I’ve done lots of plantings over the years - here are some things I’ve learned: use PVC conduit for tree tube stakes - they’re cheap, last forever and don’t breakdown in the sunlight. Planting ROD without protection in even moderate deer density is an exercise in futility. I’ve planted hundreds, just to see them eaten down to the dirt before 2 years. Plant fewer and protect them. I planted some this year in bunches of 5 inside a fence cage (about 6’ diameter). I’m hoping after a couple years getting established, I can take fence down - move the cage over and plant with cuttings from the 2-3 year old ROD I just took the cage off. Any of those species you’re planting - will benefit from weed/grass suppression - I cut mats from a role of landscape fabric and use landscape staples - the better fabric will last 2-3 years before it breaks down, but it gives your plants the head start they need to out compete the weeds
Good points, Mike. In the past I have tried to combine my browse/tree plantings with lots of TSI in the timber and aggressive doe shooting in the hopes of overwhelming the deer with enough food that everything gets a chance to grow/establish. I have had some success with this. Fortunately, this property has a moderate to low density right now. I need to really get on the does for a couple more years. I hate slow progress in my land projects - I can see what I want it to look like and I want that change within a couple years. The only way to do that (or maybe do that) is to overwhelm them with food while keeping the numbers down. Good input.
I am really jealous, Bill. Planting trees, shrubs or cuttings is hard work but watching the fruits of your labor over the years is so fulfilling. As my property is all wooded mountain land, I decided to plant a group of redosier dogwood right along a trail from bedding to a water hole. A stand is close by. One thing I did was to cage around the cuttings to keep the deer from eating it to the ground until it gets some height to them. They are doing great so far. They are candy to deer from what I've seen. I plan on planting more each year until I have an area of around 100'x100' along the wet weather stream banks.
I think that is awesome. If I can get them to establish here I will keep adding more each year too. Anything we can do to let nature provide the food (apples, pears, browse, etc.) is better than having to plant lots of food plots each year. I am sure I will always plant food plots, but having a lot of natural food is super important. Have a great day.
So many times you see trees/ woods being cut down to make an area the way they want it…it makes me so happy to see someone planting trees !! Even tho it may take years for the plan to come together, you are giving new life back ❤🌳
Welcome back Ethan. Cant wait to see you on your 1000 acres. Know God put that desire in your heart and by developing yourself as a man of God to obtain the desire is more valuable than simply reaching the goal. Everything you need is within you! Keep up the great work.
Love watching your show! I just got 80 acres right on the iowa line in northeast missouri and have aggressively began following your system. Cant wait to see the results.. im to the point i can’t really do anything else but sit back and watch it grow and thats driving me nuts! I spent all winter dozing , cutting, clearing, prepping and planting.. fall cant get here quick enough so i can see how any of it effects movement and then to learn how to hunt it!
Ken, that is the fun stuff isn't it? I think I enjoy the land work more than (or at least as much as) the hunting. Have a great day and good luck with the new farm.
I planted thousands of trees and shrubs on my property in southeast Kansas last year and lost almost everything except for some miscanthus due to the extreme drought. I now have IBC totes set up with drip lines and a timer, hopefully that will help for this year’s plantings. I love watching your channel, keep up the great content 👍🏼
Dang that stinks. It is heartbreaking to do all that work and have it go to nothing. If only we could get rain when we need it. That has been my issue this year too. I don't think I have lost the shrubs and small trees I planted. At least not yet. But they are definitely getting stressed.
I would get those cuttings down in the ground better. You only need the top bud(s) above the soil line to get better rooting. Hybrid willows are pretty tough, but Id sink them. If your red osier do well, get cuttings in the future off your own stock to expand your browse. Silky willow will be good for your erosion sites. If your hybrid poplars are OP-367 and some others, you can get your own cuttings again. They root really well.
Thanks George. Yes, in that specific spot where I filmed that B-roll of the hybrid willows the ground was super hard underneath. I am guessing an old roadbed or something under there. I pushed those in as far as I could without causing them to buckle. I think in other spots in that screen they will do better as the subsoil was much softer. I am really looking forward to seeing how those hybrid popular do in that erosion/sloughing application. That is an ongoing problem in a lot of that steep country. Good input.
I’m in MN and have done tons of tree planting, the deer browse makes it tough and frustrating to get things to establish and I can’t afford to protect thousands of trees through conventional methods so this year I went through and cut out hundreds of iron woods in areas I wanted more sun into the hardwoods and I took them all and created basically mini brush pile cages over all the transplants. It is obviously extra work but it cuts the cost vs tubes and stakes. If you’ve got a different tree species that’s less than desirable I recommend trying this method.
