The Regeneration Opening (pic intensive)

[crazy4saws]

While doing some research, I came across this thread and just finished reading it. Excellent thread, the pictures are great.

I was looking at doing this same thing in my woods with the ultimate goal of creating oak regeneration. I have a good amount of red oak with a few white oak but the young saplings are not in the under story.

My question is this. Instead of letting nature take its course with the openings you created why not plant select 1 year oak saplings in the clearings either row planting or spot planting? This way you control what will be growing there?

Also with regards to the deer and rabbit issues would the growing tubes or tree shelters or even plastic mesh solve this issue? I understand these protection devices are expensive but if it produces a better oak regeneration than to me it would be worth it.

[mike_belben]

Ive been observing deer chewing very closely in a clearing i cut at my place.. They go bonkers for red maple and sourwood sprouts.. Which is great because those species coppice abundantly here.  I have deer come through and chew on those every night without minding the oaks at all. 

Give them an abundance of alternative food and youre oak odds will be much improved. 

[TKehl]

I'll second what Mike said based on what my goats (little deer) go after.  They hit the Elm, Hackberry, Locust, Mulberry, and Hedge hard.  They'll eat a little Oak and Walnut, but won't seek it out and it's far from first choice.

Thorny overgrown areas also can help regrowth.  Have left a couple blackberry patches in the pasture go a few years because I like to pick them with the kids.  This year was the first time I noticed 2-3 6' Black Walnut saplings poking up through the 5' canes.  Guess I'll let them grow now.   ;)

[mike_belben]

Thats a good point too, i built a gnarly thicket in order to hold more deer via bedding down, around a creek bed under my stand.  I was doing TSI on the whole place but for this spot i just switched to intentionally barber chairing everything i would have normally culled and dragged out.   Naturally with all that water and sunlight it bushed into a heck of a tangle with all those live tops laid out overlapping everywhere.  Got so thick i lost the deer for a while and had to cut access notches into it. 

So basically, and i never thought of this.. Pick a spot thats already too thick with rubbish that ought be culled, plant your heirloom oak acorns harvested from a treasured crop tree (best to release other oaks around it to avoid confusion) and plant them in a protective thicket youve built by barber chairing a barrier ring around it. 

Coppicing a few little maple bolts around this makeshift fort will provide adequate alternative feed.  Deer are surprisingly lazy and fairly easy to reroute if you get to know their habits.

The open canopy but bushy ground layer inside the seedling fort will also help promote straight vertical stems as your oaks endeavor not to be over shadowed by the early competition.  Let those new maples, gums, and other shade tolerant species come back to help reduce side branching on the oaks as they reach for the canopy.  You want the sun to be a spotlight from from directly overhead, not a side light from the horizon.  That just bends stems and fills them with branches.

[JOE.G]

Any updates?

[WDH]

I would love to see an update, too, but OneWithWood has gone AWOL. 

[red]

Time to stop being a wannabe is another posting from OWW . . That was my alltime favorite posting 

[SwampDonkey]

I would love to see an update, too, but OneWithWood has gone AWOL.

Have not seen a post in 4 years, in any topic.