What Are You Planting This Spring?

Tree Spud

5 year old buck +
Well my 1st batch of apple trees arrived this week so the planting marathon begins.

I have a number of apples focused on deer food from bow season to late season. Apples & crabs to expand my cider orchard. Some apples for eating. And conifers for thermal cover & bedding.

Here is what I am planting this spring:
1 - Trailman Crab
1 - Wild Crab
2 - Centennial Crab
5 - Chesnut Crab
3 - Buckman Crab
3 - Kerr Crab
7 - Wickson Crab
4 - Turning Point
3 - Crosbow
4 - 30-06 Crab
4 - Droptine
4 - Dolgo Crab
3 - Shepnose
3 - Grey Ghost
3 - Early Cider Crab
6 - Enterprise
6 - Liberty
2 - Redfield
2 - Asmead's Kernal
2 - Campfield
2 - Harrison
2 - Roxbury Russet

From County Tree Sale Program:
10 - American Plum
300 - Blue Spruce (2'-3' transplants)
50 - Black Hills Spruce
25 - Red Pine
 
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I planted 9 apples and crabs and a pear from my own nursery this year. I have 25 rootstocks coming today. Nothing else planned for the year. I'll just focus on food plots a little harder. Make sure your heating pad is tuned up Spud.
 
I planted 9 apples and crabs and a pear from my own nursery this year. I have 25 rootstocks coming today. Nothing else planned for the year. I'll just focus on food plots a little harder. Make sure your heating pad is tuned up Spud.

That and lots of Advil :emoji_wink:
 
50 - Norway spruce
50 - Balsam fir
10 - Washington hawthorn
1 - Big Dog
1 - Buckman
2 - Crabarina ******* The Big Dog, Buckman, and Crabarina's are from Blue Hill.
 
From my local NRCS
25- 2 gallon white cedar
8- 2 gallon black hills spruce
3- 2 gallon meyers spruce
25- 1 gallon white pine

From University of Idaho
5- common wild apple
5-burr oak gamble
5-concolor fir
5-Douglass fir
5-grand fir
5-western hemlock
5 western larch
5-frasier fir

All of the above will be in cages with weed mats.


Then I will go down the road and pull out approximately 200 balsam fir and white spruce to transplant into my land. I might do another 100-200 on some private land down the road that I have permission to hunt. I am thinking of heading north this weekend to start making cages and trying to do all the transplants.
 
To go:
Buckman crab
Turning point crab
Advent pear x 2
(Source Blue Hill)

25 ROD
25 silky (source Iowa DNR)

In (matted and caged, source MDC):
10 hazelnut
10 burr oak
25 roughleaf
10 elderberry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
50 Swamp Chestnut Oak
50 English Oak
25 Chinquapin Oak
6 Chinese Chestnut
3 Kiefer pear
2 Improved Kiefer pear
1 Moonglow pear
1 Ayres pear
1 Macintosh
1 Wolf river
2 Enterprise
2 Liberty
2 Empire
2 Sundance
2 Black Arkansas
2 NW Greening

I ordered most apples on M111 but I bury the graft so that’s of less importance. There where a couple trees with very tall grafts that I didn’t bury so I’ll get early production from them.

I've also planted around 300 or so acorns mostly in the red oak group and I have 300 stratified walnuts showing up any day.
My kids and I planted about 1200 walnuts last fall we collected locally.

I also have 5 Rootmaker trays in the family room of the house with various oak seedlings started from locally sourced heavy production trees.
 
From my local NRCS
25- 2 gallon white cedar
8- 2 gallon black hills spruce
3- 2 gallon meyers spruce
25- 1 gallon white pine

From University of Idaho
5- common wild apple
5-burr oak gamble
5-concolor fir
5-Douglass fir
5-grand fir
5-western hemlock
5 western larch
5-frasier fir

All of the above will be in cages with weed mats.


Then I will go down the road and pull out approximately 200 balsam fir and white spruce to transplant into my land. I might do another 100-200 on some private land down the road that I have permission to hunt. I am thinking of heading north this weekend to start making cages and trying to do all the transplants.
Those Common Wild Apple are kick as#

I bet I’ve planted 50, maybe had one die ?
 
Have fun with the walnuts! We planted a bunch when I was in junior high. It's been many years of fun trimming them and watching them grow. I know they don't get a lot of love on habitat forums. Hoping someone can buy a farm from their sales when I'm long gone.

25 grafts for the year. 3 different types of crabs. Would be tickled if I get 50% survival rate. I can still graft a few failed pear and apple roots in the nursery in a few weeks.

