Landlord's habitat improvements (I hope)

[landlord]

If you were a little closer, I would help you out, but I don't have a trailer big enough to transport both the brush hog and tiller...

I'm a little sketchy when I transport just the brush hog....This picture is from before I bought my truck, so I would feel better putting more weight forward now to get more of the brush hog on the trailer.

How far west are you? I am 30 mi east of Eau Claire on county line

 

[kabic]

How far west are you? I am 30 mi east of Eau Claire on county line

I'm south about 45 minutes in Trempealeau county.

 

[landlord]

How far west are you? I am 30 mi east of Eau Claire on county line

I'm south about 45 minutes in Trempealeau county.

He is coming out on Saturday. We didn't talk price but I told him I don't have much $ to spend. I will be brewing some compost tea to spray on after he is done to speed up the decomposition of the OM. I will come back in a week or 2 to spray gly if there is new growth, then plant buckwheat for now, cut end of August and plant peas and oats. Just got 12 ton of aglime delivered to my house so the next 20 trips I will haul that up. It sucks having only a 1/2 ton pickup. I hope to get up there Thursday night so I can spread lime Friday so he can incorporate it with the digger.

 

[landlord]

It is wet now, it is not bog. It usually dries after spring on the end I an thinking of planting. The pic is facing west and it gets wetter as you go west, but the east side dries up nicely most years. I know it needs lots of lime.

According to the NRCS soil survey it is Newson Loamy Sand which is not the best for farming. I was thinking after the vetch is cut up with the digger it will give me more OM and I will keep improving it a little each year. If it does not work at least I will not have a ton of money in it.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

If you're looking for a great tree book, get this one. It's for the trees of MN, but I have land in Rusk County WI and every tree on my land is listed in this book. it has great descriptions, pictures, etc.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/trees-and-shrubs-of-Minnesota

You might have a tough time getting a plot to grow in that swampy shrub area. The water table looks really high there, but it's possible you could dig it up and plant it in a dry spell in summer. Or maybe it's not quite as wet as it looks, but generally speaking dry areas grow big trees and not wet shrub meadows. I have a similar looking wet meadow on my land and it would be difficult at best growing anything consistently there.

 

[wiscwhip]

If nothing else, jap millet will grow like a weed in that area. Not the greatest deer food, but they really seem to like to be around it and use it for cover, in my experience. If you have any pheasants around they absolutely love the stuff.

 

[landlord]

If you're looking for a great tree book, get this one. It's for the trees of MN, but I have land in Rusk County WI and every tree on my land is listed in this book. it has great descriptions, pictures, etc.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/trees-and-shrubs-of-Minnesota

You might have a tough time getting a plot to grow in that swampy shrub area. The water table looks really high there, but it's possible you could dig it up and plant it in a dry spell in summer. Or maybe it's not quite as wet as it looks, but generally speaking dry areas grow big trees and not wet shrub meadows. I have a similar looking wet meadow on my land and it would be difficult at best growing anything consistently there.

It usually dries up pretty good in summer. We have had 2 wet years in a row, so it has a fair amount of water in it now. The southest end of it dries. I will be collecting a soil sample this weekend to get an idea on my starting point. There is another plot thru a narrow opening that connects to the one posted. It is drier. It used to grow trees since there are some 18" diameter stumps out there, but I do agree that the soil may be saturated, we'll see what the report says.

 

[landlord]

If nothing else, jap millet will grow like a weed in that area. Not the greatest deer food, but they really seem to like to be around it and use it for cover, in my experience. If you have any pheasants around they absolutely love the stuff.

I will look into that. I am stopping at the feed mill on my way up today.

 

[landlord]

I ordered 50# of jap millet yesterday, could not find it locally. The area was starting to dry up a little till Tuesday, got an inch of rain and it filled right back up. Met with a guy from NCRS Tuesday to talk about having the tags mowed this winter. According to our estimates, I have about 30 acres of them, and NCRS will pay $300/acre to have it done. I can even do it myself if I want. I probably won't do all of it, at least not in the same year. I am thinking of leaving strips around the outside of each patch, and cutting the center to get regen while maintaining some cover on the perimeter.
Moved a couple stands, put down 1/2 ton of lime, fenced some trees, and built some beds, along with making some bedding areas bigger.

 

[landlord]

Here is a google earth view of the property with the different land features marked as best as I could do. Some of the alder areas have willow and grass also. My neighbor has a food plot right where the legend is.
The doe bedding I added is on the wooded edge of the alder strip, and I created buck bedding just inside the edge of the hardwood where it meets the alder in the NW corner.

 

[landlord]

I have hinge cut screening on my access trail that follows my east line to the north, then along my north line to the NW corner. There is also a corn field to the west, about 250yds. I estimate it is about 10 acres.
Any constructive comments are welcomed.

