Large acreage plant management or invasive species removal can quickly incur large costs from compounding man hours. It can also lead to significant herbicide usage to effectively treat all the vegetation. One solution we encourage for reduction of cost and herbicide use is forest mowing.

Forestry mowing uses a large equipment mower to cut and grind plant stems. Rather than a clean cut though, the mower blade leaves stems shredded. A shredded stem requires significantly more energy to repair, and most plants will use up all the energy stores in their root systems to try to repair the damage. This ultimately stresses the plant past the point of regeneration. Plus, grinding the cut material scatters it like a mulch layer over the site, leaving the debris to decompose and return nutrients to the soil. 

Following our Light on the Land mission, we take care to ensure that our forestry mowers have industry-low psi, meaning that our equipment has the lowest compaction impact on soil. With skilled operators that have over 5,000 hours of experience, we can make forestry mowing a key part of your ecological restoration.

reasons to choose forestry mowing:

• Mowing a site increases light availability, allowing native species to sprout and recolonize the site. 

• Forestry mowing prepares sites for seeding to reestablish the native plant communities. 

• Multiple mowing treatments can be a cost effective and herbicide-free approach to controlling large monocultures of buckthorn and other woody invasive species.

• Forestry mowing can be used in place of grazing or fire for reintroducing necessary disturbance to prairie communities.

• Burn breaks, access routes, and rights-of-way can be maintained with forestry mowing.