Spruce advice

[j-bird]

I knew you folks from the nort would have good conifer info! Love this place love the info - high Jack complete and now terminated. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[sandbur]

Plant a variety of spruce in case disease problems arrive in your area.

Plan on staggered plantings, with room for replanting spruce about every 5-8 years in a new area. Let some brush or grass grow up around them.

Plant a single or double row of spruce to control deer movement after leaf drop.

 

[wiscwhip]

dipper, if you had no lower limbs but retained your upper canopy, this is why your deer still love them:

"Consistent with our findings reported elsewhere that snow depth has a greater impact on deer survival than ambient temperature, herein our population-level results highlight the importance of dense conifer cover as snow shelter rather than thermal cover."

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I like the Bur plan. Post # 43. It's the ticket !!

 

[Bucks&Ducks]

That's not true, the deer still loved my spruce for 20 years after the limbs died. They actually still like them after I cut the limbs off. In an open setting

I prefaced it by saying in my experience.

Do some of the exterior conifers still have lower limbs?

I have a few areas that used to get a lot of use until the conifers grew taller and lost their lower limbs including the exterior ones. Now it only gets used sparingly. I think its because it no longer shelters them from the wind.

edit: I will add this area is a combination of pines and spruce.

 

[kabic]

here is a shot of inside the neighbors pines...the outside trees still had lower branches, but the inside was pretty barren.

 

[wiscwhip]

Time to have those areas logged off.

 

[dipper]

Time to have those areas logged off.

X2 every other row. If you can get two sticks, they should go. That's from a forestry aspect. Those trees are soon nothing but growing up. If they get too tall without being thinned, thsn thinned, they will fall over.
That picture is why you also don't plant pine from a deer habitat perspective.

dipper, if you had no lower limbs but retained your upper canopy, this is why your deer still love them:

"Consistent with our findings reported elsewhere that snow depth has a greater impact on deer survival than ambient temperature, herein our population-level results highlight the importance of dense conifer cover as snow shelter rather than thermal cover."

Ya you are right. If those fields to the n were standing corn or beans, it would be loaded with deer. There just isn't any food there, so the bedding isn't ideal. It is only gonna get better as my nwsg grows up on the field to the s.

 

[bwoods11]

A side note, the biggest buck shot near the spruce trees on my Kittson County-NW MN farm was a buck that was chased or pushed by the neighbors and tried to get into the spruce trees for security. Well, he did not make it. We have seen quite a few nice ones move in to the spruce trees during rifle season. I think they know it's a safe haven and it is difficult to push or drive...we just do not even try.

 

[bwoods11]

This buck hung around our spruce trees for 4 years and then must have been shot somewhere else