What are you planting for habitat - Spring 2018?

[willy]

A total of 600 cedars, chokeberry, choke cherry, plum, and elderberry for bedding areas from my regions NRCS offerings
800 miscanthus, loved the way it turned out from last spring so I am adding more screening that I at first didn't feel was possible as far as time to happen but now see miscantus doing the job. Maple River Farms, put in a couple thousand last spring
9 various apple, pear, and peach trees from Turkey Creek, which puts me over 100 fruit trees since '09
a couple hundred hybrid willow cuttings but I have all the supply I need there.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

I've still got close to 50 apple and pear trees to move plus I have a few white pine and Norway spruce coming this spring I'm planting as a screen.
I need to get control of a few old pastures that are sweet gummie so I can get a nwg/pollinator field going.
So much to do and enjoy lol!

Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk

 

[bueller]

Unlike you guys planting hundreds or even thousands of trees I'll only be planting 112 size 6 plugs. Going with Colorado blue spruce this year and maybe some balsam fir. Need some shooting lanes so I hope to cut more trees than I plant from Jan-May.

 

[Diesel5610]

Unlike you guys planting hundreds or even thousands of trees I'll only be planting 112 size 6 plugs. Going with Colorado blue spruce this year and maybe some balsam fir. Need some shooting lanes so I hope to cut more trees than I plant from Jan-May.

What do you use to plant size 6 plugs? I have tool for 4a plugs but Itasca says they are only selling Norways in size 6 from here on out. I really liked the planting tool that you step on and it punches a hole the size of the plug. Sounds like my tool is about 2-2 1/2 inches too short.

 

[bueller]

What do you use to plant size 6 plugs? I have tool for 4a plugs but Itasca says they are only selling Norways in size 6 from here on out. I really liked the planting tool that you step on and it punches a hole the size of the plug. Sounds like my tool is about 2-2 1/2 inches too short.

I bought this and use it for size 6 plugs from NCR. Works great. I've planted 4a's from NCR with it before but there was quite a bit of room left on the sides so it's all 6's for me now. I don't know about Itasca's sizes but the 4a's and 6's from NCR are similar in depth, the diameter is the big difference.
https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/...um=69241&title=Jim-Gem® Container Dibble Bars

 

[Diesel5610]

That is the tool I was looking at trying with the size 6 plugs. I will pick one up. Thanks for the response.

 

[tinytim]

I have a bunch of apples to plant, 15 white oaks that I have grown, and have 25 more ordered, 20 dwarf chinkapins to try. Going to try to get more sumac to go in a couple of damp places.
I'm also really curious when I hear of all you guys planting norways, they are a weed up here that are affected by every pest going and turn into balls of stunted, weavilled, aphid infested crap. Do you guys not have any of these problems? or doesn't it matter for what you want them for?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Tinytim - I haven't seen the problem here with Norway spruce. Our biggest evergreen problem is probably the hemlock wooly adelgid which is killing the mature hemlocks. We also plant white spruce and balsam fir. We have white pines and pitch pines coming up like weeds naturally. No need to plant any of those.

 

[mikmaze]

I am leary to order anything early, major landowner change may happen, may loose rights. Personal highest LB of seed last year, 1350 lbs of seed planted, doubt I will get near that again. I put in a few persimmon last year, got a little lazy, didn't give em protection and the deer ate the trees, tough when you do 99 percent on your own, shortcuts are tempting. Put in a few apples, hope to have a polinator for my big ark black, that tree could produce over 100 lbs of apples for me this year, and that would be great.

 

[Mortenson]

Question - with that jim gem container type dibble, how do you firm up the site? Or don't you? I've used the bar with flat end, and use the leaning technique to make it real tight. The container dibble seems like a better way, but is it tight enough so that air isn't a problem?

 

[bueller]

Question - with that jim gem container type dibble, how do you firm up the site? Or don't you? I've used the bar with flat end, and use the leaning technique to make it real tight. The container dibble seems like a better way, but is it tight enough so that air isn't a problem?

Even with my dry sand I've had a very high survival rate planting plugs with this tool. Make hole, drop plug in, use foot or hand to scrap a little bit of native soil over the plug and press down. Only takes a few seconds per plug. Since I'm not planting rows in open space it takes me way longer to find a spot in the woods for a plug than it does to actually plant it.