Keep us posted on the results. I began planting with apples, pears and persimmons (cages and tubes). They have all been growing well. I later planted American Plum and Fragrant Sumac without protection or weed mats. I can't find any that survived. This year, I planted 15 Aronia, 15 American Plum and a lone red osier dogwood. I caged about 10, protected others with tree tops I cut and left a few exposed. The work sucks as you mentioned. I couldn't get all my seedlings planted, but hopefully most of the ones I did make it. If you get away without protecting, I may give that another go at some point. Until then, I plant a few and protect what I can.
That makes sense. I checked the red osier this morning. The deer have found them (based on tracks), but have not browsed them yet. The plants are putting out leaves, so that is good. I am guessing I may get away with it this year, but maybe never again once the deer learn these things are edible. If I was planting apples or chestnuts, for example (expensive trees to buy) I would tube them all. I am getting the red osier, wild plum and chokecherry very cheap so I am not out much if the experiment fails.
Thanks Takur. We are definitely going to need lots of help before we are done planting all those steep open slopes to something useful. I appreciate the thought. Have a great day.
Bill...good luck with all the tree plantings, it will be very interesting to follow. I'm planting some red osier dogwoods this year also. In the past I have planted thousands of white spruce and white pine and some switch grass with good success. I found although fast growing, after 20 -25 years the poplar trees start to have many many dead limbs and die off. They may give you enough time to establish native bushes etc., but in our case they were on a field edge and we had to cut them all down. Thanks for sharing, a very interesting project...Bob
Thanks Bob. We will produce an update on the progress of our tree, nut and shrub plantings on Monday's episode. With the hybrid poplar, I am just hoping for something that grows fast enough to stabilize that slipping bank. Once that happens I am fine with cutting them down and leaving the root system in place can planting other things in that area. Mud slides aren't cool, even on a small scale. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
Red Osier is excellent for hunting. I hunt around a lot of it in Minnesota and they seem to always hold deer. Imagine if your bedroom had a buffet, you'd probably spend a lot of time there too! You may not be aware, but you can clip the ends of red osier branches off and stick them right into the ground in the spring and they'll grow. Might save some money that way, but not time, since they'll have to grow, obviously. When I did that myself this spring to transplant on a different property, I didn't find a single plant that the deer hadn't clipped first. Literally hundreds of plants, every single one, every branch, was bit off. Granted, it was a hard winter, but it clearly demonstrates how the deer favor it.
Keith, I am looking forward to planting about a half acre (or so) of red osier each spring if this first one works out. I think it would really improve some of the low wet areas on the farm. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
Some words of caution, once the deer find those red osier cuttings, they will likely browse them down to the dirt. Red osiers are amazing deer browse but they are very difficult to establish without caging or tubes. It's a better idea to spend the extra money to protect a few cuttings than to plant a lot of cuttings without any protection. Switchgrass is also another great option for access screening and provides security to small game and even deer on the edges. Wishing you guys the best of luck!
Trent, my only hope is that the deer here have no idea what a red osier is and it may take them a bit of time to figure it out. So far, they have not nipped at any of them, that I can tell. Hopefully I can get all 250 of these to take root and get established before the deer start to zero in on them. I have never been a fan of switchgrass since planting about 350 acres of it on different farms over the years. I don't see deer using it much and then when it finally thins out (from time and poor maintenance) you have to start over. If you had just planted acorns (or similar) in the first place you would have permanent habitat with a lot of diversity in that site, already established. But, I do understand why people plant switchgrass. If this farm was flatter in pheasant country, I would definitely have switchgrass. Our farm is turkey, deer and a few ruffed grouse. Thanks for the comment. Have a great day.
I will be getting some dogwood. I believe Osage orange and locust are overlooked as food sources. Both have large crops of fruit in 10yrs or less. The deer in my area only have hedge trees and cotton woods. At first frost they love the leaves and when the snow flies, the deer are always in the hedge lot feeding. I have planted oak since I was 20. I'm seeing the benefits now and it's rewarding. Dolgo crab apple has been a good one for me. The cedar blight has snuffed all other apples I have planted but not the dolgo.
I had an issue with cedar blight on the other farm we had in southern Iowa. This farm is loaded with wild apple trees. Not much for human consumption (they taste bland, no zip) but the deer eat them. We had tons of Osage orange (hedge) in southern Iowa. The deer did love the leaves. They would walk right through soybeans to eat the leaves on the ground after they started dropping. I didn't see them eating the hedge apples though. Squirrels ate them, but not the deer. We also had tons of locust and the deer did eat the pods but only when everything else was gone. It was not their favorite. Good input. Thanks for sharing that information.
