BROOKHAVEN — Spring is upon us as trees are starting to bud out, new herbaceous plants are starting to appear and wildflowers pop up. Saturday starts youth turkey season and by March 15 the season will open for adults in Mississippi.

March is a great time of year to spring into action by managing habitat, exploring new vegetative life and appreciating the wild turkey. Time is running out to complete any hack and squirt projects. Once sap flow starts to move up trees or hedges it is difficult to get a good kill with herbicide using a hack and squirt method.

Right now it is a good time to use hack and squirt to battle privet. The invasive plant can often invade riparian, streamside management zones, fence rows and old field habitats. Identification is easy, look for little black or blue berry-like fruit, smooth green leaves and bark similar to water oak in appearance. Privet is often one of a few shrubs still completely green this time of year.

Smaller privet plants can be treated with a glyphosate application to foliage but when they get above your head it is best to use hack and squirt for treatment. Hack and squirt is simple, cut into the privet trunk using an axe or hatchet to where it breaks the cambium layer and forms a cup, then spray 1 ml of glyphosate or other herbicides recommended for privet control into the fresh wound. This should kill the privet plant and allow for more sunlight to reach the ground.

Sunlight is key because it allows new herbaceous plants to grow such as common violets, butterweeds, catchweed, wakerobins, rattlesnake root and little brown jugs. All of these have some benefit to wildlife or help attract insects, which benefits wildlife.

Disturbance can help other native plants such as river cane, sweetbay magnolias and sycamore trees to grow in these moist areas. Speaking of American sycamore, habitat managers may be able to find the tree’s fruit on the ground right now or still up in the tree.

After the rain Tuesday, fresh tracks are visible in areas. If you want a better understanding of vegetative growth this time of year and the use of wildlife on your property then all you have to do is go for a walk into the woods.