Fall-Winter Food

[shawnv]

My property has probably has 25-35 mature apple and crab apple trees that are producing fruit and several new shoots that have come up. I honestly don't know what kind I have but there are a few different varieties. Some drop in Sept and some hold until later winter. I also have smooth bark sumac, blackberry and elderberry all over and will have a lot of shoots coming up from the area that has already been hinge cut and what will be logged later this winter.

With that said I would like to introduce another food source for browse. What in your opinion are options worth consideration (Non-food plot choices...that is set) For reference, this property sits on a limestone ridge with sandy loam topsoil in Western WI.

 

[Terrific_tom]

Red oiser dogwood along with some of the other dogwoods wood be a good browse choice.

 

[Freeborn]

Black Chokeberry is a huge draw at my place and easy to find. You will need to protect them when they are first planted but they grow pretty fast. I ordered another 50 this year.

 

[foggy]

Red oiser dogwood along with some of the other dogwoods wood be a good browse choice.

I planted a long row of this some years back. In my situation, you need to protect it......as the deer nip it off faster than it will grow. Mine is gone now.

 

[Terrific_tom]

I planted a long row of this some years back. In my situation, you need to protect it......as the deer nip it off faster than it will grow. Mine is gone now.

If you can get it established it is a preferred deer browse. Shawn said he has elderberry on property so he may get the dogwood to survive.

 

[wiscwhip]

The ones previously mentioned are great browse, and add ninebark, buttonbush, beauty berry, common chokecherry, American plum, and hazelnut.

 

[West Branch]

Like foggy said they red osier dogwood needs some sort of protection. I transplanted some this spring right in front of my cabin and <40 ft from the road and the deer nipped them off last month. I was hoping to establish them there and eventually use them for cuttings.

I noticed some ROD in my willow/alder thicket area behind the cabin last month that were a few feet tall. They seemed to be growing from closer to alder or willow shrubs and the areas that reached beyond the branches were browsed by deer. Made me think that planting them in the tops of downed trees would work? Then they should be able to get established before being browsed. Or just plant a ton of them and win by #s.

We have a ton of hazelnut all over our property and you can see the browse on it, but it doesn't seem like that has any problems regenerating.

We have some patches of a (wild?) rose that has pink flowers and I have noticed quite a bit of browse on that. The biggest patch of those that I know about is partially protected by old concrete from a homestead so they are somewhat protected from being over browsed. They seem to have spread quite a bit by suckers.

 

[dipper]

I suspect I have more diversity than u think. Your generation sounds robust, what you are seeing is the most aggressive species dominating the landscape. Learn to Id more desirable species, and control the nearby aggresive stuff.
I just don't see the point of having to buy stuff when you have all sorts of regeneration. Maybe it's just me

 

[shawnv]

The browse is not evenly distributed on my place so I want to add more on the end where it's lacking and adjacent to the plots. All good suggestions!

 

[sandbur]

Why are you lacking browse?

Too many deer in the past?

closed canopy? If so, open it up.

Grassy area with nor browse? Spray with round up and lightly disk 1/2 half of it. Se what is in the seed bank in the tilled and non-tilled area.

 

[shawnv]

This is from my other post but it will help here too. The West side has a closed canopy except on the far West and North Central area where I did some hinge cutting the past two years. Where I want to add browse is around the new future Central plot and between the East plot and the apple trees below my driveway. With browse here my thought is it will even out the browse pressure (When I do hold more deer) and keep them around the plot area longer. The East side was horse pasture prior to my purchase so where there are not mature trees, it's grasses of little nutritional value but there is some regeneration going on.

dark green: norway spruce, white spruce, white pine
olive live: clear cut mature maples, poplar (I do have more than I though as mentioned in a previous post) + Will leave a few white oak standing
light green: new plots
white line: access trails (same as before)
off white: currently native grasses or where I will let the grasses come back in the current plot area
blue dot: water hold in the micro plot
red dots: apple trees
orange stars: bow and gun stand locations