A few habitat pics I thought you might enjoy

[Bill]

Good to know, I asked because my switch has more yellow in it than I've ever seen.

How early or late do spray? I really didn't notice how much I had til it flowered. I like some in there just for diversity but I don't want to loose the switch.

The bad thing is I don't want to hurt the red cedars coming on. I know most people hate red cedars but I love some cedars in a native gras field. Makes for great bedding.

 

[Native Hunter]

Good to know, I asked because my switch has more yellow in it than I've ever seen.

How early or late do spray? I really didn't notice how much I had til it flowered. I like some in there just for diversity but I don't want to loose the switch.

The bad thing is I don't want to hurt the red cedars coming on. I know most people hate red cedars but I love some cedars in a native gras field. Makes for great bedding.

The few times I have spot sprayed it, I have done it in the late spring with good results. It starts earlier than the native grasses and is tall enough to see well by the time they start growing well. It's also young and tender then, and seems to respond well to the spraying.

I saw another field that someone else did in late spring this year, and it looked like they got a good kill too. Not sure though if they used only 24D.

As for the red cedars, I like them too, but mostly establishing them in internal fence rows.

 

[Bill]

Thank you, need to make a note to scout the field in late April.

 

[Native Hunter]

Thank you, need to make a note to scout the field in late April.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Congrats on the first chestnut! Those trees look like they were well taken care of and great price too!

 

[2ndHand]

Your photo's are great - really enjoy seeing all the habitat work you have done...nice job!...;)

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks everyone.

NH Mountains, those acorns are off of a Chestnut Oak tree. They are some of the first to drop around here.

 

[Native Hunter]

I haven't updated this thread for a while but wanted to today. We had such great weather here the last two day I couldn't resist getting out and doing some habitat work. I put some permanent tags on some trees set last spring, did some cleaning out under fruit trees, pruned some apple trees, and general orchard type maintenance.

First job was to repair a cage that a deer apparently hung its antlers in. I had 2 electric fence post holding the cage. One post was gone, and I found the cage 75 feet from the tree all bent up. We don't have bears, so I can't come up with another explanation other than a deer.



I had to admire this apple tree today and pruned it a little. It's one of several full sized trees I planted in 2008. Most of my trees were pruned to a central leader, but I didn't do that on this one. This tree was a small whip when I set it in the fall of 08. It's a Milam. No fruit yet but had blooms last spring for the first time. Full sized trees are slower to bear.



This is a pear I set last spring. It was just a stub that had been pruned at the nursery with no limbs. The top of the ribbon is the top of the stub. All those limbs grew last year.



Another pear set last spring:



Tags:



Still plenty of acorns at my farm. We were loaded last year:



This mineral lick was started last year. They have dug 6 inches deep already:



This is a small volunteer serviceberry thicket in my woods. All I did to promote it was clear out any competition that came up. It's this thick with fairly heavy shade.



I'm always tinkering around, so I dug up some holly trees in the woods and set them at a place I want screening. As slow as these grow, I will be dead before they provide any. Has anyone ever seen a deer rub a holly???



I had a ball out working in 50 degree weather. We are cooling back up starting tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed the update.

 

[scott44]

Great pics! I'l be awhile before we have 50deg days. Good growth on those pear trees.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Pics like these get me through the post deer season Blues! Tks for posting! Man your pear trees put on way more growth than my moonglows an Kiefers a from burnt ridge!

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks guys. Yep, I was really happy with the pear growth. These were some of the ones I ordered from Wildlife Group, and they had really good roots.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Good looking apple & pear trees Native. I put mineral licks out too. Yours looks like it's getting worked over pretty well. Every little bit helps bodies & antlers. Did you plant serviceberry on your place to start with or are they ALL volunteer? I have some serviceberry ordered for camp to put in this spring. New for our camp.

 

[Native Hunter]

Good looking apple & pear trees Native. I put mineral licks out too. Yours looks like it's getting worked over pretty well. Every little bit helps bodies & antlers. Did you plant serviceberry on your place to start with or are they ALL volunteer? I have some serviceberry ordered for camp to put in this spring. New for our camp.

