah, for sure.
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  Uh, one thing, you know, like with a fire plow, that's really, it's a really aggressive
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  thing.
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  So it's, you know, it's establishing mineral soil, which is that gold standard, you know,
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  being breaking fuel.
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  Yeah.
• 14:38
  Um, but that can be really aggressive and that I kind of think about it, I'm trying
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  to reduce the soil disturbance and disruption as much as possible, because sometimes I can
• 14:52
  invite an invasive species and, you know, just erosion issues, that kind of stuff.
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  And, uh, I would encourage people to think about that when you're putting these in, you
• 15:06
  know, you want it to be an established fire break that you can maintain over the long
• 15:12
  term, but you want to try to do that with the least aggressive practice you can do it
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  effectively with.
• 15:19
  Yeah.
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  So sometimes those fire plows that, you know, they're really digging a furrow in there,
• 15:26
  you know, in the ground and it, it's changing things for a long time.
• 15:29
  Yeah.
• 15:30
  I've never really burned off one of those plowed with a fire plow.
• 15:33
  Um, mostly what I'm talking about is when people just come in and blade, you know, with
• 15:37
  the dozer and just take off the top surface, but that's still, it's still a high level
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  of disturbance.
• 15:43
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  But not, not like the fire plow where you really, you know, that's a really aggressive
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  approach.
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  And I have burned in that context because some agencies use that as their go-to tool.
• 15:56
  Yeah.
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  And, uh, you know, I think the bladed line or, you know, a dist line, if it's mineral
• 16:02
  soil and be just as effective and it's less aggressive.
• 16:07
  Yeah.
• 16:07
  And that's kind of, you, you saying that made me think through that.
• 16:10
  Right.
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  I'm, I'm trying to rank them.
• 16:14
  Right.
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  Based on several criteria.
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  And one of them is how aggressive is the practice in terms of what, you know, how it's
• 16:24
  altering things.
• 16:25
  Yeah.
• 16:26
  And I guess one thing that the listener kind of implied that he wanted to know about that
• 16:30
  we maybe haven't been answering is, is what scenarios each would be most effective in,
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  or like, what are the pros and cons of it?
• 16:39
  And, um, I mean.
• 16:41
  What are the, one of the least aggressive, other than just taking advantage of a natural
• 16:45
  feature that we haven't talked about at all is blowing a line out.
• 16:49
  Yeah.
• 16:49
  And that was, I was going to go directly to what context does that really effective in?
• 16:56
  Yeah.
• 16:56
  So I don't know if that's where you were going.
• 16:58
  Well, we could go there.
• 16:59
  I mean, well, let's just lay them all out.
• 17:00
  I mean, we talked about green fire breaks, which often are naturally vegetated or planted.
• 17:06
  And obviously you burn when the vegetation is living, because that's ideally when it's
• 17:12
  not going to be, well, it's not going to carry fire.
• 17:15
  Not break, because you smoke planted it.
• 17:16
  Yeah.
• 17:17
  Just to be clear, you know, sometimes we get weird questions.
• 17:21
  So we've got that.
• 17:22
  We've got natural features, roads, of course, are going to, we're going to take advantage
• 17:27
  of those, uh, creeks we're going to take advantage of.
• 17:30
  Um, and then, you know, you've got like a, one that's created with a fire plow or a dozer
• 17:38
  blade.
• 17:38
  Um, you've got a blown in line with like a backpack leaf blower that you just brought
• 17:46
  up.
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  And then, um, you've got a disc line.
• 17:49
  I've probably burned more off of disc lines than anything else that I've ever burned off
• 17:54
  of.
• 17:54
  That's really common.
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:56
  And cause most landowners have that tool at their disposal.
• 18:00
  And then, uh, a wet line, a wet line is the last one I thought about.
• 18:06
  Yeah.
• 18:08
  And that one's a little more, uh, a little trickier.
• 18:12
  Yeah, it can be really effective and especially in places that you can't get equipment.
