Ready to start cutting

I love this idea. What a great method to re-establish an area.

Yes, bueller....it works great. There is some evidence of a hormonal allelopathic effect trees have on nearby trees. So if there are any apens that ARE NOT DROPPED nearby the root suckering response might be inhibited. Also, if you can somehow blow, rake, or burn the leaf matter away from the regen area the root suckering response will be enhanced.
 
Bows....this is pretty much all I do every winter. I will go in and find a small stand of 40, 50, 60 year old aspen...might be just a single old tree....or a small clonal group. I spend winter #1 clearing everything around the poplars to a 60' distance from the tree or the outermost poplar. Then I will burn a brush pile of all that slash that spring or summer so all I have remaining in my little aspen regen project are the mature aspens. The next late winter I will then drop the aspens. Girdling them and/or killing them with herbicides does not work. I leave the trees for grouse drumming logs.

Creates beautiful early successional habitat for grouse, woodcock, and deer just as you say. These new stands will be used for about 20 years for various things....early on = browse, cover..and then later on = food for grouse via the catkins.

I try to do about 1 new regen cut every 2 or 3 years so I always have a new patch growing.

Well I guess I have a big job ahead of me this year. I have a small grove of mature aspens that are insanely tall. I dropped a few early one summer, but all it did was make a mess. I guess I need to go in and clean it up properly this summer and then go back up and start cutting in the winter.

It seems like you cut them all down. I have heard other places to cut a fourth to a half of the trees. Is dropping them all at the same time a better strategy?
 
Bows....this is pretty much all I do every winter. I will go in and find a small stand of 40, 50, 60 year old aspen...might be just a single old tree....or a small clonal group. I spend winter #1 clearing everything around the poplars to a 60' distance from the tree or the outermost poplar. Then I will burn a brush pile of all that slash that spring of summer so all I have remaining in my little aspen regen project are the mature aspens. The next late winter I will then drop the aspens. Girdling them and/or killing them with herbicides does not work. I leave the trees for grouse drumming logs.

Creates beautiful early successional habitat for grouse, woodcock, and deer just as you say. These new stands will be used for about 20 years for various things....early on = browse, cover..and then later on = food for grouse via the catkins.

I try to do about 1 new regen cut every 2 or 3 years so I always have a new patch growing.
Great work, Natty. I wish we had more aspens at camp - although we did plant 10 of them last spring in the 18" to 24" class. Caged 'em too - or else deer snacks. Hopefully we can get more of them going, one way or the other.

As for grouse chow - our Washington hawthorns draw grouse for us like magnets. Critters are spreading them via their berries all around the property ........... for free!
 
Well I guess I have a big job ahead of me this year. I have a small grove of mature aspens that are insanely tall. I dropped a few early one summer, but all it did was make a mess. I guess I need to go in and clean it up properly this summer and then go back up and start cutting in the winter.

It seems like you cut them all down. I have heard other places to cut a fourth to a half of the trees. Is dropping them all at the same time a better strategy?

Yes, exactly telemark. Cut them all at once. It's not 100% widely understood, but the roots of aspens do appear to have some kind of an allelopathic effect on the growth of new shoots. So if you leave mature trees standing nearby, they will elicit a hormonal response that inhibits suckering. I've even read that very, very young existing new shoots in the area can have this effect. So I go in with my weed whacker with a brush cutter blade and remove everything.

It's also not essential that you remove everything from the regen area. If you want to leave behind a few young spruces or other non-aspens species for a little diversity or just for pure aesthetics, the root suckering will still occur. But you might get a lower stem count around those non-aspen species. And that's exactly what I do. I am not too worried about getting a 100% pure clonal aspen stand. I like a few non-aspen species mixed in there juts for aesthetics.
 
Great work, Natty. I wish we had more aspens at camp - although we did plant 10 of them last spring in the 18" to 24" class. Caged 'em too - or else deer snacks. Hopefully we can get more of them going, one way or the other.

As for grouse chow - our Washington hawthorns draw grouse for us like magnets. Critters are spreading them via their berries all around the property ........... for free!

I'll have to look up Washington hawthorn bows! That sounds great!

Much of the decline of ruffed grouse in North America is thought to be linked in part to the decline of aspen. I'm sure you know that aspens require periodic disturbances for regen to occur. And with little logging going on and few forest fires and less and less early successional growth there is less and less aspen. And once the big old mature trees die, their roots die with them.

You've been to Maine hunting. I'm sure you recall driving the logging roads and literally seeing grouse on every bend in the road. You can easily flush two dozen every day while hunting up there. Lots of logging = lots of aspen regen.
 
It's also not essential that you remove everything from the regen area. If you want to leave behind a few young spruces or other non-aspens species for a little diversity or just for pure aesthetics, the root suckering will still occur. But you might get a lower stem count around those non-aspen species. And that's exactly what I do. I am not too worried about getting a 100% pure clonal aspen stand. I like a few non-aspen species mixed in there juts for aesthetics.

