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hack n squirt v hinge cut

TreeDaddy

TreeDaddy

5 year old buck +
James Kroll,Grant woods on You tube favor the former and Jeff Sturgis the latter in some "colorful" commentary

I am skeptical of universal truth and eternal verities in habitat management and can see a role for both

Southern consultants seem to favor herbicide Rx followed by prescribed burn whereas northern habitat gurus favor hinging

will this be a timeless debate?( tubes v cage,till v no till, boom v boomless,direct seed v root prune,etc)

thoughts?

bill
 
I think you nailed the answer to the longtime debate when you described northern vs southern. The growing seasons are longer the further south you go so you're going to see a lot more growth potential. There's not as much reason to do hinge cutting the further south you go due to the explosive growth. Timing during the growing season comes into play as well.

I can see the usefulness of both. In a few months, in Kentucky, I'm going to be doing basal bark treatments (instead of H&S - due to timing), traditional felling, and I'll sneak in some hinge cuts in a few selective spots.
 
It's all situational. Pro's and con's to each and there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. Sometimes I think it's just about creating content that gets views with these guys, and each one loses a little credibility with me either every time that take an absolute position on a habitat method. Nothing whitetails is absolute.
 
I rarely hinge anything, and I'm pretty far north. Most places on my property that have trres I could potentially hinge are already pretty dense in terms of stem count, so hinging tends to make a mess. The places I actually would like to hinge trees, they are so big that they tend to just break off anyway. I generally prefer the results of hack and squirt. Already ordered two more bottles of Tordon for next summer's tree killing rampage.
 
I view those two things as having different purposes. With hack and squirt, you hope to kill something and reduce the growth of that something.

With hinging, you hope to stimulate growth of what you hinge.

With just dropping trees, you hope to stimulate growth or regrowth of something.


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sandbur said:
I view those two things as having different purposes. With hack and squirt, you hope to kill something and reduce the growth of that something.

With hinging, you hope to stimulate growth of what you hinge.

With just dropping trees, you hope to stimulate growth or regrowth of something.
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Yep. For me, dropping bigger trees often serves the same purpose as a hinge. Horizontal cover, gets more sunlight to ground, directs travel, and stump sprouts for browse. Only difference is the top isn’t alive.
 
I can’t see the benefits in hinge cutting in the south/Midwest. It’s just makes a mess. If you hinge too low it’s like a tangled blow down mess you’d see out west that animals pretty well avoid and if you do it too high it becomes a tunnel that just seems counterproductive. It’s not like deer are worried about hawk attacks and it does nothing to hide them from their predators. I’d prefer to hack or girdle and open sunlight to promote some growth from the ground level that serves as food and cover.
 
Howboutthemdawgs said:
I can’t see the benefits in hinge cutting in the south/Midwest. It’s just makes a mess. If you hinge too low it’s like a tangled blow down mess you’d see out west that animals pretty well avoid and if you do it too high it becomes a tunnel that just seems counterproductive. It’s not like deer are worried about hawk attacks and it does nothing to hide them from their predators. I’d prefer to hack or girdle and open sunlight to promote some growth from the ground level that serves as food and cover.
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This for me too. Only time I hinge is to channel deer movement. And the longer I go I realize they go where they want regardless of the path I make for them!

I basal spray and girdle and spray 99% of the time now. This keeps my floor cleaner because trees fall in stages and rot quickly instead of all lying there forever at same time.
 
Species being removed/cut plays a large role also I hack and squirt a tremendous amount of thorny honey locust. I don’t want them back regardless of wildlife value they are terrible trees to deal with. When I’m crown releasing oaks or walnuts some hinge cuts wouldn’t hurt if I’m cutting hickory or hackberry.
 
Howboutthemdawgs said:
I can’t see the benefits in hinge cutting in the south/Midwest. It’s just makes a mess. If you hinge too low it’s like a tangled blow down mess you’d see out west that animals pretty well avoid and if you do it too high it becomes a tunnel that just seems counterproductive. It’s not like deer are worried about hawk attacks and it does nothing to hide them from their predators. I’d prefer to hack or girdle and open sunlight to promote some growth from the ground level that serves as food and cover.
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I am not a huge hinge cutting proponent, but it is a tool that can be useful for creating bedding areas with reduced sight lines in mature woodlands. It can also create winter browse.

Girdling can create dead limbs hanging at the top of the tree which can be very dangerous.

I hinge very selectively as it takes 20 years to grow a tree and hard to replace. Just food for thought.
 
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Hinge cutting is also an NRCS EQIP program that pays about $400-500 per acre.
www.nrcs.usda.gov

Payment Schedules | Natural Resources Conservation Service

NRCS provides financial assistance for selected conservation activities. The availability and amount of financial assistance can vary between states.
www.nrcs.usda.gov www.nrcs.usda.gov
 
Hinge cutting is an instant change. Could be very useful in making a bedding / secluded area in a jiffy. Hinge cutting does little to hange what species are in your area, except for competition.

hack and squirt is generally used to remove undesired trees, but could be used to kill more mature trees and promote regeneration of a next generation of the same tree species.