20210401_184914.jpg
 
We pull about $10,000-$20,000 of walnut logs off the place every 10 years or so I’m just replenishing some and adding them to areas of the farm that we only have junk tree along creek beds, rough ground ect.. places that farming isn’t really feasible. I figure if there are going to be trees in certain areas they may as well be worth something. I don’t really plant them for deer management reasons. I was stubbling around hoping for a few morels today (still a bit early I think) but I did find several very nice for our area black cherry trees. Was also cutting down female red cedar trees in a couple areas to curb their spread a bit. I like having some around for heavy cover but they spread horrible if left unchecked. We have around 5 acres of them that’s plenty. Controlled burning helps control them when small enough but we don’t burn every area of the farm every spring.
 
I got 20 hours of work in Friday and Saturday. I carried in 7 rolls of wire and 140 little post to their new home. Then I cleared 70 spots for new trees, cages and weed mats. Took 3 tanks through the chainsaw and a few hours on my hands and knees with the silky eliminating all the competition for 8+ hours of sun for my new trees. Got a few extra brush piles now. Then I made and formed all 70 cages. Now I just need to show up in a few weeks and plant the trees, put the weed mat down and stake the cages in and then things should be in God's hands.


Also came up with a quick way to measure my cages instead of dinking around with a tape measure. This greatly speeded up the process for me. I could make 10 cages from a 100 foot roll in about 15 mins from start to finish. Deer raised hell with my uncaged norways this winter. They tore half of them apart even with bud caps on them.


When that was all finished my brother and I went down the road and ripped out about 75 volunteer white spruce from the road ditch and planted them in our area. No ticks for me, no mosquitoes, but I damn near heat stroked myself anyways.

IMG_2991.JPGIMG_2994.JPGIMG_2996.JPG
 
^^ Wow, that's impressive! My back hurts just thinking about it.
 
I planned too much.

I’m in the middle of buying and selling real estate (not the farm) I’ve got about 20 apple/crab/pears coming. That’s not problem by it self, but then there are 6000 miscanthus rhizomes in the mix, about 15 acres of beans this spring and I need to either spring plant clover or prep for fall.

One day I’m not going to a darn thing....

and so did all you guys with all those trees!
 
That’s not problem by it self, but then there are 6000 miscanthus rhizomes in the mix
You have convinced me that I need some MG, I only ordered 100 from Maple River to start a small plot of them and harvest the rhizomes to plant for future screens. Pretty impressive screening tool to have in the toolbox!
 
Any of you guys that have established stands of MG how do you like it pro’s con’s anything better in your opinion? It may be something to add in a couple areas for some heavy cover. I wonder if cattle will eat it to death or if they leave it alone?
 
6 pawpaw
2 apples
10 chestnut

My focus this summer is cutting down tall pines with no wildlife benefit. I don't have any persimmon to plant right now but if I get time then I will pick up a few.
 
On Sunday I planted

13 Bebbs Oaks
19 Nuttall Oaks
17 Shuettes Oak
13 Overcup X Swamp White Oak
15 Sweet Idaho Bur Oak
24 Mid Mo Bur Oak
All those were sent to me at only the cost of shipping (from an anonymous member on this site) as acorns that I stratified in the crisper all winter :emoji_sunglasses:

I still have 19 Pecans and roughly 45 Sawtooth Oaks to plant this coming weekend.
I also ordered 4 Pears and 4 Persimmon from Blue Hill but those won't come until November. I am putting in a 1 acre food plot this year but planting isn't until August and only spraying until then so not very exciting lol
 
So far this spring I have planted;

4- Franklins
5- Briar Lane crabs
4-Dolgo
1-30-06
1-DropTine
2-Fire Cracker crabs
1- Enterprise
1-Sheepnose
1-Becton Pear
1-Gate Pear

7-pecan spikes to the nursery bed from pots today.
Later this week;
30- apple grafts to the nursery bed
12-pear grafts to the nursery bed

Will be putting a couple tomato and cucumber in garden along with some peppers in May.
 
So far this spring I have planted;

4- Franklins
5- Briar Lane crabs
4-Dolgo
1-30-06
1-DropTine
2-Fire Cracker crabs
1- Enterprise
1-Sheepnose
1-Becton Pear
1-Gate Pear

7-pecan spikes to the nursery bed from pots today.
Later this week;
30- apple grafts to the nursery bed
12-pear grafts to the nursery bed

Will be putting a couple tomato and cucumber in garden along with some peppers in May.
Where did you find the Franklin’s I would like to order a couple of them to try everyplace I’ve found them are sold out.
 
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