DSI

[bobby s]

Great job Mike. Thanks for sharing. I'm doing similar work on my wood lot and finding your posts very informative. Looking forward to more!
Bob

[John Mc]

I dont think they [poplar] provide much in the way of deer food, but i will have to monitor that this summer to be sure. Perhaps theyll eat the leaves. Definitely no signs of interest in bud tips. I imagine poplar is pretty important for birds and bees but dont hold me to it.

Around here. they will browse on poplar saplings in the winter. It's not really their preferred food, but they'll eat it if there isn't better stuff around. A lot of Vermont is even-aged forest, more on the mature side (came about when the sheep farms were all abandoned many years ago, so a lot of land reverted to forest around the same time). So when winter rolls around, that patch cut that someone made that is full of early poplar regeneration can be popular with the deer. It can also be a matter of convenience or energy conservation for them: it's hard work moving through deep snow, so sometimes what's easiest to reach is what they eat first.

It sounds as though the work you are doing is providing enough of their preferred foods that they are leaving the poplar alone.

[mike_belben]

Thanks bobby

Yeah, definitely a matter of food options john.  As browse sources run out they will eat coarser and courser foods with less nutrient and poorer digestibility.  Like a horse, theyll "starve" with a stomach full of bark and twig.


My place now has way more food than deer.. Infact that doe was the lone survivor ive seen recently.  There was a big fiesty buck over winter but he may have been poached.  This region used to have trophies clanging antlers right here in my yard, but theyre gone now. The drug epidemic made a lot of new hungry people and their culture is to take all that theyre able, whenever they are able.  

[thecfarm]

mike,I was out in the woods today and I cut down a crooked cedar for the deer. The deer will find it and enjoy the greens. It will look like fishbones tomorrow. ;D
I did have to hook onto to it to pull it down. I backed up with it, to break off some branches. Get a group of deer together and they drive off the smaller ones. As I stand there and watch them do it, I tell them, no wonder he's small, you drive him away from the food. ;D
I saw 9 deer when I was driving down into the woods.

[mike_belben]

5 poachers and 3 yote packs will fix that for ya

[thecfarm]

Not much problems with poaches. There was something a few years back. Someone had a night scope. Shoot and leave them. The hunters was mad and I mean mad. First off shooting deer out of season,second thing,just leaving them. Seem like they got caught.
Them coyotes are a problem. Sometimes I hear them down by the pond and sometimes behind the house.

[Skeans1]

I don't understand this at all why take a property that has potential to be productive, a good thinning you should have material coming up for the critters. Different side of the country but out here a year after we thin you can't even tell we've been in the area other then a small landing with light between the trees. We were in this patch a year earlier 

[mike_belben]

I dont mean for this to sound offensive but theres not a much better way for me to say it.  You may not be familiar with the effect of continual highgrading on a eastern hardwood stand.  When you remove every sawlog, every time and dont remove the twizzlers and snapped off storm trees, eventually you run out of sawlogs and only have firewood.  The mill collects the sawlogs while the stand collects the rejects.  Eventually, the rejects achieve dominance.  If they are healthy and never harvested or culled, it could be 200 years before a replacement.  However it is very likely there will be a twisty turd in the mid story ready to get ontop. So the species mix changes dramatically too.  

That said, i am only an amatuer and i hope everyone takes me with a grain of salt.  Im only one rung above guessing.  

Let me ask you a question.  If you are in a fir stand and cut out say 3 prime firs, what will resprout in its place?

(Nice aim btw!)

[Pclem]

mike,I was out in the woods today and I cut down a crooked cedar for the deer. The deer will find it and enjoy the greens. It will look like fishbones tomorrow. ;D
I did have to hook onto to pull it down. I backed up with it,to break off some branches. Get a group of deer together and they drive off the smaller ones. As I stand they and watch them do it,I tell them,no wonder he's small,you drive him away from the food. ;D
I saw 9 deer when I ws driving down into the woods.