• 18:17
  Yeah.
• 18:17
  And most of the time when I burn off a wet line and just to be clear, what we're talking
• 18:20
  about with that is, you know, you've got some kind of water source, whether that it could
• 18:24
  be as simple as something like a backpack sprayer all the way up to a big tractor mounted
• 18:29
  sprayer.
• 18:30
  Um, but you know, you're essentially lighting the fire and putting it out so that it can
• 18:35
  only burn in the direction that you want it to.
• 18:37
  Yeah.
• 18:38
  Right.
• 18:39
  So yeah, if you light a fire, it burns and it burns outward from that spot and you're
• 18:45
  putting out the fire that's going the wrong way.
• 18:47
  Right.
• 18:48
  And so for the most part, when I burn off a wet line, it's when I'm burning around a
• 18:52
  shooting house or a utility box on the side of the road or something like that, just to
• 18:58
  try to consume that fuel.
• 18:59
  So I don't accidentally burn up that feature.
• 19:01
  Yeah.
• 19:02
  Or maybe it's a big white Oak.
• 19:04
  You want to just be real cautious around or something.
• 19:07
  But another, it's sort of a variation of that.
• 19:10
  There are some products.
• 19:11
  It's not usually used by a landowner necessarily, but like a fire retardant, uh, that people
• 19:18
  will basically establish a line of, of that whatever product that, that they have and
• 19:25
  burn off of it.
• 19:25
  And the idea is it's wet and not flammable.
• 19:28
  Right.
• 19:28
  So it's not allowing the fire to progress in one direction.
• 19:33
  The other thing that I have seen and grown more, grown more appreciation for, especially
• 19:39
  working with some of these landowners and, and, uh, the Red Hills Quail Country is using
• 19:44
  a rake.
• 19:44
  And, uh, a lot of the time they will have like a Bahia grass road.
• 19:50
  It's just like a little path through the woods, you know, that they're using to get around
• 19:55
  the landscape.
• 19:56
  Yeah.
• 19:57
  And, uh, they, it's a really effective way to manage those.
• 20:02
  So you're not tearing up your road.
• 20:03
  Uh, they basically just run a hay rake down the road and remove all that thatch.
• 20:10
  And then it essentially takes all the dead thatch that would be flammable away.
• 20:15
  And, uh, now everything that's left is still green and it's concerning that green fire
• 20:21
  break purpose, but really effective way to, to decrease.
• 20:26
  You know, the, the, uh, probability of a fire creeping across it, if it's Bahia, it's already
• 20:32
  not very flammable, but that just kind of sows it up.
• 20:35
  Yeah.
• 20:35
  And that I've done that quite a few times now.
• 20:38
  And that's a really effective way that's, that's not causing a bunch of soil disturbance.
• 20:44
  Yeah.
• 20:44
  That makes sense.
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 20:48
  Going back to the bladed line, um, I mean, by far my favorite thing about burning off
• 20:54
  of a bladed line is that it's safe, you know, like as safe as you can be from getting spot,
• 21:01
  you know, having spotting.
• 21:02
  Um, so that's something that I really want to employ in an area that I know that I'm
• 21:09
  going to burn fairly aggressively.
• 21:11
  Like if for some reason, I know that's part of my objectives for burning that unit that
• 21:14
  I'm going to burn it when conditions are volatile, um, or there's something really
• 21:23
  sensitive on the other side of it.
• 21:25
  You're right.
• 21:25
  Yeah.
• 21:26
  A place that we really don't need to get into.
• 21:29
  Um, like a perfect example comes to mind for me for a couple of years ago where I wish
• 21:35
  I'd had a bladed line to burn off of.
• 21:37
  We were burning next to another landowner's, um, two-year-old loblolly pine plantation,
• 21:43
  and it was during winter time and that field was full of dead broom sedge, you know?
• 21:49
  So if it hopped that line, I mean, it was just going to rip across through those loblolly
• 21:53
  pines and kill every single one of them.