Hack n squirt definitely leans towards folks who are managing their property for logging income.


There is also just hacking. Cut down species for lumber or firewood, and young shoots grow from the stump. This is something I will be playing with this summer. Was going to trim down a 5 or 6 year old wide logging lane. Trim off the tops and keep them young n short. Some do that with maples. Seeing how it'll work on yellw birch, beech, and red maple. Striped maple is there too, but havent seen that recover too well from major pruning.
 
bigboreblr said:
Hinge cutting is an instant change. Could be very useful in making a bedding / secluded area in a jiffy. Hinge cutting does little to hange what species are in your area, except for competition.

hack and squirt is generally used to remove undesired trees, but could be used to kill more mature trees and promote regeneration of a next generation of the same tree species.

Hack n squirt definitely leans towards folks who are managing their property for logging income.


There is also just hacking. Cut down species for lumber or firewood, and young shoots grow from the stump. This is something I will be playing with this summer. Was going to trim down a 5 or 6 year old wide logging lane. Trim off the tops and keep them young n short. Some do that with maples. Seeing how it'll work on yellw birch, beech, and red maple. Striped maple is there too, but havent seen that recover too well from major pruning.
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Another option is hinge and squirt. Gain the bedding but also kill the tree to prevent regrowth and keep more sunlight to floor longer.
 
Tree Spud said:
I am not a huge hinge cutting proponent,
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Nor am I Tree Spud. I have so much natural cover and bedding (too much really) that I am fortunate not to need to hinge anything. And really, from a pure aesthetics standpoint, I wouldn't hinge cut anyway. Hate the way it looks...like a bomb went off. For me personally, the end does not justify the means. It's the same reason I don't do sap lines in my sugarbush....hate the way it looks. Don't want to have to walk under or look at plastic sap lines in my forest every time I take a walk. Yeah, it'd be easier. But buckets it is...for pure aesthetics.

I much prefer girdling, tree removal, or felling and leaving trees on the ground to create cover.

Girdling opens up the canopy and creates snags for wildlife. Tree removal opens up the canopy, leaves plenty of slash for brush piles, and heats my home every winter. And dropping and leaving trees open up the canopy, creates instant cover, stimulates root suckering (for aspens particularly), and creates drumming logs for grouse.
 
I like leveling everything I want down, that way, the mess is all gone within a few years. I haven't found any trees that hinge well in the north in November, at least on my place. I can see the need for squirting further south where invasives are a problem. So far, we don't have any invasives up by me, so just whacking everything and letting the sun hit the ground has been a fast improver for me.
 
On my home property, I hinge the red maples and some black gum about every 5 years. The deer love to bed in it and browse in the winter. Plus it keeps it knocked down enough so my planted trees get the sunlight. On my hunting property, that has more mature trees, I hinge around field edge for directing traffic and allowing me to see from the tree stands. In the bigger woods, I'll release good trees, by either dropping for firewood or girdle if they aren't good to burn. I figure the girdled trees will end up having nesting cavities for birds and such.
 
Our growing season in the south is just too conducive to providing forage… get some sunlight on exposed ground, and it will be 5 feet tall by the end of the first growing season if we can get decent rainfall.

I will be hack-n-squirting a bunch of honey and black locust over the next year or so. My parents place has a patch that is about 15 years old and a BUNCH is saplings coming up in pastures. I won’t be able to do a burn this year, but I can hack and squirt pencil sized saplings pretty easy. There probably only a few hundred starting up on the whole place, so a day or two will knock it out.


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IkemanTx said:
Our growing season in the south is just too conducive to providing forage… get some sunlight on exposed ground, and it will be 5 feet tall by the end of the first growing season if we can get decent rainfall.

I will be hack-n-squirting a bunch of honey and black locust over the next year or so. My parents place has a patch that is about 15 years old and a BUNCH is saplings coming up in pastures. I won’t be able to do a burn this year, but I can hack and squirt pencil sized saplings pretty easy. There probably only a few hundred starting up on the whole place, so a day or two will knock it out.


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Click to expand...
Use Milestone for the locust
 
More property specific than geographic specific IMO. One of the biggest waste's of time for me was what little hinge cutting I did back in 2013 when it was the rage. Made a mess and never noticed deer using it as a result of hinge cutting. I'm 50/50 planted pine and hardwoods. Plus, down south. Pines are well managed and provide more forbs, browse and cover than I could ever provide hinge cutting. As for the hardwoods, give me hack n squirt all day. Kills just about any size tree dead as a door nail without laying all the mess n tops on the ground at one time. Plus, adds some nice snags for the owls to nest in while they're standing.

For me, I can see that I may use hinge cutting to direct deer traffic in and out of food plots. But may never do that as it seems the deer generally use the same entry/exit routes into the plots anyway.
 
The lion’s share of what I’d perform either treatment on is sweetgum. Why in the world wouldn’t I want to just terminate that tree if I’m going to the trouble to hinge it? What can a horizontal sweetgum provide that a blackberry, beauty berry patch can’t, other than maybe funneling animals a little.
 
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