Two years ago I planted 250 red oschier dogwoods and 250 hybrid willow here in eastern NE. Some success but the hybrid willow did seem to grow about 6’ a year but the deer seemed to eat about 6.5’ a year. They are in grow tubes so they eat down to the tubes. They are still alive so I’m hoping the roots continue to develop and will outpace the eating. Red dogwoods had a high fail rate. I’m blaming that on two very dry years and I planted them on hillsides instead of low moist areas.
Daron, I have noticed that the red osier that I planted right on the edge of the mudhole are putting out leaves and looking great while the ones I planted in the slightly elevated upland area have not shot a single leaf yet. I think that is the key - that and the fact that my deer don't seem to have any idea what they are. I hope they keep that naïve approach for a couple more years. I am hoping that because my willows are down by the road, the deer won't find them, but that is likely wishful thinking. Have a great day.
Wild plum is a favorite of these mule deer here at my house. But at the farm ( about 70 miles away) I’ve not seen sign of them nibbling on stems leaves much in the summer. They do go nuts over the plums later. And as the weather cools and the plants change chemically? they will start browsing heavily. In a few short years your farm is going to be a huge deer magnet. 👍👍👀
Good information Tim. I appreciate it. Yes, that is why I am trying to do all the habitat and browse work now before the deer density is too high. People make the mistake of putting in tons of food first and then doing the habitat work. That just brings too many hungry deer to the property. The goal is to start the habitat work right away and try to keep the deer numbers in check by shooting does as you increase the overall food supply on the property. Also, doing an aggressive TSI plan during the time you are planting browse/cover species will improve success of the stuff you plant. I have seen that work too.
Bill, in one of your latest videos, Jordan said she has to shoot a few inches lower out of the tree. Have her sight in a pin about 15 yards from the target and use that pin in the tree. For target shooting use the other pin.
Thanks. I am hoping this works out on this farm without having to protect everything I plant. Once I know that, I can possibly be more aggressive in what I plant and where I plant it. Lots to learn on this place. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
I've done exactly what you're doing the last 3 years. I plant around 1200 total each year (including some conifers). I would highly recommend doing some tubes with wood stakes. Not that expensive and you will see the difference. Maybe do 10% of each type of tree and shrub in tubes and watch the difference. The deer will eat everything you planted. Dogwood can do very well on the edges of woods and high ground but you would need to water to get established. We have a lot of native Red Osier Dogwood on old mining tailings.
Thanks Freedom Acres. I am sure you are right. It will be interesting what we learn this year. I will keep adding more red osier dogwood to the farm each year. I think as long as I can keep deer numbers low, I can keep improving habitat at a fast rate. Once the deer good numerous (if they do) that will all slow way down as they will eat most of it when it is establishing. Have a great day.
It is tons of work. You need young people for this kind of work. If I ever get where I plan to plant more than 1,000 trees per year on those steep open slopes, I am going to have to hire the local football team or something similar!
Shane, it is a ton of work. I didn't expect it to take that long. I will come up with a better system on the next round. The machine planter is awesome if you can get a tractor to the site, but that is the point of this farm - there are tons of spots too steep to plant with a tractor and hand planting is the only option. Have a great day.
Thanks Ross. It is the evolution of this pasture farm. Lots of work left to do - lots of timber improvement with some cutting of junk trees and few years of prescribed fire and this place will really change and produce a lot more browse. Have a great day.
Have you noticed the deer interact with plantings differently when planted in rows with a planter vs. sporadically hand planting to make it more random?
Jake, the simple answer is yes. I felt that the deer just went right down the rows and ate them when I used the row planter. I did several plantings this way and the only two that did well were cedar (back in the mid-90s on a farm that I needed road frontage screening) and (believe it or not) Swamp White Oak. I had surprisingly good success row planting swamp white oak. I wonder if there is something about that tree that the deer don't browse as aggressively. Everything else I row planted (wild plum, white oak, red oak, chokecherry, silver maple, hybrid willow, probably others) all got eaten within the first year. Direct seeding was a better solution on that farm as I could swamp the deer with too many sprouts to eat them all. Planting from seed was a much better option in that setting.