• 21:54
  And, uh, we were burning off a little squirrel trail of a fire break and it started getting
• 22:00
  over into them.
• 22:01
  And I had a moment of panic.
• 22:02
  We got it put out.
• 22:03
  We, we, we jumped on it really quick, but if we, uh, I mean, some of that was luck.
• 22:08
  And if we hadn't gotten there soon enough and it had gotten a little size to it, there's
• 22:11
  no way we were getting in front of it.
• 22:12
  So, um, those are all good situations to have a bladed line.
• 22:17
  The other thing that I like about a bladed line is that oftentimes, you know, you turn
• 22:21
  them into roads has basically become new roads and give you all the access that we just talked
• 22:27
  about, uh, from sneaking around and hunting to being able to get your tractor in places
• 22:32
  to do work and spray invasives or plant or whatever else you need to do.
• 22:36
  Yeah, that's a good point.
• 22:38
  What have we missed?
• 22:41
  Oh, the blowing, uh, blowing out lines.
• 22:44
  I like that a lot.
• 22:45
  Uh, it's particularly effective in upland hardwoods.
• 22:49
  Yeah.
• 22:50
  You'd be surprised how easy it is to just take that leaf blower and just get down to
• 22:54
  mineral soil.
• 22:54
  Man, you can knock it out fast too.
• 22:57
  Yeah.
• 22:58
  Pine straw is much harder to do.
• 23:01
  Yeah, and especially if you, if you have a developed understory, then it's more difficult
• 23:06
  to use that.
• 23:07
  Forget it.
• 23:08
  Yeah.
• 23:08
  Yeah.
• 23:09
  Uh, but usually in up, I shouldn't say usually, but a lot of times in upland hardwoods, you've
• 23:17
  got a relatively open understory and that leaf litter is easy to blow off.
• 23:22
  And, uh, you you're more likely to be able to use that effectively as a tool.
• 23:27
  And I have burned units just to be clear, where all of the lines were blown.
• 23:32
  Me too.
• 23:32
  Me too.
• 23:33
  Like we just had a couple of people with a back bite blower walking around blowing the
• 23:38
  lines in and then burn right off of them.
• 23:41
  And so, you know, it's getting down to mineral soil, super effective and quick.
• 23:46
  And it's low, uh, impact on the environment.
• 23:51
  You know, you're not inviting invasive problems or anything.
• 23:54
  Well, that's the other great thing that it works in hardwoods because usually hardwoods
• 23:57
  have a lot more, you know, topography to them.
• 23:59
  So you're not having to worry about going side hill with a, with a disc or a dozer.
• 24:04
  Yeah.
• 24:05
  And we can cut in some footage.
• 24:06
  I did this, uh, actually Zach that we had on recently, that was, may have been his first
• 24:12
  time burning in up on hardwoods and, uh, we were up with Craig recording for our habitat
• 24:18
  management module online.
• 24:20
  And, uh, of course, you know, true Craig fashion.
• 24:25
  He's like, well, while I got y'all here, can you help me burn these woods?
• 24:29
  So we went out there and, and, uh, burned some up on hardwood stands, but that's exactly
• 24:35
  what we did.
• 24:36
  We went in there and blew out the, the, the, uh, fire lines and then set it on fire and
• 24:41
  had a good time doing it.
• 24:42
  Yeah.
• 24:43
  But, uh, you know, it's such an effective way to establish a fire break in those kinds
• 24:51
  of systems where you have a lot of topography and you do, I mean, using equipment or heavy
• 24:57
  equipment, it's just not, it's not an option.
• 24:59
  Oh yeah.
• 25:00
  I mean, like some of those blown in lines that I've put in, you can barely walk between
• 25:04
  the trees and some of the places, you know, much less get it, get a vehicle in there.
• 25:09
  Yeah.
• 25:10
  Or, or you're, you know, in the mountains on the side of the mountain, right.
• 25:13
  You're not going to go up the hill with that tractor.
