Timber Stand Improvement At Sockum Has Begun

The Washington County Conservation Board takes the public trust for the balance of management of our properties extremely seriously. Most of you already know that the Sockum Ridge Recreation Area represents a little over 200 acres of woodland, much of which is one of Iowa?s greatest resources, an upland oak/hickory dominated timber. We are currently doing active management in approximately 28 acres out there, with the specific goal of maximizing wildlife, diversity, and regeneration. Biologists tell us that these managed areas have the best likelihood of being such that our great-grandchildren will get to enjoy the kind of timber we have all been able to take for granted.

Our forest management activity began in 1999 as we prepared 5 acres for complete regeneration, with the harvest component itself completed in 2003. Immediately following the harvest, the area became a major thicket, which is slowly now evolving back into a young oak/hickory forest, the only such timber that the WCCB has!

After monitoring this area for a number of years to insure success, as well as working with input from a variety of private and professional sources, the WCCB began studying other options. Increasingly, biologists were reporting that fire was one of the tools that was determined to have been a huge influence on the creation of the oak/hickory timbers we all love so much. In 2013 we burned approximately 9 acres in proximity to the pond at Sockum Ridge for the first time. We then repeated these burns each year, as well as some other management steps to open up the understory in this area. It is now ?night and day? more open than the remainder of the timber. It certainly has more wild flowers, and it seems to have wiped out the invasive garlic mustard and multi-flora rose.

This year, after research and public input, the WCCB expanded our management to include contracting for understory tree removal on approximately 14 acres in Sockum. This contract calls for those trees that are not oak, shagbark hickory, or walnut that are greater than 2 inches in diameter to be culled. This contracted operation began very recently, and we hope that the weather allows its completion during these winter months (with no activity to happen during shotgun deer season).

Once those understory trees have been culled, the WCCB staff will conduct a prescribed burn next spring (weather permitting). Hopefully, this next year will be such that nature will provide a bumper crop of mast (acorns of every oak species and shagbark hickory nuts) next fall. The leaves from the trees will then fall to the ground and effectively plant them- leading directly to the next generation of timber being born. If not, we will use fire again there and wait. If so, it will open up a huge variety of options for us (and we will do different things within the 14 acres), each and every one of which is intended to maximize timber and wildlife diversity.

On another note, for as long as I can remember, many Washington County residents have ventured to Marr Park to collect ?hedge balls.? We welcome this activity, the other option being having staff pick them up or hitting them with our mowers. Now is the time, they are in extreme abundance on the ground right now.