Hey Bill, I hope those choke 🍒 trees don't fork & grow a dominant & co-dominant side. Good thing they don't have a fence near them. I had a 60' come down on a fence last year & it was a clean-up nightmare. For a few years I had a heavy ratchet style truck pulling strap. It was between 2 huge ones leaning in opposite directions. However even the help of fortifying it with a large arborist rigging rope didn't work since I had it 2 feet below where the trunk of the tree twisted & snapped. They get scars in them from injuries but they don't act like there's a problem. The year b4 that I climbed up one & cut a notch in it. I had a strap well above that notch to pull it down with an rope puller tool. The notch never snapped but the whole tree 8 feet from the ground twisted @ a 90* angle & came down almost hitting a fence. They do however put out quite a crop of small food in August & September if u have large ones & I have too many of them...ha haha 😂. Thanks for the habitat renewal project. It would be nice if more folks put more effort into it.
Thanks Joseph. I think these are dwarf trees and will only reach about 20 feet tall. About the same size as the wild plum trees. I just hope they grow. We need some rain now or they will be in trouble. Too many of them spread over too wide an area to water by hand. Nature will have to provide. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke Yeah Bill, we have native dwarf crab apple & pin-cherry trees. Only get to 20 feet max & then grow outward & need pruning. But they leave quite a bit of mast.
God bless you, that's a lot of work. I don't know if you realize this wild/native plum ROOT SUCKER hard!! and every where their many yards of roots travel. I found out the very hard way. They also produce a thorn type structure that will destroy tires. That said deer love the leaf browse and the fruit. You do need lots of bees because they are the first to bloom and need bugs to pollinate. I get clouds of flowers, very few fruit due to cold springs.
I will be happy with the plum forming thickets. In fact, I hope it does. And you are definitely right about the bees. I have thought about that and may look into adding a few hives on the farm. I think that would be really good for the apple trees on the ridge top and the clover plots too. Thanks for the input and have a great day.
Thanks for the video Bill. My ears really perked up when you said swampy lowland, that fits my land perfectly. I have a lot of the Red Osier Dogwood around my 40 acres and the deer hammer it all winter. I want to try and get more of it around my land and have heard about cutting pieces of of the existing plant and then pushing them into the ground. I am not sure when to actually do the cutting because they say to let them sit through the winter and plant them in the spring. Have you heard anything about being able to do this with the Red Osier Dogwood?
Yes you can. Its very easy. Take cuttings on the new growth when your ground starts to thaw and stick them in the ground. You need at least 2 buds but the longer the cutting and deeper into the ground you can push, the better. No need in anything longer than 2 foot for a Red Osier.
I will Nicholas. Not to give it away, but all are looking surprisingly good despite last year's dry conditions. The deer did finally find the Redosier dogwood in the winter and hammered it. I was hoping they would let it go for a year or two. It will be interesting to see if those browsed bushes can make a come back. If not, then there is no way to get redosier past the deer without some kind of protection (exclusion cage).
Nice content. Been planting apples, pears and peaches. As have lot of native browse and lot of oaks. Been looking into hazelnuts and chestnuts next once make room for them
Thanks Kokadjo. I am going to plant a bunch of chestnuts in the coming year. I have a good source that was selling them commercially that wants to get rid of his entire stock so I am getting a good deal. Have a great day.
When tree tubing trees use 1/2 in steel Conduit for stakes. T-post is overkill. A 10ft piece is roughly $5. Cut in half you got 2 stakes. 2.50 each. But yeah adds up quick when tubing.
That's good advice. Thanks. I plan to plant a few hundred Chestnut trees next spring and for sure I will tube those. This gives me a better cost base on that planting.
Bill, I have gone back to watching your videos over again, and I was wondering as to where you bought your cuttings from? I just purchased another 100 Red Osier cuttings and 50 Black Willow cuttings for a March planting, and I am always looking for options.
I buy from the State of Iowa nursery. That is part of the DNR but the trees are only available for Iowa residents. Might be something like that in your state (unless you live in Iowa then have at it). Good luck.
As much as I love trees and cuttings, getting that kind of delivery would be so devastating mentally for me LOL Im good to get 100 in the ground each year at any given time. I put in 100+ this year on the property and in the yard. I dont have anywhere near the land you have though. I am currently working more on screening plantings and adding nut trees here and there. I have several chestnut to get in the ground this fall and will do a continued cycle each year to keep something new going and replenish anything that may die.
It ended up being about three days, a long three days! So far so good, they are all still alive, but we do need another good shot of rain soon or they will start to struggle.
If it was me putting time into planting I would put half as many trees in the sack and let the other half stay in the water bucket. Less chance of the roots getting dried out and easier to manage. By the time you are done you'll have it down pat!
We have planted 5,500 by hand now and several hundred thousand acorns. I kind of hope I am starting to get it down pat now though I am far from done. I wonder how many trees and shrubs we will end up planting this farm! I don't even want to know or I will give up!