• 25:16
  Yeah.
• 25:17
  I've done, I've done a lot of burning off blown in lines too.
• 25:20
  You got to take your time.
• 25:21
  You got to take your time with it.
• 25:23
  You got to babysit them a little bit more.
• 25:25
  It's not as I like to refer to it as bomb proof.
• 25:28
  You know, it's not as bomb proof as a bladed line or a disc, a really good disc line, but,
• 25:34
  um, they can be darn effective for a lot of the reasons we just mentioned.
• 25:39
  And, uh, to add to that too, uh, all you guys out there that are burn practitioners, if,
• 25:46
  if you don't have like, uh, either a good battery powered or a handheld gas powered,
• 25:52
  I'm not, I mean, you, you can use a backpack bull or if you want to, it's just heavy and
• 25:55
  cumbersome, but I like the little handheld gas powers or the new electric ones they have.
• 26:00
  Those things will run pretty long.
• 26:02
  Um, or you can even carry a few spare batteries with you.
• 26:05
  Cause I think I've got three or four batteries for mine.
• 26:07
  They're great for fighting fire too.
• 26:09
  You know, if you get a little bit of a jump, there have been many occasions where I've
• 26:13
  gone around a little bit of a spot and just, you know, created my new little fire break
• 26:17
  and put it out that way.
• 26:19
  Yeah.
• 26:20
  Great tool to have on the fire line.
• 26:23
  Yep.
• 26:24
  I agree.
• 26:26
  Um, disc lines, we've talked about them several times already today.
• 26:32
  That's kind of like in my hierarchy going downhill from, you know, like if I can't burn
• 26:37
  on a big stream or I can't burn on a bladed line or something else that's really bomb
• 26:43
  proof like that.
• 26:44
  A disc line is probably, uh, where a lot of landowners find that they hit that kind of
• 26:50
  optimal point of effectiveness combined with cost effective.
• 26:56
  Right.
• 26:56
  Effective, effective burn off of, but also cost effective.
• 26:59
  Yeah.
• 27:00
  And also feasible in a lot of different contexts as well.
• 27:05
  And it's also logistically feasible because a lot of people already have that gear.
• 27:11
  Yeah.
• 27:11
  To make that happen.
• 27:13
  So this step, I would say aside from using natural features, you know, burning up against
• 27:21
  something that's not flammable that you already have in the landscape, that's probably the
• 27:25
  most common thing that I see and that I use even, uh, is a disc line.
• 27:33
  So it can be very effective.
• 27:34
  And, uh, you know, I'm, I would say that sort of moderate in terms of, you know, the, how
• 27:43
  aggressive it is.
• 27:44
  One thing I don't like about disking is some of the times of the year that you might be
• 27:52
  disking to, to burn, you're inviting some plants that are not desirable into those areas.
• 27:59
  And I have seen that multiple times where people have, which I see the same thing for
• 28:06
  roads, you know, where you've got a woods road or something, but it's just a, it's an
• 28:10
  invasion point.
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:12
  You know, where you, you end up with some weeds that you don't want to colonize.
• 28:16
  Right.
• 28:17
  And, uh, you know, that, that's kind of what I'm thinking about when I'm trying to go
• 28:21
  through that hierarchy, thinking about trying to be less aggressive because, you know, if
• 28:28
  you're going to disk in May, probably going to get some stuff you don't want colonizing
• 28:33
  that.
• 28:34
  Yeah.
• 28:34
  So, uh, you know, that might be a good time to think about something else is disturbing
• 28:41
  the soil list, you know, cause the timing is not really a good time for that.
• 28:45
  It's a really good point.
• 28:46
  Cause you know, I'm veering off topic a little bit, but I think it's valuable enough that
• 28:50
  our listeners will appreciate it.
• 28:51
  But something that I've been thinking about some lately is, uh, you and I have been talking
• 28:58
  and doing a lot of field management for turkeys recently, and coming up with questions that
• 29:04
  we didn't even know we needed answers to until we started doing a whole lot more of this.
