5 Benefits of Herbicide Treatment to Your Property
The use of herbicides in a forest management plan, wildlife management plan, or timber management plan has many benefits. In addition, herbicide application helps control invasive species and is a useful alternative to prescribed burning.
Despite the term “herbicide” being occasionally controversial, the use of herbicides is highly monitored, studied, and regulated to ensure the long-term benefits balance any short-term negative impacts. The use of herbicides has been studied by the university and state forestry departments, as well as institutions such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Unfortunately, too often, people take the use of herbicides into their own hands without proper experience and a background in forestry. It’s important that herbicide application is applied by a professional and licensed forester.
Acorn Outdoors, a professional forestry service in Texas, knows herbicide treatments can have a range of benefits when properly applied for both the landowner and the environment.
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Herbicide or Controlled Burn for Pest Control?
When it comes to getting rid of pests or invasive species damaging your land, the application of herbicides can be more effective in the long term for managing the pests than a controlled burn. While prescribed burns as a land management tool can be very effective in certain circumstances, herbicides disturb considerably less land. They can be used on a variety of terrains, including steep and rocky.
When determining the use of herbicide over a prescribed burn, your professional forester will weigh and balance the risks and benefits for a variety of factors, including the land itself, the local wildlife, and the safety of the professionals carrying out the forestry management operation. The use of herbicides is beneficial in providing a safe, helpful alternative in instances where controlled burning isn’t an option.
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Herbicides are Biodegradable
The herbicides used today are made to break down quickly. Most herbicides used in forestry management are designed to break down after a certain length of time, spanning from only a few days to around three months.
Herbicides used in forest management won’t stick around in the soil. Everything in the forest eventually helps break them down—from sunlight to water to natural chemical decomposition, herbicides are designed to break down and not remain to negatively impact the water or soil.
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Herbicides to Help Plant Trees
If you’re preparing a site for planting tree seedlings, you may be confronted by thick vegetation, invasive plant species, and grasses that create a difficult environment for the seedlings to grow. If a bulldozer or other heavy equipment is used to clear the land, there will be damage to the topsoil and aesthetic look of the land. Bulldozers have an important role, but it’s tough to be easy-going with such a large machine.
Herbicide, however, won’t harm the topsoil, and the land will maintain its visual integrity. In addition, if the ground is too steep, heavy equipment won’t be safe to traverse. The application of herbicide allows foresters to reach land a bulldozer wouldn’t safely be able to.
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Herbicides Keep Trees Healthy
When you’re managing your land for forestry purposes, it’s important to find ways to encourage the standing growth of timber. Unfortunately, rapid vegetation growth in the understory often slows tree growth by restricting nutrients, sun, and space. Professional application of an herbicide will reduce understory growth, allowing for a healthier environment for trees to grow.
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Herbicides Help Wildlife and Wildfire Prevention
Wildfire reduction is a crucial component of forestry management. Wildfires flaring up across the nation are an all-too-regular occurrence. Such fires create a range of destruction and will quickly reduce valuable forested land in minutes.
The careful, professional use of herbicide can reduce growth that creates excellent tinder for a forest fire to ignite. By taking away the fire’s main source of fuel, you greatly decrease the risk of a fire igniting and rapidly spreading.
Less understory growth also creates habitat for wildlife because it generates space for forage foods to grow. If you’re managing your land for wildlife and/or hunting purposes, herbicide application can have a great many benefits to creating ideal habitat for grouse, deer, and other local wildlife.
Herbicide application on your property as part of a professionally administered forestry management plan can have many benefits.
If you’re a landowner and want to get the most out of your timber sales or want to manage your land for a range of reasons, contact your local forestry professionals today and find out what management plan is right for you.