Black spruce spacing

[chummer]

Behind my food plot is a wet area that eventually turns into a stream and splits two points deer bed on. I wanted to plant black spruce from my plot to the bedding. Probably 300 yards. My stand is at the half way point. My hope is it screens me getting to the stand and will encourage the deer to follow it to the plot. Where the deer bed is the neighbors property so I can not cut anything there. How much sun do black spruce need, how far apart, and how wet can they take. This is like a muck area with standing water in spring and fall. There are a few dry humps. I have 200 ordered, will that be enough?

 

[Tree Spud]

Black spruce is shade tolerant. It is a slow grower though so you should temper your thoughts of a screening effect for a while.

Plant 2-3 rows with spruce 9' apart & maybe 12' between rows. You could make the rows wider and plant tag alder in between the rows for a faster screening effect.

 

[chummer]

How slow is slow? This plot is where all my apples are. I figure it will be at least ten years before they are producing. This is kind of a thinking way down the road deal. Do you think planted in mostly shade they will reach 5-7' in ten years.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

it will grow best on the dry humps, so I'd plant as many trees as you can on the high spots first and then go back in and fill in the remaining trees. I have about 30 acres black spruce/tamarac swamp and I have a problem with volunteer black spruce that keep growing in my shooting lanes. There are some young spindly looking seedlings growing in the full canopy areas with little sunlight, but in the full sunlight found in my shooting lanes they grow thick and fast (12" per year is pretty fast for swamp grown black spruce in my experience). Keep in mind that these young trees will be magnets for buck rubs in a few years, so it probably wouldn't hurt to leave a few trees in the area to take some of the rubbing pressure off these spruce.

I agree with tree spud's spacing recommendation, but I'd also recommend concentrating as many as possible trees on dryer humps.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

How slow is slow? This plot is where all my apples are. I figure it will be at least ten years before they are producing. This is kind of a thinking way down the road deal. Do you think planted in mostly shade they will reach 5-7' in ten years.

Black spruce can grow super slow in very wet areas and/or areas with lots of shade. When making shooting lanes, I would cut down 15 foot tall trees that were 50 years old. It seemed like the wetter the area was, the more stunted the trees would become. The dryer sections of the swamp would have much larger trees.

They will definitely grow faster if you can plant them in at least partial sun. I think 5-7' in 10 years is possible if you can give them some sun to start and reduce competition a bit as they grow. Spruce are very slow to start and they'll likely only grow a couple inches a year for the first 2-3 years. I planted some black spruce on dry ground on my land and by year 3 or 4 they were growing a foot per year.

 

[Tree Spud]

What Ben said ... ditto ... :)