When I was a teenager, two weeks prior to deer season, I built a beautiful ground blind on the edge of a cedar/balsam swamp with fresh cut boughs. Man, it looked nice. I sat in the middle seeing in my mind ol mossyhorns comin through. Come opening morning, I had no cover :D

[Skeans1]

I dont mean for this to sound offensive but theres not a much better way for me to say it.  You may not be familiar with the effect of continual highgrading on a eastern hardwood stand.  When you remove every sawlog, every time and dont remove the twizzlers and snapped off storm trees, eventually you run out of sawlogs and only have firewood.  The mill collects the sawlogs while the stand collects the rejects.  Eventually, the rejects achieve dominance.  If they are healthy and never harvested or culled, it could be 200 years before a replacement.  However it is very likely there will be a twisty turd in the mid story ready to get ontop. So the species mix changes dramatically too.  

That said, i am only an amatuer and i hope everyone takes me with a grain of salt.  Im only one rung above guessing.  

Let me ask you a question.  If you are in a fir stand and cut out say 3 prime firs, what will resprout in its place?

(Nice aim btw!)

Mike we don't high grade when we thin the only nice trees that come out will be a row tree or if you have something crowded. If I have three good firs with nothing behind them I'll leave them say there's another one behind them that shaded out I'll take one to release a tree you try for two sides open in a personal stand. That's slipping one off the stump for an idea.

[John Mc]

Yep... there is quite a difference between thinning and highgrading. In fact, done right, thinning can be the opposite of highgrading: you are putting work into the stand to improve what remains for the future.

[mike_belben]

Yes, i do EXACTLY the opposite of a highgrading.. I find the biggest primest tree first, then make decisions on how to protect it, help it grow and give it ideal conditions to clone itself. 

Plenty of literature is written on good forestry (the best i have ever seen is the free 100 page landowner guide PDF on tennessee timber consultants resource page)

Plenty is written on good deer herd management.  QDMA.org leads that field.  

 What i have never encountered is a merger of the two, where one weighs the pros and cons of each tree on the merits of its future timber value, and current browse/structure value.  If i knew more about birds and other critters i would try to incorporate that too.  

So thats why im trying to profile my observations with each species.  With just a little more information one can say well, i know this one will make winter feed and this one will sprout a lot of branches they dont like to eat but love to hide behind.. And both are low quality, poor form trees that are stepping on that clean red oaks toes which is in the top pay bracket at the mill.. And drops lots of necessary hard mast.. So im gonna grow this one by laying this here and that there and Im confident this is a good decision.   

I cover so much more ground without looking back when im confident in how im doing things.  Its actually fun.  

[John Mc]

Mike -  That's exactly what drew me to VT Coverts:Woodlands for Wildlife. The organization focuses on wildlife, but recognizes that landowners don't necessarily have just one goal for their land. You can be interested in wildlife and still have an interest in managing for timber value. To me, it's an interesting conversation to have (with yourself or with knowledgeable friends or professionals) about how best to balance those goals.  As you said, working this stuff out can be fun.

[mike_belben]

In TN most sawlogs are grown on private property.  Thats a lot of different people with a lot of different plans.  It can only serve to my benefit if i am able to say who are you and what are your goals here?  Okay, here is how i can do that.  Come to my lab if you want to see what your scrub tangle can look like.  


Some encouragement.   These bucks were all taken around here before the herd was depleted. 

[Stephen Alford]

  Just thinking about your woodlot. What comes to mind when considering your species/children activities mushrooms come to mind. Some folks hunt mushrooms by learning to identify tree species that particular shroom they want is associated with.  Have no idea what the market in your area is for editable or medicinal shrooms would be like. Considering the snake issue maybe there is some potential for Chaga mushrooms which are harvested in the colder months from live trees. My kids have worked in the woods with me and I treasure those times.    Sadly from the sounds of your drug problem there would be a huge demand for ol magics.   Police here used to train their dogs chasing shoomers. You would be working away and this panicked individual would go rippin by with a hound on his heals. The officer told me they were not usually charged cause like I said the dogs were not trained.. enough said :D

[mike_belben]

.  Id love to see some of my meth monkeys running from rin tin tin.  

Never thought about mushrooms at all.  The magic ones are dung loving psilocybe.. Now that you mention it, i ate my share of em as a teenage idiot.  Now i say prayers with my kids at the bus stop.  People can change i guess.  

Almost stepped on a huge black snake yesterday out checking cams.  Theyre harmless and eat copperhead babies so ill never kill one, but they still make me jump.  Definitely dont want the kids out there poking under logs. my son would think a baby copperhead was a worm and go right for it. "Dad its sooo cyoooooot!"

