Ice storm tree damage recovery

ruskbucks

5 year old buck +
Just came back from our land. There was a bad rain, freezing rain, then heavy snow storm around the new year. This pic is my logging road with my 7 year old aspen bent over horizontal over the trail. They were doing so good. Anybody know if these trees have a chance to recover? Will they straighten on their own or is it a lost cause? All of the tag alder look the same.
 

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I noticed a bunch of that on my property too. Aspens, alders and willows all bent and quite a few near openings like plots, roads that are snapped right off 6’ up. I think a lot of it will straighten up eventually and it puts a lot of food at the deers level.
 
I noticed a bunch of that on my property too. Aspens, alders and willows all bent and quite a few near openings like plots, roads that are snapped right off 6’ up. I think a lot of it will straighten up eventually and it puts a lot of food at the deers level.
The deer had so much food this year from the storm I didn't notice heavy browsing on my maples like ever other year. Have you noticed all the bark that looks like it is chewed off? I find it hard to believe that there are that many rabbits around. Do deer browse the bark also, I have never seen this before.
 

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The deer had so much food this year from the storm I didn't notice heavy browsing on my maples like ever other year. Have you noticed all the bark that looks like it is chewed off? I find it hard to believe that there are that many rabbits around. Do deer browse the bark also, I have never seen this before.
Yeah, I noticed a lot of trees chewed on. Way more this year than previous years. All different species but mostly aspen. Porcupines and rabbits are the main culprits I believe and if the deer are eating bark, that’s not usually a good sign. I have watched deer eat bark, lichens, old man’s beard on balsams at different times of the year occasionally but they say if they are stripping bark from trees during late winter, that’s a last resort survival mode. If your maples and other trees aren’t demolished, I’d think most of the tree damage is porkies and rabbits.
 

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The deer had so much food this year from the storm I didn't notice heavy browsing on my maples like ever other year. Have you noticed all the bark that looks like it is chewed off? I find it hard to believe that there are that many rabbits around. Do deer browse the bark also, I have never seen this before.

Could be porcupines. I had some nice beech that got hammered this winter. Before I had the logging done they would crawl up in the maples and chew the shit out of them while the sap was running.
 
Yeah, I noticed a lot of trees chewed on. Way more this year than previous years. All different species but mostly aspen. Porcupines and rabbits are the main culprits I believe and if the deer are eating bark, that’s not usually a good sign. I have watched deer eat bark, lichens, old man’s beard on balsams at different times of the year occasionally but they say if they are stripping bark from trees during late winter, that’s a last resort survival mode. If your maples and other trees aren’t demolished, I’d think most of the tree damage is porkies and rabbits.
I have had my land 18 years and have never seen this. The branches are chewed 5 miles from my place, some right in the ditch along busy roads. I've had 2 Spartans running all year the deer look in good condition. Even when.i had my property logged I never saw bark getting eaten. It is.just weird.
 
Getting back to your original question, I do not believe those aspens will straighten up. I've had similar occurrences several times over the years and I've had to cut the aspen that were bent over the road. They just don't seem to straighten back up unfortunately.
 
i agree that the trees are unlikely to straighten up.

On the bright side, having all of that new browse available to the deer probably really helped out the deer herd during a bad winter.
 
I went out and lifted a bunch up by hand, and they did partially go back up, I will keep an eye on them though.
 
A similar thing happened to a bunch of birches here after an ice storm years ago. They lifted up a bit once the snow and ice were gone but none of the trees ever went back to vertical.
 
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