Requesting your opinions and/or ideas!

River-X

5 year old buck +
I recently purchased an additional 12 acres from my neighbor. The land adds on to my existing parcel. As of today, Oct. 11, due to wet conditions the last week and a half, the soybeans are still standing on this newly acquired land. My plan was to plant some chestnut trees out on the south end, a little ways off the fence line to create a pocket back there. And seed the rest into cereal rye for this winter.
Opinions/ideas needed as to if I will have any issues with planting those chestnuts if I continue to wait for the field to open up or if I should just plant them somewhere else so as not to wait ”too long” to get these in the ground. The trees are in 1 gallon fabric pots right now, are about 16”-18” tall with great leaf production. My concerns ( warranted or not ) are if the roots are being stressed due to space in the pots, or if planting these close to dormancy will reduce survival %. ?????
This pic shows my parcel in red boundary with new purchase in yellow. Fence line is on the south border. Soil is well drained sandy loam in South Central Wisconsin.
Trees were brought home in late August and I have been babying them daily. There are 50 trees waiting for their final resting spot.C8A0EEA6-4ECB-453A-B434-CCAAA6FD08C9.jpeg
 
I'd be planting trees on the west line to create an additional travel corridor. Not saying they necessarily be your chestnut trees but...
 
I agree 100%…however…The BOSS, aka the wife, says I can only plant trees and larger vegetation in the “back” corner. If you look at the way the house is situated, we have a beautiful view to the south west across the whole block because we sit slightly higher than the rest. So when you are in front of our house you can see all the way over to the other forested ground ( which by the way Is state DNR public hunting ground. So I can’t plant anything that will obstruct the view I guess.
 
Updated picture…dads ground is south of the dotted black line, mammas ground is north of it, but thankfully she wants me to put it into NWSG prairie. I don’t know if you can tell but I have pines planted back there that create a bowl shape around a small apple orchard. Those pines are now 16 yo and are about 25-30 feet tall so essentially they already block that view of the corner. But that corner is where we watch bucks feed in the soybeans during the summer, we can see back there from the shed.D0398C2D-40AD-4C31-A316-A1E3B9BAF8C4.jpeg
 
Not sure of your tree planting but.. I think I'd have a stand somewhere in that SE corner of that bean field where all those habitats come together. Wowza.
 
If the soybean field is going to stay a row crop field do not plant the trees there the roundup overspray will more than likely kill them. I would plant them to the east in that other opening on your existing ground. I personally would keep the farm ground farm ground let the row crop guy pay you to rent it and basically plant you a food plot every year on top of paying the taxes. If that’s what not what your into I’d plant those trees in that most southern and eastern part of the new property and draw a imagery line slightly farther south of your black dotted line and not allow the row crop farmer south of it to protect your trees from overspray if that’s where they have to live. I just walked a buddies property Sunday he was looking for ideas on where to plant fruit trees and chestnuts he very badly wanted to plant them down a draw that the row crop farmer has beens planted on both sides of. I told him that would be very short lived orchard dead the first time the row crop guy sprayed his beens next year with roundup.
 
That’s a good point. Are chestnut trees highly sensitive to herbicide, meaning more so than other trees? The trees I intend to plant will likely be at least 50 yards away from the neighbors ag.
 
I'd also talk to the farmer to make sure he doesn't have some longer duration residuals on that ground. I'm not up on soybean chems, but there are some that cause rotation restrictions out past two growing seasons.
 
Not sure of your tree planting but.. I think I'd have a stand somewhere in that SE corner of that bean field where all those habitats come together. Wowza.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^this

A true converging hub of multiple terrain features( forest funnel,inside corner,fenceline cover,etc)

bill
 
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