There are a few ash and thuja in there that I will cut for stump sprouts. I cut a couple ash last time I was in there, and the deer got right on them.
 
I'll have to look up Washington hawthorn bows! That sounds great!

Much of the decline of ruffed grouse in North America is thought to be linked in part to the decline of aspen. I'm sure you know that aspens require periodic disturbances for regen to occur. And with little logging going on and few forest fires and less and less early successional growth there is less and less aspen. And once the big old mature trees die, their roots die with them.

You've been to Maine hunting. I'm sure you recall driving the logging roads and literally seeing grouse on every bend in the road. You can easily flush two dozen every day while hunting up there. Lots of logging = lots of aspen regen.
Yep - Maine had lots of grouse near logged areas. Logged areas also had tons of blackberry & raspberry sprouting, which the deer hit hard. The tips of those berry canes here nipped like surgeons did it.

Washington hawthorn (small trees that grow up to about 15 ft. here) make for good browse, lots of red berries that birds love - especially grouse, and "limb-y" thorny dense cover for excellent bird nesting. Our haws here make lots of red berries about 3/8" diameter - provided they get sunlight. They need sunlight. They don't produce much at all in shady areas. Deer eat the tender twigs and shoots that don't have thorns on them, as the bigger limbs do. If you let the lower limbs go un-pruned, haws keep limbs down around 3 ft. off the ground, allowing deer to browse them - at least the non-thorny tips. Thorns are like 1 1/2" to 2" needles, which make for super bird nesting in the dense branches. Those tweety birds feast on bad bugs. Birds & squirrels spread the berry seeds, so we get free seedlings popping up in many places. In areas where hawthorns get thick enough to form thickets, deer will readily bed in them - people don't want to walk in them due to needle thorns. It's an excellent habitat tree for us here. Flushed many grouse from them. We love 'em!!
 
Yep - Maine had lots of grouse near logged areas. Logged areas also had tons of blackberry & raspberry sprouting, which the deer hit hard. The tips of those berry canes here nipped like surgeons did it.

Washington hawthorn (small trees that grow up to about 15 ft. here) make for good browse, lots of red berries that birds love - especially grouse, and "limb-y" thorny dense cover for excellent bird nesting. Our haws here make lots of red berries about 3/8" diameter - provided they get sunlight. They need sunlight. They don't produce much at all in shady areas. Deer eat the tender twigs and shoots that don't have thorns on them, as the bigger limbs do. If you let the lower limbs go un-pruned, haws keep limbs down around 3 ft. off the ground, allowing deer to browse them - at least the non-thorny tips. Thorns are like 1 1/2" to 2" needles, which make for super bird nesting in the dense branches. Those tweety birds feast on bad bugs. Birds & squirrels spread the berry seeds, so we get free seedlings popping up in many places. In areas where hawthorns get thick enough to form thickets, deer will readily bed in them - people don't want to walk in them due to needle thorns. It's an excellent habitat tree for us here. Flushed many grouse from them. We love 'em!!

I looked up some nurseries yesterday that sell the Washington hawthorn. Going to try some this spring.

Thanks for that tip Bows!
 
I am looking for small shrubs now at my place, but kee pin mind they say washington hawthorne is usda zone 4-8. might be pushing the edge of it. With elevations and polar vortexes, I do not trust I am what they say I am in the new USDA zone map. Still doing zone 3.

Anyboy know anything about blue beech / american hornbeam?
 
I will vote yes for the current format on Saturday morning 8:39 am CST. LOL Nice look to it.
 
Anyboy know anything about blue beech / american hornbeam?
Aka musclewood? It gets about as much love as the other hornbeam, hop hornbeam from foresters and others. As in none. Understory tree and pretty zone hardy but more prevalent along river and stream corridors. I have tons of hop hornbeam aka ironwood but no musclewood as not a wetter site. The ironwood seeds can be a good grouse and likely turkey food and assume musclewood similar but would not introduce if not already present. However unlike many other trees dieing from canker, bugs, wilt, whatever seems a tough bugger. However these understory trees are very shade tolerant and can spread a bit too easily in those areas
 
Aka musclewood? It gets about as much love as the other hornbeam, hop hornbeam from foresters and others. As in none. Understory tree and pretty zone hardy but more prevalent along river and stream corridors. I have tons of hop hornbeam aka ironwood but no musclewood as not a wetter site. The ironwood seeds can be a good grouse and likely turkey food and assume musclewood similar but would not introduce if not already present. However unlike many other trees dieing from canker, bugs, wilt, whatever seems a tough bugger. However these understory trees are very shade tolerant and can spread a bit too easily in those areas
Hop hornbeam wood is TOUGH. Great tool handle wood. Excellent firewood too. We have it here, and I've burned some in our woodstove. I think it's a plus in the woods - seed feeds various birds, including grouse.
 
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