# Cat tails getting burned?



## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

What do you residents think about this issue of Cat Tails getting burned? Have you been seeing this happen. I travelled from the Canadain border south on Hwy 3 to Hwy 11. I saw many cat tails and sloughs getting burned. Any comments???


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## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

Less to walk during deer hunting. However, in certain areas where there is not a lot of cover other than cattails, I have seen the majority of the deer actually vacate the area. As far as the waterfowl hunting, I wouldn't think it would affect that too much in the long run. If we get good moisture this winter and spring water should be filling the low spots back up and cattails should grow back.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

It is bad for all. IMO. Less cover for pheasants, great nesting cover with the rain and snow run off for ducks, and great cover for deer too.

I agree they are a pain in the a$$ to walk through....but that typically means good cover for wildlife. Let alone how this effects the proper filteration of run off water back into the ground water. Better be careful....if they start to tile this land it will look like Western MN!


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## Tator (Dec 10, 2005)

I guess I don't mind it too much, if they are getting burned, they are for the most part pretty dry, so the farmer wants to be able to farm it the following year, so I can't be too mad about that. Deer/pheasants will find cover elsewhere, there should be plenty of it.


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## dash (Apr 30, 2006)

Doesn't the cattail burning have something to do with blackbird control? I read somewhere that they are burned to reduce blackbird nesting areas because of the damage they do to crops, particularly sunflower fields. Any experts out there?


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## holmsvc (Nov 26, 2003)

I think they just like to light things on fire.


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## Chris Benson (Apr 3, 2004)

Well that sort of thing is actually good for the marsh/slough. Before the breaking of the prairie fire commonly swept through and cleaned an area out. It allows regrowth and promotes new growth. You'll find that next year these area that have been burned will have better stands of cattails due to the nutrients being put back in the soil.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

Chris thanks for the info.

But what would happen if the farmer tills it up.

Yes I understand that they are dry now in the fall.....but what about spring. Spring nesting cover for ducks. Shallow lakes and ponds help produce nesting cover and habitat for birds. They might be dry by the end of the summer if lack of rain. But they still are good nesting habitat for waterfowl. Look at DU and Delta Studies on Nesting cover and habitat. They both are focusing on shallow lakes and ponds. Which could be dry now because of lack of water. Are some of these getting burned?

Again I can't blame the farmer for working his land to make ends meet. But this is what happened in Southern MN. They started to burn and tile the shallow lakes and ponds. Now no habitat or cover for the birds.

So again if they have another dry year next year.....what will happen?


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## water_swater (Sep 19, 2006)

From what I read on Delta's site the temprorary ponds, spring water is most important for nesting ducks. Personally I think the biggest misconception many people not from ND have is that these sloughs are permanent, they have been drying up and reappearing for thousands of years. The most important and most uncontrollable factor in duck production is *PRECIPITATION*.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

water......I agree totally.

That is my one concern. You have a spot that is known to hold water (cattails are present) and it gets destroyed in a dry year! Now in the spring it could be just a wet spot in a plowed feild. No nesting cover because it got burned or plowed.

Chuck


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## indsport (Aug 29, 2003)

Cattail is used by pheasants and deer as escape cover and roosting cover. Pheasants use this extensively in winter when grass fields are snowed under and is the primary reason many pheasants can escape in a hard winter. Cattail does attract blackbirds but less so since sunflower acreage is continuing to decline in North Dakota. Cattail burning is related to the farm programs (once again) where the farmer tills it in the fall and then can claim unplantable acres (and a payment) when the wetland fills up as it does naturally. Cattail is not used as nesting cover by any puddle ducks (e.g. mallards) or bluebills (scaup). They all nest in the uplands unless nothing else is available.

For over 400 publications on cattail go to: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/ and search on cattail.
That federal research institution (your tax dollars DO work) has done more work on cattail than anyone else in North America.


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## Dak (Feb 28, 2005)

Water,

Agree except some disappear more permanently with the help of some tiling. Not always but it does happen.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Cattails hold snow. In the winters we have a lot of snow that doesn't melt the cattails are level full with snow and nothing lives in them. But many on here haven't seen that I guess.. they are either under 30 or were not paying attention... 

I agree in mild winters cattails are habitat for pheasant, but are also the biggest killers of pheasant when we have a heavy snow. If they are in the cattails when it snows heavy they get covered up.. we all know that though.


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## indsport (Aug 29, 2003)

I guess the 20+ pheasants I shot in the cattails in the winter of 96-97 in December that had 5 feet of snow in them don't count. Nothing like the dog pushing a rooster up through 5 feet of snow while you are wading chest deep in it to give you a thrill at 30 below. As I also lived and hunted through the storms and snows of the 60's and 70's and found almost all my pheasants in snow filled cattail sloughs, I guess that doesn't count either.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

You under estimate what I mean by heavy.... not fluffy stuff.. the wet stuff, several feet of it.


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## Triple B (Mar 9, 2004)

[/quote]That is my one concern. You have a spot that is known to hold water (cattails are present) and it gets destroyed in a dry year! Now in the spring it could be just a wet spot in a plowed feild. No nesting cover because it got burned or plowed.

Chuck[/quote]

once cattails are estalished, they are damn tough to get rid of, burning or plowing them under won't stop them at all. the next spring it will be a wet spot in a plowed field, but the cattails will start to grow back just in time for nesting. it doesn't take too long for them to regrow and re-establish a slough. not only that, but by burning farmers can be helping by starting a slough over. in many cases wetlands become overrun with cattails, where they are really not that good for ducks nesting, the only thing they are good for is those damn cattail bucks!!!! anyways this will open it up again and create better nesting habitat the following years.