Thanks Bowsnbucks. The serviceberry thicket in the picture is all volunteer. There is a low spot in those woods at that place, and not many species can take the shade and moist soil both. There will be a few other trees come up in that spot, but it doesn't take much work to keep it almost pure serviceberry. I also occasionally cut a tree or two at the edge of it to let a little more light in.

I also have some serviceberry that were purchased and planted in rows out in the more open spaces. These have lived well but never seem to spread like the native ones. But it does seem like they fruit a little more. That's probably because they are getting a little more sunlight.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

The ones you bought & planted - are they a named variety ( hybrid ) or just native plants grown in a nursery? I see there are some hybrid selections out there on the market, but I've never grown any - yet !!

 

[Native Hunter]

The ones you bought & planted - are they a named variety ( hybrid ) or just native plants grown in a nursery? I see there are some hybrid selections out there on the market, but I've never grown any - yet !!

The ones at the farm a just native plants from a nursery. I tried two of the named varieties at my home and lost them both.

I did some work at the farm today and took a picture of one of the run of the mill trees I planted there. As you can see, it is still holding berries at this time of year. I bought these from a guy and don't know where he got them. All I know is that he went out of state somewhere to get them. The price was right - 70 cents apiece. These have been in the ground about 10 years and were just little whips when set.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Wow. I never knew or heard of serviceberry holding fruit that long. I thought they were a once-and-done June harvest kind of thing. Good to know - learned something here. Thanks for posting the pic, Native.

 

[Native Hunter]

Wow. I never knew or heard of serviceberry holding fruit that long. I thought they were a once-and-done June harvest kind of thing. Good to know - learned something here. Thanks for posting the pic, Native.

I'm a little puzzled by it too. The volunteer service berries here might have an occasional dried up berry at this time of the year still hanging on, but these berries are actually soft and have a decent taste to them. When I first noticed this a couple of years ago, I thought it might have something to do with the trees coming from a different place, but I doubt he went very far to buy them. A F&W guy told me he thought the fellow went to Missouri, which makes me think he could have bought them from MDC. That's not very far away - I don't really know....

 

[Native Hunter]

I had another great day working outside recently and snapped a few more pictures. Thought I would share a few of them:

Last year in the spring I cut down a Sawtooth Oak at a spot that I changed my mind about wanting one. Low and behold when I went back to that spot this spring it had grown back out as shown below. This time I took the time to dig it up and transplant it. Check out the taproot:





Planting unprotected white pines here is almost impossible. The only ones that survive is where briers grow up all around the trees. The bucks don't like to stick their heads in the briers. As you can see, this one didn't have any briers...LOL:



Speaking of briers, get a load of this spot...LOL.



Occasionally one will survive getting rubbed. Here is one big enough that they won't hit it anymore that got rubbed a few years ago. Healing underway:



This is only the second time I have ever had a deer hit a tree protected with 4 inch drain pipe - usually they won't touch them. This deer destroyed the Red Mulberry I had planted and even busted the pipe into pieces. Someone must have stole his girlfriend.



Turnips just go to waste here except for the ones I eat myself. I ate some of these and they were still tasty:



I pruned this Kieffer. It's getting about the right size to start putting out a good crop:



I am amazed at the number of volunteer persimmons that have come up in my tree planting. Below shows a pic of a Witch Hazel that I planted and the flag in on a volunteer persimmon that came up beside it. I'm going to bet that in 4 rows of trees I have 30 very similar that just came up. Someday I will have to make some choices on what to keep - and possibly do some persimmon grafting:



Check out this interesting scrape:



I have walked under this 50 times and hadn't seen it before the other day. I have a camera on this tree:



My unique cherry tree. Don't ask me how this happened, because I don't know:





Red Cedars are like weeds here. But sometimes I dig a few up and set them where I would like screening. It's cheap trees:



You northern guys aren't the only ones that can have snow. I stayed inside this day:



The day after I was working I got daylight pics of two coyotes at the same spot I was working the day before. Next few weeks should be good for hunting with a rifle since its getting time for mating season.





That's about it for now. Got many jobs to do this spring, but they will need to wait a few days.

 

[sandbur]

Thanks for the tour.

My turnips and beets are ignored, also.

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks for the tour.

My turnips and beets are ignored, also.

Isn't is just crazy how at some places they are devoured and other places ignored.... I never have understood it!