 

[Mortenson]

Thanks! I may give 1 a shot. Wish I hadn't accidentally ordered 4 of the flat OST bars rather than the 1 I needed. Oh well, 1 made an interesting Christmas gift and another got placed into my dad's hands LOL. My ground is heavy, more clay based. Hmm I wonder if clay will fall out the core hollow tip as needed.

 

[bueller]

Thanks! I may give 1 a shot. Wish I hadn't accidentally ordered 4 of the flat OST bars rather than the 1 I needed. Oh well, 1 made an interesting Christmas gift and another got placed into my dad's hands LOL. My ground is heavy, more clay based. Hmm I wonder if clay will fall out the core hollow tip as needed.

They have hollow and solid point. My only experience is with the solid point.

 

[Diesel5610]

We have clay based soil here and I use the solid point. I have had very high survival rates with the plugs. Only ones I have lost have been due to extremely dry years, and that would have been an issue for bare roots as well. About as easy as it gets, step on tool to punch a hole, drop in a plug and either step on soil or scrape some on top and move on to the next.

 

[g squared 23]

4 apple
6 pear
175 norways
25 concordia oaks
150 gray dogwoods
25 silky dogwoods
25 rough leaf dogwoods

I'm going to cage the fruit trees and the oaks. The dogwoods and norways will be used to screen a small kill plot that is too open, and a good number of those will get protected. I'm going to try and plant the rest in hinge cut areas and hope the downed trees protect them enough to get make it a year or so.

 

[JFK52]

I am going to be targeting volunteer Scotch pine trees with a chainsaw cutting them below the bottom branches. I would like to cut some of my black locust trees in my 23 year old clear cut and treat the stumps with Tordon. That has to be done every few years to keep the locust from getting to big and spreading seeds again. There is enough locust seed in the ground 23 years after my clear cut.
I did save a couple hundred good hickory nuts and I plan on putting them in the ground this spring. I have no hickory trees on my land so I am hoping I might get a few to grow mostly for the squirrels.
I put fertilizer spikes on all my apple trees every spring and then clear out the brush that has grown in the drip line area.
If I get the EQIP grant for which I applied, I will be disking in a fire break and doing my 7th controlled burn on my 12 acre praire.

 

[landlord]

I wrote up a list this year so I can plan it better than just doing what comes to mind at the moment. The list is at the cabin so this is from memory.
300 black spruce
100 tamarack
250 hybrid poplar into my ash stands that I will be hinge cutting.(hoping to get new cover in there before EAB kills the ash)
at least 70 MG rhyzomes
ROD cuttings, as many as I can cut.
Hand clearing 1 small woods plot(1/4 acre)
Lime, and plant the new plot and another I cleared this year.
I want to add some more fruit trees, not sure what or how many.
Hinge feather some edges, the cutting will start in Jan. then the clearing when I can get at the ground. Tree planting will probably be in late April, early May.
As usual for every year, lime lime lime

 

[chickenlittle]

Will see if anything jumps out at me from the PA Game Commission nursery, maybe some white spruce.

What a bummer. The PGC had some interesting stuff on their 2018 listing but recently announced they will not be selling to the public in 2018. The announcement said they had germination failure of several conifer species. I can't imagine why they waited until December to announce that since it would have been known last summer. Might really be a budget/cost saving thing similar to closing some of the pheasant breeding farms. Maybe they'll have some bigger/better stock available in 2019...assuming they don't close down the the nursery.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

^^^^^ I hope they don't close down the nursery. We've gotten lots of seedlings from them over the past 22 years. I'd hate to see it go. Hoping they're back in 2019.

 

[Diesel5610]

I have not heard that about the PGC nursery, that stinks. NY's Saratoga Nursery looks like it has a pretty decent selection this year. Going to get 75 American Plum from them, not sure what else I may order. I also have the following coming

4 Kerr Crabs (SLN)
2 All Winter Hangover (SLN)
2 Violi crabs (SLN)

7 Chestnut Cummins
2 Enterprise Cummins

800 Norway Spruce Plugs.

I need to order a few Liberty and Goldrush on 111 or 118 and then force myself to stop for this year. Already a full spring schedule.