[HomeintheWoods]

For you land owners or hunters who have access to land that you have permission to modify, what are your plans to make next year's season just a little bit better?
And if you don't have any plans, why not?
In some ways I think this should be in a different forum but we'll try it here.
For us the day after the season closed was the start of the next season. We were running the chainsaws Sunday cutting firewood in an understocked, low quality tree area that we have been working the last several years.
While getting next year's wood we have released hawthorn, oak, and cleared an area for natural regen of oak, pine and planted spruce. It also has created a nice transition from the woods to a brushy field. Because most of this trees are being used for firewood this project will take several more years to complete. Seeing the habitat respond has motivated us to continue.

 

[angus]

My plans for next year are to make teh farm more Animal Friendly. Lots of work with new grasses and weeds along the hay fields and corn fields. Gonna work on edge feathering and taking back the fence rows from the trees and convert them back to Hedge rows.

Gonna try to run new fence in the pastures and divide the pasture into smaller parts to create more habitat with different types of weeds and grasses.

 

[8ptspike]

Bought 880lbs of pellet lime. 22 forty lb bags. Going to spread it over four little areas totaling 1/2 an acre I plan on making hunting plots. 2nd year for this. As I have to hand spread this is takes time. I'll save a few bags for an oak stand of 20 trees if so and throw in a bag of fertilizer there to.
Then it's releasing my oak and wild apple trees as time and weather permit this year. No fun plowing thru the woods in a couple feet of snow.
Working on some hinging in two sanctuaries.
Plant some fruit and oak trees in the spring.
Hoping for 7 good days of work from now thru April.

 

[HomeintheWoods]

I wouldn't save lime for oak trees. They grow well in acidic soil. N ot the best use of lime by a long shot. Glad to see you're working on some of the natural habitat too. Some landowners focus all their energy on foodplots.

 

[HomeintheWoods]

Angus - great projects. Get the benefit of creating browse to help widlife during the winter. And those projects will help the small game tremendously.

 

[angus]

Angus - great projects. Get the benefit of creating browse to help widlife during the winter. And those projects will help the small game tremendously.

Yeah. We have deer around with all of the agriculture. The small game is whats hurting. Rabbits, Quail, pheasant, turkey, deer, will all benefit from the work. A lot of the work will focus on escape cover to help mitigate predation as well as removing as many Hawk Perches as possible.

Will be doing work on other properties around the area as well hopefully.

 

[ng270]

I have far more on the "to do" list than what will actually get done, that's for sure! This was our first year owning and hunting the property (in KY), so lots to do, now that we have a better feel for how the deer use the place.

1) Meet the state (free) wildlife biologist and/or forester on site this winter to get some input from him/them.

2) Develop a plan to create a screen/hedgerow to add seclusion for the rear 2 acres of one of my fields. The deer have already shown that they want to feed there, and cut across it during the rut; it's just too visible from the road.

3) Do some TSI in a 5 acre hardwood section that is pretty park-like. (Pending forester's advice)

4) Edge feather another field, both to screen a bit of the view from the neighbors, and to provide better edge cover.

5) Attempt to thin the coon and predator population.

6) Frost seed clover in my plots late this winter.

7) (April) Plant some more wild plum, get some crabapples, persimmons, and pears started.

8) (April) Replace the Norways that we lost this past year in our road screen planting with new LL/P seedlings.

9) Plots need lime; a couple need some P & K, so will be working on that as time permits this winter and spring. (Have to spread by hand)

Lots more to do, but as I said, so much to do, so little time . . .

 

[HomeintheWoods]

My list has looked like that for 20 years. All of it never gets done but some of it always does.
Most of those have been on my list, and some still are. For instance, today we spent a few hours cutting soft maple in a park like area. It's been on our list for quite some time and with the recent purchase of a utv we can get to it after a 15 minute ride. Most of what we cut was 2 to 8 inch soft maple to give us some structure on the forest floor. It's a great area when there's a heavy acorn crop, but can be pretty barren other years. It'll take many more trips before we put much of a dent in it. Kind of like a lot of habitat projects.

 

[RB]

Running chains thru wood...PERIOD, my place needs to get thicker and a canopy change.