• 29:09
  Um, it has given me a huge appreciation for trying to manage for native Forbes in areas
• 29:19
  that are either currently forested or that were just recently deforested to create a
• 29:24
  field because it's a blank slate.
• 29:26
  And that makes you realize like, y'all think about it.
• 29:29
  You go out in your field and you disk and you start trying to encourage all this native
• 29:34
  early succession that we talk about for your turkeys.
• 29:36
  And you have to peel back those layers of invasives.
• 29:38
  It's like, I killed this.
• 29:39
  Now I got that.
• 29:40
  I killed this.
• 29:41
  Now I got that.
• 29:42
  I mean, what gives, when is this going to end?
• 29:44
  It is because of what Marcus just described is that that field has has, well, some of it
• 29:50
  was probably introduced intentionally previously.
• 29:53
  Right.
• 29:54
  But then part of it too, is just because that being a field and getting disturbed many,
• 29:59
  many times over the years, depending on how old it is, has given the opportunity for those
• 30:03
  invasive species to take hold.
• 30:06
  Yeah.
• 30:06
  Well, you know, think about the land use history.
• 30:10
  People may not even realize a lot.
• 30:12
  A lot of our ground used to be a cotton field.
• 30:14
  Might have been 100 years ago.
• 30:15
  So that.
• 30:17
  Or an overgrazed pasture.
• 30:19
  Yeah.
• 30:20
  A lot of it has been that for a long time.
• 30:22
  You know, some of our areas, there's not even topsoil left because it eroded because of
• 30:29
  some of the land use practices.
• 30:31
  And there's not a lot of the south.
• 30:32
  Yeah.
• 30:33
  Yeah.
• 30:34
  You know, there's not a lot we can do about it in many of those cases.
• 30:38
  But it's definitely, you know, adding all these non-native species that have been introduced
• 30:45
  over the last several decades.
• 30:47
  You know, there's lots of issues and you've got to understand that issue and then try
• 30:55
  to figure out a plan.
• 30:57
  And some of that is trial and error because your context might be different than the,
• 31:03
  you know, the next hill over or the next landowner over.
• 31:06
  So it's a challenge.
• 31:10
  And, you know, you and I have lamented about this, the difficulties of trying to get these,
• 31:14
  the field management right across all the different contexts that we see all the time.
• 31:18
  It's just a real challenge.
• 31:22
  Yeah, the past use history, the soil quality, the moisture regime on the field, like what
• 31:29
  surrounds it, all those things.
• 31:31
  So, but yeah, the disc line, I mean, you know, it can be an effective fire containment tool.
• 31:40
  The one limitation that I will say that it has is if you're going through, you know,
• 31:46
  kind of like with the, we were talking about with the blower, there's an area that has
• 31:50
  a lot of undergrowth.
• 31:51
  It's going to be difficult, you know, especially like around fields that have a lot of grass
• 31:56
  that, you know, that thatch is very difficult to get rid of.
• 32:00
  You may have to disc it multiple times.
• 32:02
  And even then you still may not have a continuous layer of mineral soil.
• 32:06
  Yeah.
• 32:07
  But adequate for containment in a lot of cases.
• 32:12
  For sure.
• 32:14
  What are we missing?
• 32:18
  Well, I think, I don't know if we necessarily have addressed the questions as directly as
• 32:25
  may have been wanted, but, you know, I feel like we were just talking, we got into more
• 32:31
  of making sure you go through these P's and Q's about what the, how to make a firebreak
• 32:37
  effective.
• 32:38
  Yeah.
• 32:38
  So, and one thing I see it fairly commonly, and you kind of reminded me of it.
• 32:47
  When you're, when you're getting ready to burn, run around your firebreaks again, even
• 32:53
  if you put them in last week.
• 32:54
  Yeah.
• 32:56
  Like make sure that a tree didn't fall across it or didn't have, you know, a bunch of leaves
• 33:02
  fall on it or something.