Ever planted ROD in an upland setting? I have very little wet areas and am considering trying it in some lower areas that don’t have standing water but will collect a lot of rain when it does come down. It’s a great browse for deer
I have never hunted around redosier dogwood in the past and have never planted it. I did try one small area with 50 bush seedlings on this round so we will see how they do. I will keep everyone posted.
Good information on a lot of shrubs Bill! Any thoughts on warm season grasses for bank stabilization and cover or no? This farm seems to be starting out like the previous which leaves me wondering if the direct seeding and shrubs has so much more pull than grasses do for screening and cover.
Alex, it is a bit of a personal thing, but I like permanent habitat (trees, shrubs) over grasses for long-term. I have planted a lot of switchgrass over the years and it is a bit fickle. Can be tough to establish and requires regular maintenance. Even then, I didn't see the deer using it much other than to pass through. I will stick with trees and shrubs for Plan A when getting this farm into shape. I am sure I will have to look at other options too, for the steep areas, but I have a few ideas there too - direct seeding stuff like chokecherry, plum, crabapple, etc. I need to figure out to prep the soil for that, but that will be another project to add to the list.
@@bill-winke I appreciate the feedback Bill. I always appreciated how you want to make every acre usable for deer which would definitely lead you down that direction. Good stuff, always taking notes and learning from you!
In spots you can get to with a tractor you can use tree planter (maybe your local NRCS office knows where to find one/rent one). I did a ton of that in southern Iowa. The subsoiler would be OK, maybe, but there would be a lot of risk that the trench is too wide at the bottom to seal up and then you will have an air pocket which is bad. Will cause the roots to dry out and the tree to die. Getting a very clean slit and then getting it to seal is critical. Have a great day.
I have determined that this method of planting really depends on whether you get enough rain the year you do it and your deer density. We have planted thousands of bare root trees here in Northern Indiana and the deer continuously eat the tops off them. We have to shoot more does.
something I heard Jeff Sturgis talk about that may help you is to fence off a smallish area and create the browse area with cuttings and then remove the fence in a couple years and start another. If I can allocate the appropriate space, I am highly considering it. It would only take 1 roll of fence and some posts to create a 30' circle
That would be a good approach as long as you don't have too big of an area to cover. My farm has about 55 acres of old marginal pasture in total. I can address about 40 of it with direct planting using seed because I can get a tractor to it, but that leaves about 15 steep or wet acres that I need to plant by hand (Ugh). Trying to do that in a quick manner is my challenge. If I can keep the deer numbers down in the meantime, maybe I can slip in the habitat work before they realize it. That is my goal/dream.
Bill do you have concerns with the dogwood kinda taking over and becoming to thick? I'm thinking about planting some but fear it may turn into a problem like honeysuckle.
That is what we are going to find out Nic. If I can get away with planting this stuff without protecting it, I can do a lot more a lot faster. If I have to protect everything I plant in that area, it will definitely change my approach to adding cover to those old pastured slopes.
@@bill-winke I also have cattle pasture trying to do the same. Fencing the bottom two feet to keep rabbits and mice away. Do you think spraying gly on the fescue would be needed to get the natural regen ?
@@nicschaalma3508 I think that would help. Many private lands biologists will recommend burning in the spring before the green grass gets too tall. That is a common way to renovate pasture areas with the hopes of establishing native prairie. I think all I would get on my farm is thistles year one, but I am willing to try it in areas that are too steep for any kind of machine planting.
As of Thursday, they had not sprouted. I think with the soil temperature now rising fast, they should be out of the ground this coming week. I will be there all week so I will get some video and talk about that entire process.
Are you concerned that the deer will over browse these plantings and they will not grow. Would it be better to plant when there's more food..? Just curious I am interested in doing this
I am concerned but this farm doesn't have a ton of deer on it right now. Also this time of the spring is rich in natural browse, so the deer are spread our. The only other option is fall. I like that too because the trees are dormant for a long time and when they break dormancy in the spring they shouldn't shock as badly as having them trying to get their start in a fresh hole if the spring turns dry.
I’ve hunted red osier thickets that were natural and ones I’ve made with cuttings. You will love them! Deer love them no doubt for browse and cover. Mine don’t get browsed heavy until late winter and early spring when food is scarce. One thing I’ve noticed over the last 15 years with red osier, they don’t like them in tight groups. I’m interested to see how this turns out for you.
