Have you read an article or seen a YouTube video and heard them talk about “hack and squirt”. Maybe even by the end of it you were convinced it was a good thing to do, and you’d like to try it, but you just weren’t comfortable applying it on your property or lease because you’re worried about “messing it up”. Or maybe you’ve picked up something about hinge cutting, but it just didn’t quite click. Well here’s your opportunity to see it in person and even give it a whack (so to speak).

Woody encroachment is becoming the leading cause of grassland loss in the great plains, starting to even rival conversion to cropping. Along with that, other recent studies have highlighted the dramatic decrease of grassland birds (“Grassland birds have suffered the biggest bird declines of any terrestrial biome since 1970.” State of the Birds 2022 report). While forests are what many people think of when “nature” is mentioned, grasslands are a KEY natural ecosystem, especially throughout most of Oklahoma, and restoring those habitats are crucial to restoring the wildlife species that inhabit them.

So whether your interest be through hunting, birdwatching, ecosystem restoration, or even grazing (how much grass do you see growing in our current closed-canopy woodlands), reduction of canopy cover and increased sunlight to the soil is the objective. Come out to see, learn and practice some easy techniques that you can bring back with you to your own place to make it even better in Outdoor Oklahoma.