  Im in a hurry to finish up this seasons DSI because the ticks and snakes will get bad real soon. i try to stay out most of summer. 

[TKehl]

I would think you would get Morels out your way.  Real good eating but also bring good $ if you can find a good patch.

[mike_belben]

Well, eating is a favorite past time .. Guess ill hafta dig out that north american field guide.  I know its in a box somewhere!

[TKehl]

A good thing is it's hard to confuse them with anything other than a False Morel.  The false one has a solid stem if I remember right.  Real ones are hollow.

A springtime treat for sure.  I think they come out with the ticks though.  :(

[mike_belben]

I keep forgetting to park this link here. 

Know Your Native Deer Foods | QDMA

[mike_belben]

Reckon its been long enough for an update.



This spot was formerly a dark, closed canopy with nothing on the floor but leaf litter and the occasional shade tolerant briar (often black and dead) in a tight understory of 2" dbh red maples, black gums and dead or dying twisted hardwood sapplings that would never see the sky.  Between the mostly pathetic sawtimber was a replacement stand of pure trash.  This describes any normal TN woods.

  A chainsaw is the best tool i ever brought out there.  Not missing any of the trees i thinned, and i thin pretty heavy. 

I recently discovered wild blueberry when passing a shrub that had fruit on it.  Im very attentive, there has never been fruit before.  Nor on the tree climbing vines i always trimmed back. hardly any blackberries either.

Few years later you cannot walk through the place at all.  I keep the main trail open by annually scraping the grasses and thin new topsoil off with the dozer into a big compost pile that has become my food plot soil, just a mound of fertile dirt i toss extra seeds in with no additional care.

I recently made this to keep the trails scraped clean and it works great

My helper next to the food plot.. Growing up too fast.

Underneath the tangle of heavy brush is a bed of baby blackberries coming up all over. 





There are berries on shrubs hardly ankle high beneath a tangle of 5 to 10ft regen where a fawn or rabbit can stay out of the eyes of coyotes and hawks.  This clearing is near a creek and ive created a few sinks to hold rainwater so they can bed, eat and drink while concealed, with very short travel distances.  The thickness of brush now provides lots of shade for relief from the summer heat when fawns are most vulnerable.  

There are also abundant blackberries EVERYWHERE now.



The vines that now have sun also have grapes








The tracks i get indicate does are fawning here every summer despite the closeness to humans. I think my scent keeps the coyotes from ever coming all the way in to me.. Ive tried to bait them many times.  Theyre always howling just a few hundred yards further back at an abutting pasture or along my back boundary.  I havent found a deer carcass in 2 years so the thick brush is favoring the deer.  


Songbirds, owls and all that have definitely increased dramatically.
Anyways, if youve got some dark junky woods that wont ever produce anything, take a saw to it and keep a trail open.  The sun will totally renovate the place for you and the critters will show up. 

[mike_belben]

This is where im getting the new topsoils.  Scrape JUUUST down to the first hint of clay and roll the summer grass, fall leaves, sticks bugs dirt and all that into a pile to compost.  Then push it all the other way the following year.  Every spring the weeds and briars break the hardpan and then grasses come in.  Knee high every year.  


Ive got radish, corn and lettuce seed starting in there now.  When summer breaks ill put in turnip and kale





I dont have many images during summer for a "before" look but you can see the contrast here in this wall of shade/light.  Look at how sparse the ground vegetation is and how little concealment it offered.  




Another untouched spot.  One more round of highgrading and this place would be better off as a hayfield.






All rubbish.












Deer will move freely in an open field where they can see predators from afar and run in any direction.  In the woods they want their motions to be fully hidden from view so thickets, brush walls and especially corridors of soft regen bring comfort for daytime travel from bedding to water.

[mike_belben]

Was picking blackberries today out back and saw something ive never seen in any of the woods ive scouted around here.  A print from a deer heavy enough to leave dew claw marks.  I guess its working. 

[Ed_K]

 That must be a pretty big deer, happy you got the woods working for you.

[cutterboy]

Mike, I just read this whole thread and I'm impressed with what you've done. It seems to me that most people can't see beyond tomorrow and thus never make any long range plans. But you have and it's already paying off. Good for you!

BTW, that's a fine looking young man you're raising.