JAB - I may have to thin them. I will keep an eye on them. I kind of figured that the deer would wipe out a percentage so overplanting was OK. Time will tell. This whole planting project is little more than an experiment. I need to know what I can and can't get away with on this farm so I can scale up the effort. This farm has enough steep ground that I will need 10s of thousands of trees to do it justice. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke it helps draw moisture to the roots, even in drought conditions which often happens to spring plantings. In Michigan seems like every year we have 2 month dry spell. Nobody wants to plant in the fall which is actually the best time to plant trees. But interferes with hunting. yeah check it out - it does help.
Hey Bill, on those red osier dogwoods, do I need to cage those when planting? Hopefully not cause that's a lot of cages also do you know where I can get those cheap at cause I don't have any in my area
Craig, I have not been caging them but that is part of my overall strategy here for keeping the deer numbers low for a few more years. I checked them just this morning and they are all doing well. I think I planted 200 and probably the deer have eaten four or five so far. But, if the population there is moderate to high, you will have to cage them, unfortunately.
I have seen that too, but I did have good success getting some trees through to full maturity. I think you have to have enough that it overwhelms the "predators" and allows a percentage to make it through. Or you have to tube them all and that is another option though I would have to cut way back on numbers to afford that. This experiment will tell the story on how to move forward on this farm.
Mostly just creates cover/habitat on those steep open slopes. Also, I like the way those trees look in the spring when they are all flowered out. Finally, I am sure the birds and smaller animals will appreciate the fruit from these trees if they do get established. Deer may eat some of that fruit, but really that is not the number one reason. There are better soft mast trees for deer (apples, for example) than plum and chokecherry.
They do, but they normal focus on just the new growth out on the tips of branches. That's why you need to keep the trees caged in most settings so the deer don't keep them from growing. Have a great day.
No persimmon trees deer and the raccoons will eat them, a couple pear trees always is good but takes along time to produce but they last a long time . Jordan will there be more color options on the shirts 👍✌🏻🇺🇸
David, I planted a lot of apple trees on the last farm we owned and expect to do some of that here. This farm, for whatever reason, has tons of wild/native apple trees in some spots. But there are also areas with none, so I will supplement. I also plan to plant chestnuts either this fall or next spring. I am sure that Jordan is thinking about other colors for shirts and hats. Thanks for the comment.
She needs to be - we would see a lot more cool designs if she was! She is a very good designer so this is only the starting point for this merchandise venture. Will be fun to see where it leads.
I’ve done lots of plantings over the years - here are some things I’ve learned: use PVC conduit for tree tube stakes - they’re cheap, last forever and don’t breakdown in the sunlight. Planting ROD without protection in even moderate deer density is an exercise in futility. I’ve planted hundreds, just to see them eaten down to the dirt before 2 years. Plant fewer and protect them. I planted some this year in bunches of 5 inside a fence cage (about 6’ diameter). I’m hoping after a couple years getting established, I can take fence down - move the cage over and plant with cuttings from the 2-3 year old ROD I just took the cage off. Any of those species you’re planting - will benefit from weed/grass suppression - I cut mats from a role of landscape fabric and use landscape staples - the better fabric will last 2-3 years before it breaks down, but it gives your plants the head start they need to out compete the weeds
Good points, Mike. In the past I have tried to combine my browse/tree plantings with lots of TSI in the timber and aggressive doe shooting in the hopes of overwhelming the deer with enough food that everything gets a chance to grow/establish. I have had some success with this. Fortunately, this property has a moderate to low density right now. I need to really get on the does for a couple more years. I hate slow progress in my land projects - I can see what I want it to look like and I want that change within a couple years. The only way to do that (or maybe do that) is to overwhelm them with food while keeping the numbers down. Good input.
I am really jealous, Bill. Planting trees, shrubs or cuttings is hard work but watching the fruits of your labor over the years is so fulfilling. As my property is all wooded mountain land, I decided to plant a group of redosier dogwood right along a trail from bedding to a water hole. A stand is close by. One thing I did was to cage around the cuttings to keep the deer from eating it to the ground until it gets some height to them. They are doing great so far. They are candy to deer from what I've seen. I plan on planting more each year until I have an area of around 100'x100' along the wet weather stream banks.
I think that is awesome. If I can get them to establish here I will keep adding more each year too. Anything we can do to let nature provide the food (apples, pears, browse, etc.) is better than having to plant lots of food plots each year. I am sure I will always plant food plots, but having a lot of natural food is super important. Have a great day.
So many times you see trees/ woods being cut down to make an area the way they want it…it makes me so happy to see someone planting trees !! Even tho it may take years for the plan to come together, you are giving new life back ❤🌳
Thanks Hayley. We appreciate the support and the comment. Have a great day.
