Mineral Stumps - Who has been successful?

[LanceS4803]

And for clarification, I am not talking about placing supplemental mineral blocks on stumps. I am using the term from the MSU Deer Lab about cutting trees and having deer using the subsequent sprouting as browse.

I am working with a wetlands area that has 27% of stems as Red Maples, 17% Yellow Poplar and 13% as Sweet Gums. Over the last couple of years it has been armageddon on the Sweet Gums and they are now down to just new sprouts. This is being managed first for wildlife (deer) improvement and then timber stand improvement.
I have a bunch of red maples that need to go and was thinking of using some of them for mineral stumps. Am also considering doing the same with the poplars. I have a few questions for those that have done this:

Is there a preferred size of trees to use? I have plenty to choose from, 1" to HUGE, but am thinking of 6" to 10". (Forest mgmt plan calls for removal of red maples and poplars 2"-10" dbh).
How many is too many, per acre?
In articles I have read, no mention of poplars. Any success with those?

I've been reading a lot of older posts and learning quite a bit. You guys are much more detail oriented that most forums!

 

[j-bird]

All I can tell you is that I had a yellow poplar that got up rooted a few years ago and I put a cam on it and the deer visited almost every day until the tree looked like a porcupine.....they ate only the leaves and left the stem! I would try a few and see how they do.... Far easier to cut a 12" dbh tree than it is to grow one! And like anything else in the woods....sunlight will be key.

 

[LanceS4803]

Oh I have learned about sunlight!
Hack and squirting the Sweet Gums, you can see positive results the next year. Really opens the canopy. But, that sunlight also allowed all those dormant gum balls to sprout, and they came back with a vengeance, by the thousands. Basal bark is taking care of those.

 

[bigbendmarine]

LanceS4803, I'm honestly almost embarrased to admit how much time I've spent researching the issue over the last year or so since first hearing about it and have to add the caveat I'm giving it my first go this year -- now likely cut 100 or so trees around my property.

Here's what I'll share from the detail I've tried to gain, and best to start with the sweetgums. Few of the more viewed videos / writings about mineral stumps have come from Marcus Lashley out of research in Mississippi. He brought up how even sweetgums generally NOT preferred would be browsed if cut... BUT... subsequently I found something where he caveated that if ANY other more preferred trees were also cut than the sweetgums very likely might NOT get usage. So though I've got literally thousands of sweetgum saplings around my place I passed on even trying to use them, as I've got trees I knew they'd prefer I also didn't mind cutting.

So that shared, here's a chart I found that shows general preference levels for browse -- not just for mineral stumps, but for browsing in general BUT I would ***think*** decent chance that the preference level will be shared with cut mineral stumps as well. My takeaway, mistaken or not, was it didn't seem I could go wrong with most any species of oak and maple, so I focused on oaks and maples for my cuttings, with a few cherries mixed in as I DO see local browse on low hanging black cherry trees on my place (whereas I don't typically see browse pressure on sweetgums). Hope the info proves of use.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Our camp is not near any wetland, but we do have a bunch of red maples and oaks. When we did some timbering, the oak & red maple stumps produce a lot of stump sprouts readily. However, the deer ate all those sprouts right to the ground. So in order to get some new browse established, I caged some of the stumps with concrete mesh in 3 ft. diameters. That allowed the sprouts to grow without deer killing them, get a foothold, and still provide browse and cover as they grew. The tips sticking out through the cages get eaten off, but the bases are protected so the deer can't wipe them out. We have no sweetgums.

Beside the browse, I found that caging gave us more brushy cover as the stump sprouts continued growing. Those clusters of stump sprouts made deer feel more secure travelling through a section of woods that had previously been wide open and coverless. No deer tracks in those areas with snow on the ground - no browse, no cover. That's all changed with the timbering and stump caging, combined with some Norway spruce plantings mixed in.

My advice, if you have a few deer around ……………...… cage some of your stumps when you cut timber. Very easy labor to make cages & sit them on top of the stumps - set it & forget it kind of success.

 

[LanceS4803]

Love the chart!! That is getting saved.
I have quite a lot of deer, so caging will go up on some of the stumps.

 

[Knehrke]

I've found on my property that box elder stumps make wonderful browse. Some of the best "bushes" I have are from stumps that have resprouted prolifically over the course of 3-5 years. And I feel good about cutting them down, because they grow so horizontally that they take up more real estate than they're worth. The cut stumps usually max out at ~10 feet high, with hundreds of stems at ground level for the deer to munch, instead of my hard and soft mast plantings lol.

 

[Telemark]

The deer at my place in Ontario like stump sprouts more than anything else. Maple and ash are the preferred species.

