Moist Soil?

[missed mallards]

We had, repeat, HAD a great stand of grasses. The slow summer draw down seemed to ignite the grass and it seemed to do well.

Being we have cotton in close proximity, I wasn't about to spray anything when the broadleaf's began their intrusion.

Question:
1) Is it legal to roll a moist soil impoundment? Never have tried it, most of the time they don't need it, but am thinking on it.
2) Water? When do u like to put it on it? Seriously thinking of stopping rain water beginning first of October this year. I figure it would promote invertebrates?

[novacaine]

Your moist soil gurus are:
Swag
Wingman
DanP
Pondman
and on rare occasions JMac

[JaMak84]

If you didn't plant it, you're free to manipulate it. My advice. If you're thinking about rolling it to knock down what I'm assuming is a coffee weed infestation, might as well do something that is going to create a little bit of soil disturbance as well. I'd suggest using a disk to knock down the vegetation and set it to just scratch the top 1/4-1/2" of soil.

As far as when to put in boards and hold water, every place is different. If you get a good number of birds early in the year, you may want to consider putting in your boards now and catching water for early season. If you get birds later in the year, you may want to wait till the first of the season and sacrifice a couple weeks at the beginning of the season to ensure you have some viable food left late in the season. Just remember you're going to be putting a lot of food on the ground when you do a manipulation and the sooner you put water on it the sooner the food source is going to start decomposing. I rarely recommend installing boards prior to Nov. 15th unless it's for early season teal. Disclaimer: all of the aforementioned is moot if you don't have a pump and ma nature decides not to cooperate. In which case you're sitting in a mud flat in December saying, "wish I'd put my boards in a couple weeks earlier and caught those rains I missed." Been there. Done that. Best you can do is plan for the best situation for your place and do a rain dance. Hope this helps. Good luck!

[missed mallards]

If you didn't plant it, you're free to manipulate it. My advice. If you're thinking about rolling it to knock down what I'm assuming is a coffee weed infestation, might as well do something that is going to create a little bit of soil disturbance as well. I'd suggest using a disk to knock down the vegetation and set it to just scratch the top 1/4-1/2" of soil.

With this practice. I suppose I should days or right before flooding? I suppose if I did it now the soil/seed contact would germinate the seed? Dumb question. Just wondering if there would be a reason to do it say tomorrow?

Thanks

Tom

[JaMak84]

Most moist soil grasses have a seed dormancy from 0-48 months and need to undergo stratification prior to germination. Which means, the seed needs to go through a winter-like environment to break that dormancy. If time frame isn't an issue and you can do it whenever you want, I'd wait till a couple weeks prior to our average first frost. Which is usually around the first of Nov. If you can't wait that long, I'd suggest just disking strips or a section that's about a third of the total area. I am by no means a moist soil management expert, but I've got 15 years of experience working with some the most knowledgeable guys on the subject. If they see this thread, I'm sure a couple of the other guys novacaine mentioned will correct me if I've wondered too far off the reservation.