Welcome back Ethan. Cant wait to see you on your 1000 acres. Know God put that desire in your heart and by developing yourself as a man of God to obtain the desire is more valuable than simply reaching the goal. Everything you need is within you! Keep up the great work.
Amen. Much appreciate the good words of encouragement Paul. Have a great day.
Thank you, Paul, I appreciate the encouragement! God bless
Ethan is the man, glad to see you keeping him busy…👊🏻🏹
Ethan IS the man. Glad to have him back at work!
I wish! Doing this stuff is my passion, so I'm happy to help any way I can.
Love watching your show! I just got 80 acres right on the iowa line in northeast missouri and have aggressively began following your system. Cant wait to see the results..
im to the point i can’t really do anything else but sit back and watch it grow and thats driving me nuts! I spent all winter dozing , cutting, clearing, prepping and planting.. fall cant get here quick enough so i can see how any of it effects movement and then to learn how to hunt it!
Ken, that is the fun stuff isn't it? I think I enjoy the land work more than (or at least as much as) the hunting. Have a great day and good luck with the new farm.
This is a great team! Love the content! Keep'em coming.
Thanks John. We appreciate you watching and commenting. Have a great day.
I planted thousands of trees and shrubs on my property in southeast Kansas last year and lost almost everything except for some miscanthus due to the extreme drought. I now have IBC totes set up with drip lines and a timer, hopefully that will help for this year’s plantings. I love watching your channel, keep up the great content 👍🏼
Dang that stinks. It is heartbreaking to do all that work and have it go to nothing. If only we could get rain when we need it. That has been my issue this year too. I don't think I have lost the shrubs and small trees I planted. At least not yet. But they are definitely getting stressed.
Very cool project Bill, can’t wait to see how the trees do. Great video as always.
Thanks Mitchell. I appreciate the support. I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out too - lots to learn here.
I would get those cuttings down in the ground better. You only need the top bud(s) above the soil line to get better rooting. Hybrid willows are pretty tough, but Id sink them. If your red osier do well, get cuttings in the future off your own stock to expand your browse.
Silky willow will be good for your erosion sites. If your hybrid poplars are OP-367 and some others, you can get your own cuttings again. They root really well.
Thanks George. Yes, in that specific spot where I filmed that B-roll of the hybrid willows the ground was super hard underneath. I am guessing an old roadbed or something under there. I pushed those in as far as I could without causing them to buckle. I think in other spots in that screen they will do better as the subsoil was much softer. I am really looking forward to seeing how those hybrid popular do in that erosion/sloughing application. That is an ongoing problem in a lot of that steep country. Good input.
I’m in MN and have done tons of tree planting, the deer browse makes it tough and frustrating to get things to establish and I can’t afford to protect thousands of trees through conventional methods so this year I went through and cut out hundreds of iron woods in areas I wanted more sun into the hardwoods and I took them all and created basically mini brush pile cages over all the transplants. It is obviously extra work but it cuts the cost vs tubes and stakes. If you’ve got a different tree species that’s less than desirable I recommend trying this method.
I have done the same using undesirable trees such as hedge and honey locust tree branches.
Interesting, I have never even thought about that. I will have to give that more consideration.
Keep us posted on the results. I began planting with apples, pears and persimmons (cages and tubes). They have all been growing well. I later planted American Plum and Fragrant Sumac without protection or weed mats. I can't find any that survived. This year, I planted 15 Aronia, 15 American Plum and a lone red osier dogwood. I caged about 10, protected others with tree tops I cut and left a few exposed. The work sucks as you mentioned. I couldn't get all my seedlings planted, but hopefully most of the ones I did make it. If you get away without protecting, I may give that another go at some point. Until then, I plant a few and protect what I can.
That makes sense. I checked the red osier this morning. The deer have found them (based on tracks), but have not browsed them yet. The plants are putting out leaves, so that is good. I am guessing I may get away with it this year, but maybe never again once the deer learn these things are edible. If I was planting apples or chestnuts, for example (expensive trees to buy) I would tube them all. I am getting the red osier, wild plum and chokecherry very cheap so I am not out much if the experiment fails.
Thank you for sharing this information. Very helpful to this new landowner.
Thanks Scott. I appreciate the comment and the support.
Wish I was closer, would love to come help plant. So neat to have your own place to do this. This is a great series to follow along
Thanks Takur. We are definitely going to need lots of help before we are done planting all those steep open slopes to something useful. I appreciate the thought. Have a great day.
Great video guys! I sure do enjoy seeing all the Dream farm improvements!
It is a labor for sure, but we enjoy it and seeing stuff grow and change is super rewarding. Have a great day.
