Habitat Happening: Live Blog!

[Bowsnbucks]

Gotcha, SD. I didn't see that stuff in the pix. Sounds like you have a good mix of stuff planted there. I have the same deal with the spruce getting above the ferns - it takes about 3 years here. The spruce I REALLY want to take off - I spray gly around those trees to kill off the ferns so they get a good jump. With 650 of them like you have, you'd have to pick and choose the ones you wanted to jump-start to get above the ferns. I can tell you from our experience at camp - once those spruce get up to 4 - 5 ft., the deer really use them for cover and bedding in cold, windy weather !!

We have some elderberry planted by birds (?), and I planted some juneberry/serviceberry this past spring. I caged them to keep the deer off and they're doing well so far. The other stuff we have planted are Washington hawthorn, hackberry, witch hazel, several viburnums that get berries, and a batch of un-named crabs that we got from the state seedling sales. I guess we all try to get some diversity where we hunt !! And that's good.

 

[SD51555]

Another idea may be to just go out and stomp down the ferns in July. I watched the trees this year and they didn't get canopied over until about July 1st. Brother Marv ran the harrow upside down in July on the trails and snapped all the stems on the ferns and that ended them for the year. I have to imagine some quick stomping would buy a guy sunlight for the rest of the year as well.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

That would also work, SD. That's the battle with ANY young tree - getting them established despite the ferns. I guess some folks don't have ferns. Starting trees would be easier for them I believe. For the most part here, it seems it takes 3 or 4 years for our spruce to get going in the areas with ferns. Spruce planted in fields get rolling quicker.

 

[scott44]

Update time.

The brassica plots are a mixed bag. The ones growing among the beans put out really nice tonnage. The ones that didn't grow over the top of a legume look like they petered out pretty badly on nitrogen. Here's where we were on 10/9.

Do you think that it could be the tree roots sucking the nutrients out, part of my plot that is near trees looks stunted.

 

[SD51555]

No. It's spread across the entire plot. We're putting everything into the shortest maturity bean we can get next year, so hopefully that can feed them through the fall.