Log woods in winter or spring?

[gunther89]

Our woods will most likely be getting logged either this year or next year. My cousin wants the loggers to come in spring because he thinks the loggers would stress the deer in winter. I feel winter is the best option because the ground will be frozen and you aren't gonna make a mess and all the tops from the trees will be left behind, leaving some of the best browse for the deer.

What does everyone think? Which would you pick.

 

[j-bird]

Most loggers prefer solid ground - so typically either winter (frozen) or summer (dry). Spring and fall tend to be rainy in my area and this not only makes it difficult and more dangerous for loggers but the clean-up effort is more time consuming as well. If given the choice between your 2 options - I would prefer winter.

 

[West Branch]

Aspen/poplar gets better regeneration if logged during the winter. Not sure about other tree types.

 

[NT179]

i would always want a cut in the winter. We get far better regeneration of our hardwoods and far less rutting from the skidders.Deer get plenty of browse to eat which really can help winter survival.the only downfall I see is if you have a wolf population they will bank on this feed plot too.

 

[gunther89]

The main trees we would be getting logged would be sugar maple and hickory. We are located in SW Wisconsin and so far we don't have any wolves. Fingers crossed we don't see any for a long time!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I can only relate what I saw at my camp in N. Pa. Winter logging that we did 2 years ago put lots of tops on the ground. The noise from the saws and trucks / quads didn't keep the deer from coming in to the tops the first night they were on the ground !! After several days of cutting, it was clear the deer numbers using the newly cut tops for food and bedding cover were increasing. Deer literally bedded in the tops and ate circles around where they were laying !! Winter would be my choice for logging for that reason - and frozen, hard ground.

 

[Jim Timber]

When my neighbor had his 80 logged 2 winters ago, we had every deer from 5 miles in there at night and on my place when they were cutting.

Given the choice, I'd do it winter. Since me and snow don't mix with my knees and how I'm logging my woods (one-man, tractor skidding), I'm looking at starting cutting in about 3 weeks. It's still soft on one of my future landings to the point of rutting when driving over it with the unladen tractor. Need some heat to firm things up, and then it's chopping time.

Deer will love the cover and browse regardless of when you log it. You'll get aspen regen, but you have to watch out for things like maple and birch which are shade tolerant and ready to push up when they get the extra sunlight from a thinning. Aspen regen in summer cuts is stunted because the competition is ready to choke them out and they need full sun. So if you want more aspen back (like 2000 stems per acre), you need to cut it when the tree can push new suckers as everything else is growing new buds.

 

[dipper]

Deer travel to logging areas, they love it during winter.

 

[SD51555]

I would think diesel engines in the woods in the winter time would be a dinner bell to the deer. I wouldn't worry about any stress.

 

[tooln]

Winter by all means. In the spring you have soft ground & your woods will be all tore up, you also have to deal with road bands (weight limits). Go winter and don't look back. Tell cous a saw running in the woods is a dinner bell for deer. When I did mine 2 years ago I had deer standing waiting for us to get done cutting for the day. It was the first and only time I have had deer in my woods during the winter since I've purchased it 4 years ago.

 

[BJE80]

winter

 

[gunther89]

Thanks everyone. I figured winter would be the choice but I wanted to run it by everyone here.

 

[j-bird]

As far as regen goes - your maple won't stump sprout - in any case, but the buds on the ground in the winter will attract the deer big time. I don't have much exp with hickory and how it reacts to cutting. Removing the dense canopy from hard maple will cause an explosion in growth as well come next spring. You will be amazed at the amount of light you will get. Do a little experiment - set something that you can see from a distance in your woods now in the area where the cutting will be pretty heavy and take a pic of it. Then next spring after green up take the same item to the same location and take a pic from the same location to see the difference in the amount of cover you have created. It will be even better in following years.

 

[Jim Timber]

Maple sure does stump sprout.

 

[Buckly]

All mine do.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We have some maple stump sprouts as thick as hair. It gets browsed, but they live.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

The ones we cut at camp that are loaded w/ stump sprouts are in the 10" to 16" range. Smaller ones have sprouts too, but the bigger ones have the most. Not sure if that's the norm.