23-24 Habitat Work

[ZAG]

I had family stuff yesterday so I was unable to participate as my brother worked on dropping dead ash around one of our rednecks. Ended up cutting quite a few of them so nothing should come down on it. 
Hopefully next weekend I can get a jump on my projects.

 

[G-man]

Good preventative work.!

[Keith Nehrke]

Over the past three years, we've worked hard to drop most of the larger Ash that might end up on our trails, prior to them becoming dangerous to fell. Hundreds of trees. It's just devastating. We did manage to hinge most of them, and some of the cut trees stump-sprouted, so we have ash bushes now for cover, but in general all of that additional sunlight hitting the ground just gave the invasive species juice to take off - multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle, autumn olive (least of my concerns), buckthorn, and even some weed like stuff such as garlic mustard and swallowwort have all thrived. I'm not sure that there's any amount of management that will overcome the invasives, without making a park out of your woodlands.

That having been said, I still try. We put over 5000 stems in the ground over the past ten years. And figured out that if you don't plan on protection, you may as well save yourself the labor and money. Tree tubes suck for us. Cages rule. Even for shrubs - deer will browse them to the ground. Don't remove protection too early. We lost mulberry, oak, and chestnut to my wife's inclination to "free" the trees. Bucks rubbed them raw. 

And finally, don't use soil active herbicides or stuff that can travel through root systems. We killed some mature trees by treating poison ivy and grape vines with Tordon RTU. Oops.

[dbHunterNY]

On 12/10/2023 at 11:19 AM, Keith Nehrke said:

Over the past three years, we've worked hard to drop most of the larger Ash that might end up on our trails, prior to them becoming dangerous to fell. Hundreds of trees. It's just devastating. We did manage to hinge most of them, and some of the cut trees stump-sprouted, so we have ash bushes now for cover, but in general all of that additional sunlight hitting the ground just gave the invasive species juice to take off - multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle, autumn olive (least of my concerns), buckthorn, and even some weed like stuff such as garlic mustard and swallowwort have all thrived. I'm not sure that there's any amount of management that will overcome the invasives, without making a park out of your woodlands.

That having been said, I still try. We put over 5000 stems in the ground over the past ten years. And figured out that if you don't plan on protection, you may as well save yourself the labor and money. Tree tubes suck for us. Cages rule. Even for shrubs - deer will browse them to the ground. Don't remove protection too early. We lost mulberry, oak, and chestnut to my wife's inclination to "free" the trees. Bucks rubbed them raw. 

And finally, don't use soil active herbicides or stuff that can travel through root systems. We killed some mature trees by treating poison ivy and grape vines with Tordon RTU. Oops.

whenever i've seen tordon used it's to treat the stump by contact only. not sprayed. buckthorn and bush honeysuckle are impossible to get rid of unless you wait until a little bigger taking up more space and then pull them up by the roots when they're dormant with a chain. last i had a guy Tim that used to work for NDA (then the QDMA) he warned me about one area to take care of those two first before we cut anything to open up the canopy. i'm hard pressed to think you could get rid of it all though, despite less of it is better.

[Keith Nehrke]

Yeah, Tordon is definitely not for spraying. We used either a paintbrush or glue applicator to spread it onto the cut end of the vine. It works like a charm; off-target damage is substantial though. I can't even imagine the effort to get rid of BH and BT that way. Sometimes, the bad guys win.

[ZAG]

Well this afternoon I traded in the muzzleloader for a shovel.

This spot as along the edge of our property on the uphill side. Its a swampy area that spills out into our property. It’s been wet for yrs. We had our forester cut a path downhill with a trench to guide it to another creek a few yrs back with his dozer. He ended up diverting most of it but it really needed a cut up a little further up to catch it all.

It’s gotten so wet I'm not sure we could get the backhoe in there. So I grabbed the shovel and ended up cutting a y trench to catch 2 different flowing springs. Fortunately the ground is pretty soft so it wasn’t terrible digging. It came out pretty well, I had to get up into the neighbors a little bit to help guide it to the trench. Quite a bit of water is flowing now!! 
Ended up clearing out the existing ditch while all that water was flowing into it.

This will really help the downhill sanctuary and keep it drier as I clean out more autumn olive and plant pines.

Edited December 17, 2023 by ZAG

[dbHunterNY]

@ZAG you're definitely not timid about putting in a lot of work for a little. it'll all start to add up though.

[ZAG]

2 hours ago, dbHunterNY said:

@ZAG you're definitely not timid about putting in a lot of work for a little. it'll all start to add up though.

Just trying to stack quarters as it all adds up. This imo will really help keep the section I am also working on for bedding cover to stay dryer. Plus it will help keep the trail much drier and not a sloppy mess. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by ZAG

[Belo]

I dropped $600 on a black friday sale for trees that will ship this spring. I get so excited to start these kind of projects. It's more fun than hunting for me. Hunting is just kinda sitting and waiting, but the prep and habitat work is what makes the payoff so amazing. 

I have a general buffet of trees coming in. Persimmons, some more chestnuts to add to the 2 I planted this year, a bunch of sawtooth oak that will take some years but you have to start sometime and I plan to add a few more pears to the 2 I planted this year. It'll be a general buffet for the deer. They'll have the usual standing corn, plus my clover plot, a fall plot, apples, peaches. Why ever leave? You just need to sacrifice a couple of your oldest tribe members and the rest can live and eat in peace. Socialist approved!

