Field Management
Nearly 350 acres of fields exist on CNC lands. These fields are comprised of native and non-native grasslands, meadow and shrub stage old fields, and agricultural fields.
Without human management, fields will grow into young forests, which decrease biodiversity at CNC. Periodically, the succession process must be set back by burning, bush-hogging, mowing, and/or spraying.
Grassland is a field comprised of grass, or in the case of prairies, where certain species of grass are present. There are two kinds of grasslands:
- crop fields of non-native cold season grass such as timothy, bunchgrass, and clover, and
- prairie fields of warm season native grass such as little and big bluestem, sideoats grama, indiangrass, Canada wild rye, Switchgrass, eastern gamagrass, blue joint grass, prairie cordgrass, and forbs.
About a third of Ohio’s wildlife needs grasslands. Prairies are the most endangered natural landscape in Ohio today, with less than 1% of the state’s original prairie remaining.
Old field habitat occurs when grassland is allowed to revert naturally into a different stage of succession. More than 40% of Ohio’s wildlife species use old field habitat, including the meadow vole, red fox, cottontail rabbit, garter snakes, praying mantises, monarch and swallowtail butterflies, box turtles, bees, woodchucks, and others. A grassland field undergoes two stages of succession before reverting to forest: meadow-stage and shrub-stage, both described below.
Meadow-stage fields
Meadow-stage fields consist chiefly of grasses and forbs (broad leaved flowering plants). They differ from grasslands because 50% or more of the area is comprised of forbs. Old meadow fields and grasslands provide habitat for the Vesper Sparrow, Sedge Wren, Henslow’s Sparrow, woodcock (with patches of small trees interspersed), diskcissel, barn owl, and Northern Harrier.
Shrub-stage fields
Shrub-stage fields have at least 10% woody plants, primarily seedlings (less than 3’ tall) and saplings (at least 3’ tall but no more than 4” in diameter). A quality shrub-stage old field for wildlife consists of 10-30% shrubs and young trees, well distributed throughout the field, with a ground cover of grasses and forbs. Shrubby fields and forest edges provide habitat for the Yellow-breasted Chat, Yellow Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Prairie Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, American Goldfinch, Field Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Eastern Bluebird, Bobwhite Quail, and Indigo Bunting.
