Root rots and food plots

[GATreeGrower]

Doing food plots for a landowner today.  He wanted me to disk where it had been fifth-middled to bring up wild clover.  Lot of clover in there already but my question is does this cause root rot or weakens the roots?  He had a good number of downed pines.

No, tractor is not running

  

 

[mesquite buckeye]

Is there a distinct pattern of down trees immediately next to the food plots?

[GATreeGrower]

Not really a pattern...nothing seems to be dead in the top of the newly downed trees so I was wondering if maybe it was root damage.  Most of the land is Tifton soil which I thought held roots pretty well.

[WDH]

Tifton is a very high risk soil because of the thick sandy loam topsoil layer.  Check out the "Prevention Strategies" in this link.   http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr331

In general, if you disc between the pine rows, do it after it gets hotter as the heat impedes the spread of the fungus on the newly exposed, cut roots.  However, there are many fine feeder roots in the layer of soil that your are discing, and severing them is not good for the trees.  It will reduce their growth.  Probably not enough to cause decline and stress that would lead to pine beetle attack, but it does negatively affect the trees.   I would minimize between row discing to a few rows, and not do it broad-scale.

[mesquite buckeye]

Unless the loss of trees is clearly associated with the food rows, I don't think that is the problem with throw. Did you have a big storm that could have thinned them out?

[WDH]

The "throw" is coming from annosum root rot, and probably has nothing to do with the discing.

Is that a JD 2155?

[mesquite buckeye]

The "throw" is coming from annosum root rot, and probably has nothing to do with the discing.

Is that a JD 2155?

So, how big a deal is this rot in a pure stand?

[GATreeGrower]

Mr. Danny, this is one of the things I gotta get you to look at sometime   We do some of this on our own land to keep the hunters happy.  It's a 2755...  Good dang tractor

[WDH]

Mesquite,

Annosum root rot is a big problem once the pines reach the age of 20 and you do a subsequent thinning on soils that have a thick sandy or sandy loam topsoil.  We used to think that the loss of trees was due to bark beetles like Ips, but it was found that the Ips attacks were on trees already weakened and declining from the root rot.  The Ips were just being opportunists.  No practical way to control it on a stand level scale.  Timing of thinning is about the only way to minimize it.   

I have a smaller JD 2155.  It is a fine tractor.

[gspren]

  That hood looks familiar, I have a 2355 and like it a lot.