 

[outofstater]

I shared about last feb. i seeded an area with orchard grass and some clover. It came in so thick almost like ayard and everyone said the deer wouldnt eat orchard grass. 4 evenings during rifle season i had 3 does and aspike come in and eat even at bow range. Guess in the middle of woods they like the green grass. My clover wasent that heavy of strand

 

[archeryman32]

Cut, cut, cut, and more cut. I have a large stand of very mature pine. It use to be great, but now they are shading everything out and the whole area is a wasteland. I'm going to thin them out pretty good, maybe leave a few for shelter wood.

Also, myself and several neighbors are saving up all our ashes from woodstoves. It's basically like free lime. Spread that around everytime I get a hundred pounds or so.

 

[HomeintheWoods]

I have a 13 acre stand of volunteer white pine that we used to have to crawl through. Now they are tall enough that they only provide thermal cover with limited ground level cover. There is a mix of seed source bull white pines, and younger ones that no longer have bottom branches. Mixed in are your typical hardwoods in very limited quantity. At this point I would love to see it all cut down and replaced with a pine/spruce mix. I just have no real way to get it cleared.

 

[westonhunter]

I did an edge feathering around one of my foodplots about 4 years ago.I think I will now cut all that down an expand my one foodplot.Cut some bigger trees for fire wood that will make another foodplot bigger.Maintain all my tree sheltors,try growing some Dunstan chestnuts from seed.Do some more hinge cutting,prune my fruit trees.Transplant some apple and pear trees I have been growing in 5 gal. buckets for 3 yrs.Prune and spray my older fruit trees,plant 600 norway spruce.Spray round up around hundreds of trees already planted last couple years.This will keep me busy till around spring turkey.

 

[rrroae]

I wouldn't save lime for oak trees. They grow well in acidic soil. N ot the best use of lime by a long shot.

....

+1


Oak and Chestnut do better in acidic soil. Save the lime for your fruit trees or food plots.

 

[RonM]

Dont lime oak trees.....find an area where sunlight gets in work it up a little and lime it then about late July first of Aug seed some turnips, the deer will definately hit them hard after a frost, or use rape or kale or try all three in seperate little plots , you will not be sorry....

 

[Esox_Hunter]

Well I may not be as seasoned as some here, but I do have some goals for next year based on some of my rookie mistakes.

Goal 1 is to expand our brassica plot. The acre we planted this year came in great, but now is a field of mud with just a few turnips left around. We have the room to double it and we fully intend to do so.

Goal 2 is to attempt to salvage the remnants of our "clover" plot, which is now primarily rye. Lesson learned on my end that annual rye grass can and will re-germinate! We are going to try to establish a perrenial clover plot.

Goal 3 is to try and re-establish some native grasses in an area left in ruins from former strip mining operations.

Lastly, we are going to set planting deadlines and actually stick to them!! A week or two can make all the difference.

 

[HomeintheWoods]

esox - sounds like some good projects (for spring and summer). Some of the most valuable projects can be done during the winter. Do you have any thoughts about, or is your rookie status, part of why you haven't developed a plan for this winter?

 

[Born2Hunt]

Some chain saw work, clear out around some of the young oak tree saplings planted a few years back plus some of the natural ones, soil testing, order lime, fertilizer and seed for corn, clover, fruit trees and something new.

After the season do some baiting and hedge cutting for camera sights to see what the current population is like after hunting is over.

 

[Esox_Hunter]

esox - sounds like some good projects (for spring and summer). Some of the most valuable projects can be done during the winter. Do you have any thoughts about, or is your rookie status, part of why you haven't developed a plan for this winter?

Part of it is my lack of knowledge and the other part is that we are not authorized to damage any large living trees. I would welcome any suggestions you may have for some winter projects that don't involve cutting standing timber.

 

[HomeintheWoods]

Esox - I think of winter as being exclusively chainsaw work. Maybe it's an education process with the landowner (if it's privately owned) to get them to understand the long term benefit of Timber Stand Improvement (TSI). For the most part it's cutting low-value (no timber or wildlife value) trees to reduce competition and create space for higher value trees. Winter is a good time for that activity if you understand tree species well because the forest is relatively open and wildlife benefits immediately when the browse hits the forest floor.