Gilbert Fritz wrote:
In a lot of these places, mowing is perhaps being done because it is the easiest, cheapest way to keep a wild forest from redeveloping, which might be undesirable for several reasons...because once a lawn has become a forest there is a huge amount of work to get rid of it. In rural areas, second growth forest is often less valuable the potential pasture or plow land, or even just open space/ views. Much rural land is mowed once a month or less, just to keep the land in grass.
Bryant RedHawk wrote:
For us the main reasons to mow are; 1. Keep the chiggers down so we don't get eaten alive. 2. keep the ticks down so we don't get eaten alive. 3. make hay to store for winter feeding of the animals.
These are my primary reasons for keeping about 3+ acres of grass mowed among my massive forest plot. I ignore most of the hilly areas except for a quick brush hog along the forest line twice a year. Along with putting down clover within most of the cleared area, aerating and cleaning up never ending brush and dead trees, it's primarily done in an effort to maintain my orchard. Here in the TN mountains, the bugs will destroy your body if mowing isn't part of the routine. It does feel like a huge time waster sometimes (as my closest neighbor reminds me), but before we began mowing, we were always a mess after working out in our fields. It's uncanny how fast the forest will begin to reclaim the land, as the areas I brush hog are proof of.