• 33:03
  I've just, I've had that happen a few times or had people tell me about it where they
• 33:09
  had a jump because they didn't, you know, they put their firebreak in yesterday and
• 33:14
  they didn't go around it before they lit the day and something had happened that they
• 33:18
  didn't expect.
• 33:19
  You know, just make sure, make sure you go check it one last time.
• 33:26
  I'll give you my other words of wisdom related to that, that you jogged my memory on is go
• 33:33
  around the firebreak and look for dead trees too.
• 33:35
  You know, if you have a snag right on your firebreak and it catches on fire and falls
• 33:42
  outside of your firebreak, that's a bad day.
• 33:44
  So you don't necessarily have to fail those snags, but you might want to go around and
• 33:49
  use your blower to blow out around those snags before you light off so that you don't end
• 33:54
  up having to deal with that.
• 33:55
  Nothing else.
• 33:56
  There's nothing that'll ruin a good burn day, like catching a snag on fire.
• 34:00
  Well, and that's a, you know, some of these tools we've talked about raking around it
• 34:05
  or using your blower, blow out around it.
• 34:08
  Yeah.
• 34:08
  It'd be really effective.
• 34:10
  But even then, you know, I will say that there's been some times where I've caught snags on
• 34:15
  fire 20 feet off the ground.
• 34:17
  Like it's not coming in from the bottom.
• 34:19
  It's embers catching the higher branches on fire.
• 34:23
  So.
• 34:24
  Something good to make note of.
• 34:26
  Yeah.
• 34:26
  When you have a snag in a stand that has a sneaky way of causing trouble.
• 34:33
  Yeah.
• 34:33
  Well, that's good stuff.
• 34:35
  I mean, it's probably rudimentary for some of y'all, but I know there's a lot of folks
• 34:40
  just now starting to get into fire and thinking through these questions.
• 34:43
  And I think that'll be really helpful to you as you go forward.
• 34:47
  And if y'all have any follow-up questions to that, obviously feel free to reach out
• 34:51
  and let us know.
• 34:51
  Yeah.
• 34:53
  Well, you know, like you said, people are coming.
• 34:56
  We've got an audience across the whole spectrum of experience and knowledge and land
• 35:01
  management.
• 35:02
  And I'm glad that we do.
• 35:04
  I'm glad that we've got people out there interested in trying to manage and, you know,
• 35:08
  trying to get into some of this nitty gritty like this.
• 35:11
  I'm sure that we could have covered it more thoroughly.
• 35:14
  But, you know, with that being said, we have a lot of knowledgeable people in our audience.
• 35:21
  And, you know, take a moment to drop us a comment if we missed something or you've got
• 35:27
  an experience that's relevant or a different practice that might be widely usable or effective
• 35:33
  for people, you know, something that we missed.
• 35:36
  We have people commonly do that in the comment section anyway.
• 35:41
  But just kind of think of it from that perspective.
• 35:44
  We're not perfect.
• 35:45
  We can't squeeze everything into, you know, an episode either.
• 35:50
  And also, we haven't seen every context or every technique.
• 35:54
  So think about that as an opportunity for you to share your experience and teach people
• 36:02
  so that we can get more fire on the ground.
• 36:04
  So I think ultimately, I hope everybody listening to this realizes that fire is a tool that
• 36:12
  can be really effective to improve things for turkeys.
• 36:16
  And generally speaking, we'd like a lot more people to get engaged and start using it to
• 36:22
  make turkey habitat.
• 36:23
  Yep.
• 36:24
  And we're paying attention to y'all's questions too.
• 36:27
  That was one of the ones listeners submitted to wildturkeyscience at gmail.com.
• 36:31
  So if y'all have other ones, feel free to hit that up.
• 36:35
  And Charlotte, our producer, keeps a good eye on that.
• 36:38
  And then she'll send them over to us periodically.
• 36:40
  Yeah, she sends them all the time.