 

[blueKYstream]

I don't have any direct experience, but I'm trying it out this year. I've done quite a bit more research than I care to admit as well. I am by no means close to an expert though. I have read that Elm, Hackberry, Ash, Soft Maples (I need work on identifying soft vs hard maple), Basswood, Blackgum, Dogwood, Cherry, etc. will be browsed quite a bit when cut. I have put a camera up over hickory sprouts and haven't seen any browsing in person or on camera. I have heard that locust is great for browsing (not sure if it's black, honey or if it matters). Be careful with cutting oak at certain times due to oak wilt, but they'll eat that. I have never seen Autumn Olive browsed but maybe it's because we have so much of it. I have seen honeysuckle browsed quite a bit. I have seen no browsing on my chestnut trees that emerged from tree tubes.




Source: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.maccweb.o...17_Proceedings/B11/Deer_Browse_Preference.pdf

 

[Turkish]

Merely anecdotal, but I have never seen ANYTHING browsed as intensely as chinaberry stump sprouts. Sweet gum stump sprouts seem to be pretty well ignored. Now I’ve never made intentional mineral stumps but I have seen thousands of sweetgum stumps.

And I don’t think I’ll be stump sprouting any red oaks at my place.

 

[SD51555]

It'd be a quicker study to look for what deer don't eat. I have low deer densities, and they browse everything I cut except tag alder, balsam fir, and black spruce. A fresh ash tree laying on the ground in November is as good as a pile of corn.

 

[OakSeeds]

In my area, there isn't anything under 6' high that gets browsed more than morus rubra - especially in the spring after leaf out and into early summer - ... if you have very many deer on your property at all, they will keep mulberry trees in the bush form. If a mulberry tree starts to shoot a central leader, whack it off and let your deer continue to enjoy the browse.
While not as wide, I've seen mulberry bushes almost as thick as plums (not thicket forming ... but you could plant several close together) ... monitor for any that produce fruit and replace so you don't end up with a problem. I plant a dozen tomato plants in concrete remesh cages each summer and often have 12-20 mulberry starts (collectively) at the outside bottom of the cages ... birds sit on top of cage and leave a deposit.

 

[Troubles Trees]

Not directly related to the topic but Deer have a unique stomachs and need a diverse diet to adjust to the constant changing availability of food sources. It takes a couple weeks for deer to build up the microorganisms to break down a new food source. This is why deer are found dead from starvation despite having a a full stomach of corn for example. People think they are helping deer during winter by feeding them corn but their stomachs have to have time to adjust. If it is the only food they have they gorge on the corn and feel full.

I typed that fast (leaving work lol) so probably have a few errors in it so I will dig up an article on it to clarify.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-buck-zone/2013/02/are-you-feeding-your-deer-death/

 

[LanceS4803]

Nature does it best.

 

[bigbendmarine]

LanceS4803, think one of your questions got somewhat passed by and that's the ideal size for cutting. For maximizing mineral content of the browse (versus simply JUST providing browsing) you want there to be a fair amount of difference between the size of the root system versus the missing top, so that the imbalance then allows the maximum amount of mineral to be pushed to the new growth. If memory serves, Lashley talked about 6" to 8" kind of being an ideal sweet spot, BUT still getting some gain in mineral content with trees in the 2" to 4" range while they're also FAR more manageable and safe to deal with while cutting. Out of the interest of time, safety, ease of clean-up (moving tops to bunny piles), etc, I focused on oaks and maples in the 3" to 5" range size... that and I just happened to have a TON of oaks in that range that are understory trees growing under much more mature / producing oaks, and in the end the number I cut (guessing 100 or so) were still a drop in the bucket compared to what I have left on my property / only made cuts in strategic focused areas.

I also have seen reference to it being best NOT to cut TOO BIG / old of trees as once on the fully mature side of things they supposedly don't push as much new vegetation as do trees approaching maturity that are more vigorous.

As with so many land management projects I took time to kind of carefully consider WHERE I wanted to do the cuttings as not to inadvertently cause changes I might not want -- said another way, I chose to make the cuttings along travel corridors already well used (and that I like for hunting predictability) and for convenience sake I've got a few cameras along these same spots so I thought it should only serve to strengthen use of the areas while I can get a bit of video of use.

More years go by, more I'm learning that too much of good thing can be a bad thing in that if you do improvements that are too widely spread on your property it can make it tougher to both measure impact and can change usage / travel paths, AND much tougher to "undo" tough work efforts you undertake than it is to make carefully measured changes a bit at a time so you can carefully weigh how much you gain from them.

 

[LanceS4803]

GREAT info, thank you.
After waging war on any and all sweet gums, now is the time for me to slow down and plan. You've given me lots to think about.
It would sure be nice if I had a forester/wildlife expert on hand every weekend.