Anyhow, maybe it's not a popular opinion but I also want to cut some approach trails to some new possible stand locations, but don't want to be bumping deer. So the holiday hunt annoys me as it's good downtime I have to do this work, but now I really can't.

[ZAG]

8 minutes ago, Belo said:

I dropped $600 on a black friday sale for trees that will ship this spring. I get so excited to start these kind of projects. It's more fun than hunting for me. Hunting is just kinda sitting and waiting, but the prep and habitat work is what makes the payoff so amazing. 

I have a general buffet of trees coming in. Persimmons, some more chestnuts to add to the 2 I planted this year, a bunch of sawtooth oak that will take some years but you have to start sometime and I plan to add a few more pears to the 2 I planted this year. It'll be a general buffet for the deer. They'll have the usual standing corn, plus my clover plot, a fall plot, apples, peaches. Why ever leave? You just need to sacrifice a couple of your oldest tribe members and the rest can live and eat in peace. Socialist approved!

Anyhow, maybe it's not a popular opinion but I also want to cut some approach trails to some new possible stand locations, but don't want to be bumping deer. So the holiday hunt annoys me as it's good downtime I have to do this work, but now I really can't.

Who’d ya grab the trees from? I believe I have one place in MI for my pines and another place for my chestnuts I wanna plant.

[Robhuntandfish]

21 hours ago, Belo said:

I dropped $600 on a black friday sale for trees that will ship this spring. I get so excited to start these kind of projects. It's more fun than hunting for me. Hunting is just kinda sitting and waiting, but the prep and habitat work is what makes the payoff so amazing. 

I have a general buffet of trees coming in. Persimmons, some more chestnuts to add to the 2 I planted this year, a bunch of sawtooth oak that will take some years but you have to start sometime and I plan to add a few more pears to the 2 I planted this year. It'll be a general buffet for the deer. They'll have the usual standing corn, plus my clover plot, a fall plot, apples, peaches. Why ever leave? You just need to sacrifice a couple of your oldest tribe members and the rest can live and eat in peace. Socialist approved!

Anyhow, maybe it's not a popular opinion but I also want to cut some approach trails to some new possible stand locations, but don't want to be bumping deer. So the holiday hunt annoys me as it's good downtime I have to do this work, but now I really can't.

I'm with ya.  I actually took a long weekend last weekend and didn't hunt (other than a little for rabbits) and spent the time moving stands, cutting brush and planning for next year already.  I have a full freezer and got a decent buck in gun.  Even though I could still hunt for a buck in muzzle I've been out there working with the nice weather.   I'm already looking forward to a change for our food plots and a newer game plan for next season.   

[2BuckBizCT]

44 minutes ago, Robhuntandfish said:

I'm with ya.  I actually took a long weekend last weekend and didn't hunt (other than a little for rabbits) and spent the time moving stands, cutting brush and planning for next year already.  I have a full freezer and got a decent buck in gun.  Even though I could still hunt for a buck in muzzle I've been out there working with the nice weather.   I'm already looking forward to a change for our food plots and a newer game plan for next season.   

 

21 hours ago, Belo said:

I dropped $600 on a black friday sale for trees that will ship this spring. I get so excited to start these kind of projects. It's more fun than hunting for me. Hunting is just kinda sitting and waiting, but the prep and habitat work is what makes the payoff so amazing. 

I have a general buffet of trees coming in. Persimmons, some more chestnuts to add to the 2 I planted this year, a bunch of sawtooth oak that will take some years but you have to start sometime and I plan to add a few more pears to the 2 I planted this year. It'll be a general buffet for the deer. They'll have the usual standing corn, plus my clover plot, a fall plot, apples, peaches. Why ever leave? You just need to sacrifice a couple of your oldest tribe members and the rest can live and eat in peace. Socialist approved!

Anyhow, maybe it's not a popular opinion but I also want to cut some approach trails to some new possible stand locations, but don't want to be bumping deer. So the holiday hunt annoys me as it's good downtime I have to do this work, but now I really can't.

Do you ask the landowner about planting trees? or just do it? doubt anyone would care, but just curious

[Robhuntandfish]

18 minutes ago, 2BuckBizCT said:

 

Do you ask the landowner about planting trees? or just do it? doubt anyone would care, but just curious

i think Belo owns his land but not sure.  

We did ask and he said no prob.  We planted just a few apple trees but that was it.  He tried to plant some before but the deer ate them.  So far we have 2 that are looking good and two that are not that just didnt seem to take. 

[Belo]

2 hours ago, Robhuntandfish said:

I'm with ya.  I actually took a long weekend last weekend and didn't hunt (other than a little for rabbits) and spent the time moving stands, cutting brush and planning for next year already.  I have a full freezer and got a decent buck in gun.  Even though I could still hunt for a buck in muzzle I've been out there working with the nice weather.   I'm already looking forward to a change for our food plots and a newer game plan for next season.   

I could still do all the work, but I'd risk possibly bumping deer to the neighbors, so that kinda bums me out and keeps me out of the hardwoods. I have plenty of projects in the orchard I can do though without much risk.

[Belo]

23 hours ago, ZAG said:

Who’d ya grab the trees from? I believe I have one place in MI for my pines and another place for my chestnuts I wanna plant.

saw an ad for these guys. The black friday sale seemed pretty good, not sure. I'm sure I will pay some markup that maybe would have sourced them cheaper locally, but a few of their trees are geared towards later dropping and that entices me. https://whitetailhillchestnuts.com/ Looks kinda pricy now, but everything I bought was in the teens during the sale.  

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Belo