 

[wiscwhip]

Struggling a bit to actually grasp what you have going on there, those high resolution aerials are nice, but sometimes they can be hard to decipher. Cutting the tags in sections is a solid plan. Rotating the cut areas every couple of years will keep lots of fresh new growth going while still providing areas with cover that is a bit taller and less dense. Find some of the higher spots in those tag areas and maybe spray some 30' areas to keep the competition down so you can get some black spruce clusters started in there. Good thermal cover in amongst those tag thickets will be welcomed in the heat of summer and the winter months. I would assume you don't have much variation in the elevation on the place, so posting a topo would probably be pointless.

 

[landlord]

Struggling a bit to actually grasp what you have going on there, those high resolution aerials are nice, but sometimes they can be hard to decipher. Cutting the tags in sections is a solid plan. Rotating the cut areas every couple of years will keep lots of fresh new growth going while still providing areas with cover that is a bit taller and less dense. Find some of the higher spots in those tag areas and maybe spray some 30' areas to keep the competition down so you can get some black spruce clusters started in there. Good thermal cover in amongst those tag thickets will be welcomed in the heat of summer and the winter months. I would assume you don't have much variation in the elevation on the place, so posting a topo would probably be pointless.

You are right in your assumption about topography. I don't think I have more than 5ft difference from highest to lowest.
Deer use the edges a lot between the alder and mature hardwood. Most of the hardwood is mature so I have been cutting a lot to let the light in and thicken it up, concentrating on the edges mostly. The more I study this, the more I think I will have to put small plots in the hardwood sections because the rest is just too low to grow plots.

 

[wiscwhip]

Is your main access from the SE corner of the property?

 

[landlord]

The areas that look open are grass or sedge mixed with willow, these are the wettest, then comes the alder, which is the majority species on the property, bordered by mature hardwood of red and white oak, red and sugar maple, yellow birch, ironwood, basswood, and poplar mostly. There is not much small stuff in the hardwood, so that is why I am cutting.
Much of the work I have done so far is not reflected in the aerial, and I have not received the official plan yet, so I have been concentrating on thickening up the edges with feathering.
I agree that I need thermal cover, the black spruce sounds good if it will grow in the wet areas of the alder, or in the more open grassy areas. I will look into putting that on the list for next spring.

 

[landlord]

I'm not sure how good this will turn out but here is the pic from web soil survey. The darkest spots are alder, grayer areas are hardwood and brown is grass and willow.

 

[landlord]

Chippewa County, Wisconsin (WI017)
Map Unit SymbolMap Unit NameAcres in AOIPercent of AOI
CbCable silt loam, 0 to 2 percent slopes0.91.8%
EoElm Lake loamy sand, 0 to 2 percent slopes0.10.2%
FaBFallcreek sandy loam, 2 to 6 percent slopes22.544.5%
MeMarkey muck, 0 to 1 percent slopes8.817.5%
MhMeehan loamy sand, 0 to 2 percent slopes5.09.9%
NaNewson loamy sand, 0 to 2 percent slopes13.226.1%
Totals for Area of Interest50.6100.0%
The fallcreek sandy loam is the hardwood, with some meehan mixed in, newson is the alder, and the muck is mostly grass and willow. Hope this helps.

 

[wiscwhip]

We had some soils in the Meehan/Newson complex on our old place, but it was all in the flood plain of the creek that cut our place in half, so we never tried to get any plots in there because it was our sanctuary. I would agree that your plotting efforts would likely be best on the Fall Creek soils, which are far better than our Plainfield/Friendship sands that we had on our high ground. Not to say that stuff like the jap millet wouldn't grow in there, because that is about the perfect situation for it, but the plots have to be placed in a huntable location, or at least make sense in the overall grand plan of hunting the bedding to food travel routes.

 

[landlord]

We had some soils in the Meehan/Newson complex on our old place, but it was all in the flood plain of the creek that cut our place in half, so we never tried to get any plots in there because it was our sanctuary. I would agree that your plotting efforts would likely be best on the Fall Creek soils, which are far better than our Plainfield/Friendship sands that we had on our high ground. Not to say that stuff like the jap millet wouldn't grow in there, because that is about the perfect situation for it, but the plots have to be placed in a huntable location, or at least make sense in the overall grand plan of hunting the bedding to food travel routes.

So, looking at this view, what would you suggest? The west side is not accessible except for the NW corner from the North, it is just too wet and there are no trees to put stands in.
I am starting to change my thinking now that I look closer at the property overall. There is a high spot right in the middle that is mature trees right now. I was thinking of cutting and hinging it to let the light in and getting it to thicken up with regen, then putting plots in to the south snaking towards the east. This can be accessed from the road or cabin if I clear a trail, and would create and improve the existing travel pattern on the south half of the property. Then I could create two distinct zones (south and north) and the center, and west side would be bedding and sanctuary.

 

[bueller]

You are right in your assumption about topography. I don't think I have more than 5ft difference from highest to lowest.
Deer use the edges a lot between the alder and mature hardwood. Most of the hardwood is mature so I have been cutting a lot to let the light in and thicken it up, concentrating on the edges mostly. The more I study this, the more I think I will have to put small plots in the hardwood sections because the rest is just too low to grow plots.

IMO, this is a good decision