• 36:44
  I get back to as many of them as I can, but not all that I would like.
• 36:48
  So we're doing our best, but we are paying attention.
• 36:51
  We are reading it.
• 36:52
  Yeah, it's definitely not all of them.
• 36:54
  But a lot of times what we do is what we did here, where we kind of we see questions and
• 37:00
  we don't necessarily respond to everyone, but we're kind of keeping a tally.
• 37:04
  And we'll get to a level like this, like, man, we really got to do one on firebreaks.
• 37:09
  Yeah.
• 37:10
  That's because we've gotten a bunch of questions about this.
• 37:13
  Yeah.
• 37:14
  And I will say too, though, that there are some of those that we never respond to or
• 37:19
  because we've covered them in previous episodes, if not multiple times.
• 37:22
  We try to direct people to those, or we hold them and try to address them online when there's
• 37:29
  a lot of people that want to know about it.
• 37:30
  Yeah.
• 37:31
  Like I saw a question from a few days ago that a listener submitted about, you know,
• 37:37
  what does the hen do, like go into detail about the laying process and the nesting process?
• 37:43
  Well, we did all that in that relatively recent episode where you were reading
• 37:48
  through some of Lovett's observations.
• 37:50
  Yeah.
• 37:51
  Yeah.
• 37:52
  So we can link that episode for that listener.
• 37:54
  Yeah.
• 37:55
  So we're not ignoring you, but we're also trying to be efficient with our time.
• 38:00
  Absolutely.
• 38:00
  You know, yeah, that's a good point.
• 38:03
  But I know one thing, we're really glad to have the listeners and so much activity and
• 38:12
  so many things coming in because it really helps us stay motivated and on track to
• 38:18
  deliver things that people want to hear about.
• 38:20
  Yep.
• 38:22
  100%.
• 38:24
  All right.
• 38:25
  Well, I hope you can stay cool because it's hot outside here.
• 38:31
  I'm trying.
• 38:32
  I'm trying.
• 38:33
  Our turkeys in the facility, man, they're, you know, we've got plenty of shade and water
• 38:40
  and everything for them.
• 38:41
  Yeah.
• 38:42
  They're in a good situation, but it's just so hot.
• 38:45
  Yeah.
• 38:46
  Like they're just, you know, you can see that effect on their face.
• 38:50
  And I'll tell you what's been frustrating me lately is, you know, I have that lab puppy.
• 38:54
  I mean, she's 16 months old.
• 38:57
  So basically still a puppy, you know, and, uh, it's so hot right now.
• 39:01
  I can't take her out and play with her for more than five minutes before she's just
• 39:04
  completely blown out, you know, but, but that's not enough.
• 39:08
  It's just enough to get her hot, but it's not enough to get all our energy out.
• 39:12
  You know?
• 39:12
  So once she recovers 10 minutes later inside the house, she's bouncing off the walls again.
• 39:17
  And that's been driving me crazy.
• 39:19
  And, you know, we, we take her down to the lake and stuff, but I'll tell you what, man,
• 39:24
  the first few feet of the lake right now aren't much better.
• 39:26
  They're like about 90 degrees until you get down to five or six feet right now.
• 39:31
  So it's not very helpful either.
• 39:33
  Yeah.
• 39:34
  Our pool's over 90 degrees.
• 39:35
  I looked at it yesterday.
• 39:36
  Insane.
• 39:39
  It's like taking a bath.
• 39:41
  It's gross.
• 39:42
  All right, let's get out of here.
• 39:44
  We veered way too far off.
• 39:46
  Thanks everybody.
• 39:48
  Thanks for all the support.
• 39:49
  Wild Turkey Science is part of the Natural Resources University Podcast Network and is
• 39:58
  made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow, a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey.
• 40:03
  To learn more about TFT, check out turkeysfortomorrow.org.
• 40:07
  Turkeys for Tomorrow.
• 40:09
  Turkeys for Tomorrow.