productive forage plot on very dry ridge site

The game lands that we manage tend to have very little potential for "normal" agricultural management. Lets face it, if the land was suitable for farming or development, it would not be game lands. As a result, we are left to do what little agriculture we can on marginal sites that are scattered across the landscape. Here in D-7, almost all of our state-owned game lands are in mountainous and steep terrain, and as a result, some of the only opportunities we have for creating an opening are on ridgetops which are most often very rocky and dry with poor soils.

Here is an opening that we created a couple years ago on dry rocky ridge. Our first planting on this site was a fall planting of wheat and ladino clover which did OK through the fall, but mostly died out through the winter and never recovered as the site dried out the following spring. So we opted to replant to a mixture of sweetclover, timothy, and chickory on this site because these plants were the most likely to survive and produce forage for wildlife. This planting grew and established a fair stand despite extreme drought conditions during the 2008 growing season. Now in it's second season, this planting has received some good rains and is producing well.


The sweetclover is the taller plant with yellow flowers, chickory is the lower growing forb that looks kind of like a dandelion, and timothy is the grass with a compact, fine seedhead. All three can be seen in the photo above.

Look closely at the photo above and you can see that this sweetclover plant has been heavily browsed by deer, and judging from the trails and tracks, this plot has become a favored feeding area for many deer. I munched on a bit of the sweetclover myself and found it to be more palatable than most field forage crops, a bit of leaves in your salad would probably give it a slightly bitter, lemon-peppery taste. The field is also abuzz with thousands of bees and other insects attracted to the blossoms of the sweetclover, which in turn brings turkeys and grouse whose young depend on insects for a large part of their diet. Here is another view of this opening with plenty of blueberries and chinkapins in the foreground, the presence of these valuable mast producing shrubs is a direct result of our very effective prescribed burning program. You can also see some dead trees in the background resulting from a burn we conducted here two years ago.

Check out the bumper crop of blueberries (or huckleberries? can anybody tell me the difference?) we have on this site.

The soil on this site is quite acidic, as they are in almost all of our work area, blueberries love it, but sweetclover does not do well in acidic soils. We applied a good dose of pulverized limestone when we planted and after testing the soil, decided to apply another dose of lime recently(see below.)

THE D-7 crew wins MAJOR award!

THE D-7 Crew was recently presented the highly coveted first annual "GOLDEN ROCKET AWARD." This award was created by the waterfowl research folks to recognize the Wildlife Management Crew that captured and banded the most number of wood ducks during preseason banding efforts. Seventeen Wildlife Management Crews across the State competed hotly for this prestigious award. Through hard work, innovative techniques, superior "woodsmanship", and dedication to a military campaign style of operation, THE D-7 crew managed to emerge champions despite not being located in North Carolina's best wood duck habitat. Along with the trophy, THE Wilkes crew also received a .5% pay cut, higher insurance premiums, and loss of use of Work vehicles to travel from home office to depot to reward them for their initiative and inflexible fidelity to the Wildlife Commission.

Wes, Jim, Doug Howell (waterfowl biologist), and Mike.

The Wilkes County based crew captured and banded 226 ducks and 28 recaptures in July and August of 2008. On 21 summer mornings, crew members were up hours before dawn traveling to one or more of 22 remote sites located in six different counties in Northwest NC in order to band wood ducks. The crew employed a variety of electrically initiated rocket deployed and mechanically initiated entanglement and containment devices, and other traps in order to accomplish this important mission. Crew leader Jim Keepfer was quick to give credit to Mike Greene and Wes Duncan for their outstanding work, and to former temporary employee Tim Nixon, D-7 biologist Chris Kreh and CURE guru Johnny Riley for their help. Recognition is also extended to the many cooperating landowners who allowed the crew to hang out in their riparian areas.

The Wildlife Management Division presents other prestigious awards such as the Golden Dove, the Disdainful Turkeyfoot, the dumberer award, The bloody arm award, and others, but, among these, only the GOLDEN ROCKET has been officially declared a MAJOR award. Pictured below, among some of our trapping hardware and accouterments, is The GOLDEN ROCKET which, beside being the first MAJOR award is also the heaviest award ever presented in the history of the Wildlife Management Division. The award will reside in the well-stocked trophy display area in THE D-7 Wildlife Management Crew Depot until some other Wildlife Management crew manages to demonstrate the dedication, skill, fortitude, and luck needed to out-compete the incredibly talented Wilkes Crew (or until some major road construction, new gamelands boundary, or other project keeps them away from the creeks and rivers all summer.)