In today's hot land market, there can be real value in converting a piece of overgrown land into something productive. Robert Gunn can attest to that. He and his wife, Jana, purchased 630 acres of sharply rolling Ozarks land seven years ago.
The land was full of briars and brush, and the growth was so thick you could hardly see the ground in many areas. The place was begging for attention.
What followed was a vigorous battle to convert this acreage into a productive ranch. A mixture of cool- and warm-season grasses now thrives on ridges and hillsides once covered by brush and scrub trees. And the value of the place, says Gunn, has probably doubled because of the improvements.
"We've increased the cow-carrying capacity significantly; we've improved the forage base; and we've created a more manageable, more efficient grazing system," he says.
The Gunns turned to the Natural Resources Conservation Service for help with the conversion, working with Marshall-based district conservationist Sid Lowrance.
grass makes a comeback. "Sid believed there was a good chance grass would appear if we removed the undesirable species," Gunn says. "He was right for the most part. In some pastures we haven't needed to do any seeding. In other places we have seeded switchgrass, and we expect to seed more switchgrass and other forages in the future."
Gunn attacked undesirable vegetation with mechanical and chemical methods. He did a lot of bush hogging, but learned that was a temporary fix at best.
"If you bush hog this oak bush down to 6 inches it will grow to 4 feet the next season," he says. "If left two years, that same tree will be 6 feet tall and larger in diameter. Leave it four years, and it will be too big to bush hog."
For a more effective solution, Gunn sprayed a mix of Grazon P+D and Remedy herbicides. The applications were made with a handgun connected to a tractor-mounted sprayer with a 300-gallon tank. Gunn even had a dozer operator clear a 37-acre area covered by thick hardwoods too big to spray or bush hog—all in an effort to get it under control.
Today, the brush fight has settled to "maintenance" status. Gunn now uses a tractor-mounted boom sprayer to control seedlings and sprouts of oaks and other hardwoods, as well as broadleaf weeds. He targets patches of thistles with a handgun sprayer on his 4-wheeler.
figuring fencing. Once the weeds were under control, fencing was step two in the ranch's makeover. The NRCS recommended crossfencing to provide for rotational grazing. That, naturally, brought up a question of watering sites.
"Our first step was to lay out a system that could provide water in each pasture," Gunn says. He and his brother John installed 3½ miles of 2-inch poly pipe 2 feet deep. The pipe system supplies water to 22 300-gallon watering tanks. Water is pumped from a spring-fed pond to a pair of 1,000-gallon tanks on the highest spot of the ranch. From here, water flows by gravity to tanks in the various pastures.
Pastures were laid out after the water system was in place. Electric fence was used for most crossfencing. Pastures range from 20 to 40 acres in size.
Gunn limed and fertilized pastures early on, and he seeded switchgrass on about 240 acres. In 2009 he plans to start establishing legumes, and will consider additional grass seeding in the thin spots.
The previous owners kept a 50-cow beef herd on the place. Today Gunn says the pastures support 120 Angus cows with calves, and he plans to expand slowly to about 200 cows.
"Even at that, we may be understocked," he says, "but we want to expand cow numbers cautiously."
Of the 630-acre place, about 500 acres are in pasture. The Gunns plan to preserve most of the rest of the land as wildlife habitat.
"I guess it's obvious we've made a difference," Gunn says of the renovation. "But there's more we want to do.
"I think we could spend the next 20 years picking up rocks," Gunn grins. "But the job still wouldn't be finished."