Alabama Soil and Water Blog Spot

  I’m going to get on my soapbox a little this time and discuss mowing maintenance of vegetation.  A lot of the roadside and large area mowing maintenance is done with tractors equipped with lugged pneumatic tires. Lugged pneumatic tires were first developed in the 30’s primarily to get better traction, better fuel economy, and more power in a plowed farm field.  Pneumatic tractor tires are very advanced today with more ground contact to reduce compaction problems and increase traction. While lugs can create some soil compaction issues, my beef is the use of these tires in challenging locations like steep vegetated slopes and wet areas.  Anywhere the tractor tire can slip or spin, the vegetation is often destroyed.  This is a common case on roadside slopes.  If the conditions are too severe to keep the tires from slipping, something else should be used to maintain the vegetative cover on the site. Less frequent mowing, using tires that don’t slip, using vegetation that requires less or

  Most Erosion Control Blankets use some type of netting to bind and hold products so the blankets stay together, are more easily handled, and keep the mulch material in place to do its job.  Most ECB companies have wildlife friendly netting available to ensure the wildlife in the area are not needlessly harmed.  So, if you plan the use of ECB’s or netting of any type on your project, consider the use of wildlife friendly netting. I reached out to Eric Marsal of the American Excelsior Company to provide the following insight: Most blanket companies now provide netting that is considered Wildlife Friendly.  It is best that Wildlife Friendly netting be 100% biodegradable. Wildlife Friendly netting should be loosely wrapped at the junctions (seam) to allow the netting to stretch when stress is applied to it, thus greatly reducing entanglements (picture). When it can be used, a net-free blanket would be the best alternative. One final note to me