Leaving Pines/Spruces in food plots clearings

[BJE80]

Do any of you guys purposely leave pines or spurces in food plot clearings. Maybe it looks better to you? Or maybe you feel the deer feel a bit more secure in them due to having it broke up a little bit instead of one big open space.


What do you guys think?

 

[Satchmo]

My first two one acre plots are wide open, but I left some birch clumps in another, and a few pines in the last one. The ones with the trees left in them seem to get earlier doe movements, but that may be due to location too. A little hassle to plot around the trees, but they look nice.

 

[bueller]

I originally left a couple mid sized jackpines to break up the "open" feel of one plot but they continually got in the way when spraying, seeding, fertilizing, dragging, etc... They also made my already small plot much smaller because the food plot seeds had noticeably less growth for a good sized area under and around them.

 

[tooln]

I left a small oak in my plot. Anything else is gone.

 

[Steve Bartylla]

I've left a few trees in many plots over the year. It gets to be a little bit of a pain working around them and your plot won't do as well in that micro area, but, assuming they have low hanging branches, they almost always get the snot scraped out of the ground around them. It also gives a built in yardage marker, which can be critical in making shots more than most credit them for. So long as it's just a couple, I see it as 6 of one, half dozen of the other. In other words, it doesn't make much of a difference either way.

P.S. Only one of your food plots are a combo of shape and size that even the most mature buck would feel exposed in them, and that one is leaning far more to him feeling safe than exposed. I wouldn't do it for the "feeling of safety" factor, in your case. For me to leave them, it'd have to be for a different reason (too big to remove, wanting the acorn production from an oak, yardage marker, for increased scraping or just because I thought it'd look really "cool").

 

[bwoods11]

I like small food plots with mature oak/oaks bordering it that drop acorns.

Come fall they have the food in the plot, plus acorns, and I usually put a water tub in the shade...kind of all you eat buffet, with drink included!!

 

[Jim Timber]

When you're hitting the area with burn down levels of gly, do you need to be careful about the trees?

I have a very large (42" DBH) pine next to an area the whiners (neighbors) have reported to the township as having Canada thistle. The township sent me a letter saying I needed to manage the thistle, and then cut my 6-7' tall fescue and rye grass - which eliminated the shade and caused the thistle to expand well beyond the last couple plants I was waiting to drown out with the beneficial competition. Now I'm going to nuke the area, but I'm concerned about the trees near by.

I figured this was a good spot to ask this, as it's pertinent info for anyone trying to build a plot with trees in it.

 

[Jim Timber]

The stuff I have doesn't have any label restrictions for water proximity, so I should be good to go.

 

[sandbur]

Jim-glyco has seemed to make thistles worse by eliminating grass competition for me.

I have tried a very concentrated spray (actually squirt from a dish detergent bottle) on the specific plants, but you do not want to kill the surrounding grass-in my inexperienced view, anyway.

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm going to wipe out everything - to mud, and leave it that way. These pecker heads want to play games... It's batter up!

I had the thistle GONE in 2012 via diligent and repeated blowtorching in the peak growing season. Then the weed Nazi's husband got the township to cut back my 6-7' tall beautiful seeded out grasses because he's still pissed about my buying it and thinks they put the road in the wrong spot, so he also mows my side of the street. Then the seeds got light and I have more thistle than ever.

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm only going to do it for the spring/summer, then I'll reseed it in cool season/shade tolerant lawn grasses before fall rains so hopefully we'll get a nice cover crop to start out next year with. I think I have enough good will with the roads super now to get them to stop mowing it and we can go back to my 6' privacy fence by July.

Turning it to mud is a show of force and to prove they don't like the consequences of their continued actions. Their "issue" is perceived value of their mcmansion based on the visual appeal of the neighboring parcels. Frankly, I'd be happy if it was all ragweed - that wouldn't get me letters from the township to control noxious weeds like thistle does.