Scott's habitat improvements

scott44

5 year old buck +
I should have posted this before now but here it is, this is what I'm trying to to improve from a habitat side.
I own 40 acres and my parents have 80 right next to me. My 40 was a 40 acre hay field when I bought the place so I took the back 8-10 acres and started to improve it while keep some of the hay field for hay. I stared out just planting food plots and thinking that would be enough then I got to reading some forums and found a whole different way to spend my time and money, not so much on food and more on habitat improvements. I started planting trees and shrubs 4 years ago along with some switch grass and other native warm season grasses. Over the last 4 yrs I have probably planted 3,000 conifers and 150 various oaks and chestnuts and a couple hundred shrubs. My parents 80 has around 60 tillable acres that they rent out and we are improving the back 15.
Here's a pic of the properties
Green- property lines
Red- what we're trying to improve
Yellow- food plots
Blue/Purple- switchgrass planting



On my place I have planted 2 rows of Norway spruce the width of the 40 closest to the hay field

Pic from this spring, hay field on right



Norway spruce seedling planted last year



Last year I planted some Highbush cranberrys without caging them and that was the wrong thing to do they all got browsed to the ground so this year I caged them and spent the $ on caging every shrub I planted.

Year old Highbush this spring.



What it looked like a year ago when planted



North fence row of my parents place, yellow/orange flags are shrub seedlings and cuttings from John, the 2 white staes are rows of spruce, a strip of warm season grasses is right of the white stakes.



Various oak in the tubes and shrubs planted in the cages.



I checked these trees tonight and they have put on some growth this year, these are Bur Gambel oaks from the University of Idaho that were planted as seedlings last year. Almost out of the tubes.



 
One thing I have noticed since I started doing these habitat improvements is I pay attention to all the plants that we have growing. I found this Bur oak on my north fence line and didn't even know it was there. It was loaded last year with acorns, I got some before the deer did and started them this spring.





This spring

 
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I got away with tubing some highbush cranberry in a five foot tube. I struck out when I tried putting more into a six foot tube. I think If I would have gone back and pruned the ones in the six foot tube each year to a single stem it may have worked. The ones I've got coming out of the five foot tubes weren't in a hurry to branch out. It kept going straight up for another foot and then branched out.
 
Here's a pic from the tree last year looking north, the trees in back are the fence line and I'm trying to screen the neighbors. You can see the e-wheat planted for now but there is 2 rows of spruce and 2 rows of shrubs with a switch grass strip also. The area on the other side of the brassicas I'm trying to fill in with oaks and chestnuts



This is the north fence line, left to right is a row of spruce, e-wheat, row of spruce, switch strip and far right is 2 rows of shrubs.



Here's another pic from hunting last year, the brown is a 5-6 acre switch grass field I planted last year. This field wasn't the best last year because I couldn't get back there and spray it last spring, I sprayed it this spring and it seems to be doing better.

 
Lot's of nice looking land here man, great job!
 
Nice place! keep the pic coming
 
Very cool, and well designed.
 
2012 I wanted to plant some switch grass but found out it was best to kill before hand and frost seed, I started spraying in July and sprayed a couple more times before hunting season. I had a pretty decent kill, like I said earlier I couldn't get back there last spring to spray one more time. These pics are from the summer/fall of 2012.

This is 5-6 acres I took these pics going from right to left of the field.







We had to move the box blind that would have been in the middle of the switch.



This is what it looked like in Oct. when I was bow hunting



Planted the end of Jan. 2013, Cave in Rock at about 8#/acre





Sorry I don't have any recent pics but I'll get some and post them
 
Thanks for the tour... you are doing something similar to what we are doing on our home 10 acre property. We started with mostly open ground and with plantings and letting nature take its course about the past 10 years we are closing the holes and making it a little deer haven. On the other hand our 80 acres is completely wooded other than our 1 small food plot so we are going to be adding openings over time.

Looks good! Keep the updates coming!
 
Lot's of nice looking land here man, great job!
Nice place! keep the pic coming
Very cool, and well designed.
Thanks for the tour... you are doing something similar to what we are doing on our home 10 acre property. We started with mostly open ground and with plantings and letting nature take its course about the past 10 years we are closing the holes and making it a little deer haven. On the other hand our 80 acres is completely wooded other than our 1 small food plot so we are going to be adding openings over time.

Looks good! Keep the updates coming!

Thanks guys!
 
About 4 years ago the boys and I cleared a small plot in the woods on my parents place, this stand doesn't get hunted much because of bumping deer getting to it. We use it mostly for all day sits later in the season. It is wet getting to this plot so we've always planted a cereal mix here usually in July/Aug time frame, need to get back there and get this planted soon.

Trail leading back to the plot.


The plot and tree stand overlooking the plot.




Couple years ago I was on one of my all day sits and had this young buck come in, he bedded down and was there for 2 1/2hrs pretty cool hunt.


 
Noticed the Big Blue has really taken off this year after I sprayed it this spring.



 
Would this be considered baiting? This bale rolled off the nieghbors onto my place, luckily no one was back there.



 
You didn't put it there. Mens Rea (latin). No act, then no intent. That being said, that's the extent of my legal expertise.
 
You didn't put it there. Mens Rea (latin). No act, then no intent. That being said, that's the extent of my legal expertise.
Thaat's what I'll go with:D
 
L
Noticed the Big Blue has really taken off this year after I sprayed it this spring.





Looks great!

what did you spray the grasses with?
 
L



Looks great!

what did you spray the grasses with?

I sprayed 2qt/acre gly around 4/10, I wanted to get the cool season grasses before the warm seasons started.
 
5 years ago I planted switch grass to screen the north fence here, as you can see the trees on the fenceline have hindered the growth of everything, sucking the moisture out plus shading.

Before pic taken 6/7



Yesterday



Looking the other way, I wish I had a whole field of switch like this.





Probably half the trees on this fenceline are oaks an assortment of all types, reds, whites and swamp white. I wish I had these at other places on the property so I could utilize them more but right now they are a good source for me to get acorns to start new ones.

They are literally part of the fenceline. This red oak is loaded this year.





Swamp white, not quite as loaded as the red but still quite a few.

 
Went back today work on the food plot in the woods, it was pretty tall. I took the weed whacker and quad and planted a cereal grain with some peas and a few brassicas. I broadcast the seed and weed whacked the plot then ran over it with the quad to try to get soil contact.

Before







After





 
looking good!
 
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