 

[yoderjac]

Lance,

What are you trying to accomplish with it? Some folks are trying to use this as an attractant for hunting. For that, I would not worry about what species, I'd put it where you want it. In general, larger trees will have larger root system that provide more concentrated energy and minerals to the leaves. Typically you see this phenomenon when a hardwood clear-cut is not hit with herbicide or fire after the cut. Deer are drawn to it. Timber sized trees are where it was first seen.

If you are using this as part of a QDM tool, first make sure you have sufficient scale, 1,000+ acres under your control. When you get much smaller than that, you can't really have a measurable impact on the herd without cooperating neighbors. If you have sufficient scale, I would want to know more about how you are incorporating this into a larger plan. It can be a good QDM tool used in the right context.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[j-bird]

I was out today checking cam cards and this thread popped into my mind....so I took some pics of some of the different things I have done to create browse for deer.... not all are "mineral stumps"....but I thought this may give you some other ideas as well.

First is simply stump sprouts.... why some sprout and some don't I am not sure.....but here are some on my place of different species and sizes....
Yellow poplar....

This one is from a stump cut at ground level the size of a soda can. The growth is chest high and is I think 2 years old.

Here is another one from a much larger stump and much older from when I had my logging done. These trunks are thicker than a pop can. And yellow poplar tends to grow pretty quickly...at least here.

This is a beech tree stump - again from when I logged a few years ago and this stump is at least 2 fee tin diameter. The deer don;t browse it much but it stil provides cover at waist height.


Here is a black/wild cherry.....again stump cut to the ground level, and is now essentially a bush at waist height and feeding the deer....the stump is again roughly the size of a pop can.


I'll post up some hinge cuts and some copice cuts as well....

 

[j-bird]

Just some other options to create cover and browse at deer level....

Copicing - either at knee level or even at waist level.... The idea is to cause a "bushy" result vs a more traditional tree type form.

This one is a basswood where I wanted to create more of a dense edge from the plot you see in the distance. This "stump" is at waist height and moved the cover it produces down to a more useful level.


This one is an elm that I simply left about a knee high stump. You can see how the deer are browsing the young growth on it.... My intent was for it to turn into a bush...but if the deer want to eat it that is fine with me.


Finally a sugar maple. This was actually a failed hinge cut....but as you can see the tree didn't die. I have a difficult time hinge cutting larger hard maples (but I'll talk about that in the hinge cutting section).


Hinge cutting.... Some love it, some hate it. The trick is keeping it alive and that means sunlight. The thing I have found with hinge cutting is that I have better luck on smaller trees and softer wood or fibrous type wood seem to work better for me.

These are small ash trees out in the open that I hinged and the hinged portions die but the trees thrive on. For some reason these hinges didn't live and not all of them do.


This is a boxelder on the edge of a plot. Again, hinged to provide some cover and food if so desired.


Here is a hackberry hinged in the woods to give the deer some low level cover. You can see that this is an older hinge due to how grown over the wound is. I like doing this at about waist to chest height and removing some of the limbs on the bottom side. I have had some luck with creating bedding this way as long as the surrounding cover and the like is suitable.


Last one. This is a hickory tree that has been hinged as well. Again an older cut. But you can see how you sort of turn one stem into several.


Most of these trees have all been in the size you describe you need to address. They will all need the sunlight to survive and thrive and not everyone of them will. You will find the deer will prefer browsing on different species at different times even. I tend to do all of my cutting in the winter months (not sure if that is needed or not but I think it helps have the energy of the tree in the roots when your doing things like this). You can use different practices to get different results. Just keep in mind what your trying to accomplish. Without a plan you may put deer where you don;t want them or even spread them out more that makes patterning them more difficult. I suggest starting with a small area and see how things go. It's easier to expand later.... I hope this at least gives you some ideas.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Lance,

What are you trying to accomplish with it? Some folks are trying to use this as an attractant for hunting. For that, I would not worry about what species, I'd put it where you want it. In general, larger trees will have larger root system that provide more concentrated energy and minerals to the leaves. Typically you see this phenomenon when a hardwood clear-cut is not hit with herbicide or fire after the cut. Deer are drawn to it. Timber sized trees are where it was first seen.

If you are using this as part of a QDM tool, first make sure you have sufficient scale, 1,000+ acres under your control. When you get much smaller than that, you can't really have a measurable impact on the herd without cooperating neighbors. If you have sufficient scale, I would want to know more about how you are incorporating this into a larger plan. It can be a good QDM tool used in the right context.

Thanks,

Jack

You could look at this a different way. If you have a "small" chunk (under a 1000 acres) like most people, you may have an even bigger reason to do this. QDM is more or less manipulating habitat and harvest to increase age structure. If cutting trees increases browse and your neighbors have mature woods, the deer spend a disproportionate amount of time on your property due to an increased amount of food in security cover. The deer will without a doubt leave your property and most likely on a daily basis. With the best food in cover in the area, you can rest assured the deer will spend more daylight time on your property.