Just wondering if any members are into managing their woodlots for wildlife. Seems everything I do to improve my woods is too benefit the wildlife in one form or another. I've been at it for quite a few years, making clearings for food plots, opening the canopy for new growth. Any tree's I cut I use the tops for brush piles I can definitely see the benefit as I have more Partridge around more snowshoe rabbits. Releasing apple tree's, some have better growth and production. I did learn a tough lesson with releasing apple tree's too quickly. I cleared some Balsam Fir tree's around a few Apple tree's. Got some heavy wet snow that broke a lot of limbs on those apple tree's. I've been clearing in a small field for a few years just making it larger. It's now about 150 yards long, I keep finding more Apple tree's, that's a good thing. That's a hunting shack in the background of the second picture, gotta be comfortable hunting as I get older.
Good that you are doing that, I try to do what I can as well with what I have to work with. I find all I have to do is plant the garden every year and then I have all kinds of wildlife.
Yes, a few hundred acres of corn or soybeans each year seems to keep the deer very happy lmao!! Good on you!
I live in farm country, agriculture everywhere. I'm cutting tree's anyway, might as well get as much out of it as possible
As much grain as there is around here, I actually do have a "kill plot" i put in the woods. I staged it between a thick bedding area and a field to serve as a transition spot. They are in it every day sometimes multiple times. During the summer the bachelor groups of bucks use it a lot, for some reason as soon as bow starts no bone use it except dinks lol
Looking great! Have you looked into hinge cutting for deer habitat? Lots of info and videos out there.
I haven't tried it, I take the stove wood with me. I might look into a few tree's and see what happens I
I’ve girdled some of the junk softwood and left it standing, and if I see cavities in trees I leave them standing. I’m leaving some of the large, gnarly hardwood trunks laying on the ground because my back isn’t what it used to be and they will decay and offer food and shelter. I leave brush piled (no burning), for critter shelters. As far as the deer go, I do little to encourage them because they eat my hardwood regrowth tops. Instead, I’m trying to do group cuts, where I get a bunch of seedlings started all at once, in hopes some make it up past the deer.
I have a woodlot down the road that loggers are going to be cutting starting tomorrow. Mostly opening the canopy for new growth. I'll be getting some pictures of the progress. Definitely leaving snags, making brush piles and hardwood tree's.
My woodlot is part of the American Tree Farm System so by its rules I have to manage for wildlife. I try to encourage a whole list of animal habitats, but also manage against pests. Here the biggest is porcupine because they eat the needles of my hemlock and kill the trees. With 28% of my forest being Eastern Hemlock, and porcupines being prolific, they are hunted when seen; by me and my hunting friends. Coyotes and Crows are also hunted, but because they kill sheep and lambs. I have a fondness for rabbit because coyotes and fox are so hard on them, and so I manage for them, and well as deer and moose. The later two hardly require help; I have a farm so between the fields of corn, alfalfa, oats and winter rye they are well fed in the growing season, and well fed by logging in the winter months. I did a little talk on here about my friend; a 12 point buck that I have known now for 2 years; us coming to terms that my skidder and chainsaw feeds him, and that I am safe to be around, especially in the midst of hunting season. A few management things I have balked on though was a margin zone around my fields. Supposedly it is great for song birds and the like, a progressing rise from edge of crop to mature forest, but here it is a full-on battle to keep the trees beat back to the rock walls. When I first took over the farm, there was some 50 feet between the first row of corn to the rock wall on most fields. I did the math and on one field alone, this "margin" was some 7 acres. Fooey with that; that is a lot of crop missing. But I am not the jerk a lot of people think I am. The bible says to leave "the corners" to the poor, and so I have told probably a dozen people if they need free firewood, they can have all they want if they clean the margins back for me. No one has taken me up on the offer, yet when we did it as kids, by the time we went around the perimeter of 120 acres of fields that we have, it was time to do it again. I just know my forefathers worked really hard to log, remove rocks and remove stumps back to the rock walls and I don't think it is right to just give that up. There is plenty of song bird habitat on my neighbors land who do not keep up with their margins. And the second thing I do not do is make brush piles or keep snags. I am always tugging out blowdowns, and if there is a build up of tops or limbs, I drive over it with my skidder or bulldozer so that it gets crushed and rots a lot faster. Here in Maine we call it the #2 rule: Any wood, 2 inches in diameter or less, less than 2 feet off the ground, rots in 2 years or less.
I see this all the time and as much as I like the forest, it saddens me to think how hard these old guys worked with minimal equipment to clear the land of rock and stump, only to see it neglected and reclaimed by the forest.
I love forest too, and I love fields...they are two different things. There are places to have fields and places NOT to have fields. Granted I am working on (2) clear cuts now to make way for a 30 acre field, and a 10 acre field, but I consulted with foresters and conservationists before I did so, and it is not all of my land either. I will always have plenty in forest that just is not conductive to be field. A field by me just angers me. Quite awhile ago a Popil tree fell down from the edge and the farmer who hayed the field swerved out around it...and has for years. Now that formerly rectangular field has a bump out on one side, just because he was too lazy to roll it out of the way. Needless to say the encroachment of the margins is terrible as well. Now with every tractor having glass in the cab: while I understand them staying well away from branches because of it, it is inevitable that they stick out. Here we are as farmers pumping nitrogen to the field to make it grow, and the surrounding trees grow as well, and in trying to reach the light, really stretch those branches. But jeesh, get off the tractor once and awhile and cut them back. Whenever I get an excavator here I go around and bat the branches down so that does not happen.
I hike my woods every winter and little by little cut the vines trying to take over trees, briars, etc. It's difficult to do on 150 acres of hilly land so I just take random hikes and do what I can. There's always next winter to do more. This winter I'm targeting healthy box elders in certain spots to try and thin them out. I also try to thin out crowded areas of saplings from boxelders and sweet gum when I'm cutting in an area.
I dont do any official management but I'd like to. We bought our property (house on 26 acres) almost 4 years ago now and all the open areas around the house had been left to nature...the current owners only mowed a very small area directly around the house. Ive been beating back the grass and growth to re-open the lawn areas so far, havent gotten into the actual woods much yet...but hopefully soon. Theres a LOT of dead wood in the forest parts...unfortunately most of it is rotten and not really useable. Keeping up on 26 acres is hard enough, I dont know how you guys manage 100+ acre parcels. We're thinking of buying another 12+ from our neighbor too, that part is completely forested...if we bought that I'd love to manage that as my woodlot since it has much older growth than my current 26, as well as maybe open up 1-2 acre field right in the middle of it for wildlife. So many dreams, so little time!
My winter outside of going to work and my bowling league consists of cutting wood and working on cars... when I get fed up with one I do the other. I don't and will never have my land completely "managed" as something is always growing somewhere else I'm not. But I'll take a random Sat or Sunday and just go for a hike and bring a machete and loppers. Anything I see that I don't like I chop. I just leave the vines hanging from the trees after I cut them...they get brittle soon after they dry and they'll be gone. They're almost all water anyway. But it gives me a chance to manage the woods a little, scout for fallen or damaged/dead trees, find additional species, and get some exercise all in one.
There is a great amount of solace, and satisfaction in taking your walks with the loppers. I am so happy just doing that simple thing.
