PLANTING A BOTTOMLAND FOREST FOR WILDLIFE 
- The Direct Seeding of Trees at Sedan Bottoms - 

by
Jeff Telleen

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Since the advent of the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP), the Iowa DNR has acquired thousands of acres of former bottomland cropfields as wildlife management areas.  Under a perpetual WRP easement, which is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, cropland is permanently taken out of commercial production.  All of the land in a WRP contract is not necessarily wet or destined to become a wetland.  The rules governing WRP allow for five percent of a contract to be farmed as wildlife food plots and native grasses are being planted on many other acres of WRP. While some areas will be allowed to vegetate naturally, we are looking at different ways to restore bottomland timber to these areas.  Left alone, many of these fields are overrun by Canary Grass and other undesirable species which impede succession.  As far as natural reforestation goes, many of these fields would come back in willow, soft maple, and cottonwood, which do not have the wildlife benefits that the mast producing trees do. Mast includes nuts that are utilized by many wildlife species.

WRP lands in the Rathbun Wildlife Unit are represented at the Sedan Bottoms Wildlife Management Area.  Sedan Bottoms is currently 4400 acres of Chariton River bottom and blufflands below the Rathbun dam in Appanoose County.  All but 55 acres of this area are enrolled in the WRP program.  In pre-settlement times, this area was mainly bottomland hardwood forest.  Small remnants of bottomland timber remain on and near the area, but most was cleared for farming at one time.  The dominant tree species are/were Pin Oak, Swamp White Oak, Shellbark Hickory, Walnut and Hackberry. 

Through a habitat grant from the Iowa Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Rathbun Wildlife Unit has done direct seeding on 20 and 25 acres on the Sedan Bottoms area the last two falls.  Canary Grass fields are baled off in the fall and sprayed with 2 qt./acre of Roundup.  The following spring, Roundup-ready soybeans are planted and usually will need to be sprayed once after planting to kill sprouting Canary Grass. (NRCS rules allow each field to be farmed commercially one time to prepare a seed bed for the permanent cover) After the soybeans are harvested, the stubble is disked and the nut mixture is broadcast using a fertilizer cart.  The PTO on the cart should not be run at over 1400 RPM to reduce breakage of acorns and nuts.  The seed population we are using is roughly equivalent to a cornfield, although the germination is much more variable depending on soil and weather conditions.  The nuts are then both disked and packed in or simply packed in depending on soil moisture and texture.

The following spring, 2qt./acre each of Princep and Pendulum will need to be applied to reduce weed competition and keep sunlight on the seedlings.  If spraying can not be done in a timely fashion, the fields can be mowed above the seedling height or sprayed with Transline at 4 Ounces/acre. 

A seven species mix is being used at Sedan Bottoms (Table 1).  Native pecans from sixty miles south on the river in Missouri are included in the mix and the rest of the seed was purchased from local seed collectors with the grant money from the National Wild Turkey Federation.  The idea of direct seeding is to provide a plant population that the rapidly growing seedlings will soon shade out weed and grass competition and also to have enough plants present that deer and rabbit damage does not affect the outcome of the planting. 

Table 1.  Seeding Rate for Sedan Bottoms Direct Mast Tree Seeding - 25 acres

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