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## Triple B (Mar 9, 2004)

how the hell do u get a quote?


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## target (Aug 10, 2006)

Chris Benson said:


> Well that sort of thing is actually good for the marsh/slough. Before the breaking of the prairie fire commonly swept through and cleaned an area out. It allows regrowth and promotes new growth. You'll find that next year these area that have been burned will have better stands of cattails due to the nutrients being put back in the soil.


I may be misunderstanding something but I am almost sure that before the breaking of the prairie there was little cattails. Possibly some cattail ringed sloughs and potholes. But if you look in a native prairie pasture never having been broken there are not many cattails. The cattails and cattail choked sloughs are a result of erosion and sedimentation from runoff in a broken field. If anyone is more familiar with this correct me but I am confident with this idea.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Cattails can be a detriment to shallow wetlands. When they start to overrun a such a wetland, over time they can fill up with residue from decaying cattails an basically "fill in/dry up". They still may hold cattails for years offering cover for deer Phesants and etc. but are of little or no use to ducks so it really depends on what your management goals are. 
I know of at least 1/2 dozen sloughs that this has happened to since I started hunting in the mid 70's. Those sloughs that have 6' of water and 1 foot of muck are typically the ones experiencing this transition. And generally cattails don't burn right down to the ground/water so there is still some limited cover available for wintering wildlife.


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## h2ofwlr (Feb 6, 2004)

Triple B said:


> how the hell do u get a quote?


there is no / in the 1st quote, only in the secound one. Also just click the "quote" button of the person that you want to quote and it'll do it automatically.

As for the issue at hand, I think many farmers are pure fire bugs, they love to burn. I see it in the ditches all the time. In ND I've seen the sky brown from so much smoke from countless fires burning in the ditches and sloughs. Granted burning every 7 years or so can be beneficial, but I've seen the same ditches and potholes being burnt year after year, and that is not right :eyeroll: Like I said, some are firebugs IMHO And the grasses are indeed nesting cover next spring for the early nesters like Mallards and Pintail, so if it is burned off, no nesting there next spring.


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## Trapper62 (Mar 3, 2003)

Buckseye and Dash you hit some great points.

Cattails breed millions of blackbirds each year as they are the preferred nesting habitat of blackbirds. Blackbirds are devastating to sunflowers, so naturally farmers are going to burn them in dry years. If a slough contains deep enough standing water all summer cattail will establish in the outer portions only. But in our dry years (dry cycle) the cattails eventually start to fill in replacing the open water and/or other grasses that establish in seasonal wetlands. As these grasses are replaced there is less hay to harvest also.

We have hay meadows that are no longer harvestable because the cattails have taken over. By burning these in dry years you can promote grass growth to regenerate. Here is why, grass goes dormant in the fall and when covered by snow cover (eliminating sunlight) it still survives. Cattails are more like trees, they still need the oxygen exchange in the winter as do trees. To exchange the O2 they need sunlight, when these sloughs are burned they can and usually are covered by snow which eliminates or drastically cuts down on the O2 exchange causing many of them to die over winter. This is why seasonal wetlands that dry up in late summer and are hayed very seldom ever produce stands of cattails. Take a look at the land by Towner that is flooded every spring and hayed in the late summer, no cattails.

The grass does not come back in one season but if you look at what is being burned, I would guess that these areas have been burned now for a few years and are starting to see grass reappearing.

As far as ducks go cattails will really boost the mudhen population as they use cattails to make their floating nests, as do some divers. But you will not find a dabbling duck nest in cattails.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

> As for the issue at hand, I think many farmers are pure fire bugs, they love to burn. I see it in the ditches all the time


.

We burn the ditches so they don't collect snow causing huge snowbanks that block the roads. There is a very good reason for everything we do that costs us money to do, we are not wasting our time and money burning this stuff just for pleasure.


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

Burning cattails stimulates growth in next years cattails. Multiple tillings will destroy a vast majority of cattail stands if it is possible to get a tractor in them (best done after a burn). By far and away the most efficient method to clear cattails is to go out in the winter and manually chop down the cattails so they can be covered by about 1/2" of water in the spring and early summer, because the stalks are covered with water they will not grow that year and if there is some growth it is slow and sparse.

However, knocking down cattails is not the best idea. Yes, if the slough is engulfed by cattails you need to manage them to obtain a "hemi-marsh" type slough. A hemi-marsh is roughly a 50/50 mix of water and foliage, ie cattails. Small stands of cattails are absolutely magnificent for breeding waterfowl as a large percentage of waterfowl nest over water (some mallards, wigeon, and plenty of scaup, redheads, canvasbacks, etc.) They also provide predator protection for young broods.

The idea of prefered wetlands by waterfowl is another topic, but in a general sense drought is good and most waterfowl prefer semi-permanent wetlands with exception of redheads for example which prefer more permanent but still use semi-permanent wetlands. In drought years the sloughs have dormant seed banks beneath the first few inches and soil that is waiting for some precip before it springs back to life. The seed bank can stay dormant for close to fifty years and still be able to germinate. All of us see this nearly every time we hit the field. The sloughs that are "going dry" are simply nearing the end of their wet cycle in which they will sit dry for a while and later return to nourish waterfowl.

I'm not in favor of burning entire stands of cattails, but as mentioned earlier, if the wetland is not enrolled in an easement contract or other land retirement program it is hard to resist a few more acres instead of supporting some bird...


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