Bill...good luck with all the tree plantings, it will be very interesting to follow. I'm planting some red osier dogwoods this year also. In the past I have planted thousands of white spruce and white pine and some switch grass with good success. I found although fast growing, after
20 -25 years the poplar trees start to have many many dead limbs and die off. They may give you enough time to establish native bushes etc., but in our case they were on a field edge and we had to cut them all down. Thanks for sharing, a very interesting project...Bob
Thanks Bob. We will produce an update on the progress of our tree, nut and shrub plantings on Monday's episode. With the hybrid poplar, I am just hoping for something that grows fast enough to stabilize that slipping bank. Once that happens I am fine with cutting them down and leaving the root system in place can planting other things in that area. Mud slides aren't cool, even on a small scale. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
Bill...thanks for all your input and keep up the good work. We spoke numerous times years ago... and you were a great help. Thanks, Bob SWWI
Red Osier is excellent for hunting. I hunt around a lot of it in Minnesota and they seem to always hold deer. Imagine if your bedroom had a buffet, you'd probably spend a lot of time there too! You may not be aware, but you can clip the ends of red osier branches off and stick them right into the ground in the spring and they'll grow. Might save some money that way, but not time, since they'll have to grow, obviously. When I did that myself this spring to transplant on a different property, I didn't find a single plant that the deer hadn't clipped first. Literally hundreds of plants, every single one, every branch, was bit off. Granted, it was a hard winter, but it clearly demonstrates how the deer favor it.
Keith, I am looking forward to planting about a half acre (or so) of red osier each spring if this first one works out. I think it would really improve some of the low wet areas on the farm. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
Some words of caution, once the deer find those red osier cuttings, they will likely browse them down to the dirt. Red osiers are amazing deer browse but they are very difficult to establish without caging or tubes. It's a better idea to spend the extra money to protect a few cuttings than to plant a lot of cuttings without any protection. Switchgrass is also another great option for access screening and provides security to small game and even deer on the edges. Wishing you guys the best of luck!
Trent, my only hope is that the deer here have no idea what a red osier is and it may take them a bit of time to figure it out. So far, they have not nipped at any of them, that I can tell. Hopefully I can get all 250 of these to take root and get established before the deer start to zero in on them. I have never been a fan of switchgrass since planting about 350 acres of it on different farms over the years. I don't see deer using it much and then when it finally thins out (from time and poor maintenance) you have to start over. If you had just planted acorns (or similar) in the first place you would have permanent habitat with a lot of diversity in that site, already established. But, I do understand why people plant switchgrass. If this farm was flatter in pheasant country, I would definitely have switchgrass. Our farm is turkey, deer and a few ruffed grouse. Thanks for the comment. Have a great day.
I will be getting some dogwood. I believe Osage orange and locust are overlooked as food sources. Both have large crops of fruit in 10yrs or less. The deer in my area only have hedge trees and cotton woods. At first frost they love the leaves and when the snow flies, the deer are always in the hedge lot feeding. I have planted oak since I was 20. I'm seeing the benefits now and it's rewarding. Dolgo crab apple has been a good one for me. The cedar blight has snuffed all other apples I have planted but not the dolgo.
I had an issue with cedar blight on the other farm we had in southern Iowa. This farm is loaded with wild apple trees. Not much for human consumption (they taste bland, no zip) but the deer eat them. We had tons of Osage orange (hedge) in southern Iowa. The deer did love the leaves. They would walk right through soybeans to eat the leaves on the ground after they started dropping. I didn't see them eating the hedge apples though. Squirrels ate them, but not the deer. We also had tons of locust and the deer did eat the pods but only when everything else was gone. It was not their favorite. Good input. Thanks for sharing that information.
Two years ago I planted 250 red oschier dogwoods and 250 hybrid willow here in eastern NE. Some success but the hybrid willow did seem to grow about 6’ a year but the deer seemed to eat about 6.5’ a year. They are in grow tubes so they eat down to the tubes. They are still alive so I’m hoping the roots continue to develop and will outpace the eating. Red dogwoods had a high fail rate. I’m blaming that on two very dry years and I planted them on hillsides instead of low moist areas.
Daron, I have noticed that the red osier that I planted right on the edge of the mudhole are putting out leaves and looking great while the ones I planted in the slightly elevated upland area have not shot a single leaf yet. I think that is the key - that and the fact that my deer don't seem to have any idea what they are. I hope they keep that naïve approach for a couple more years. I am hoping that because my willows are down by the road, the deer won't find them, but that is likely wishful thinking. Have a great day.
Wild plum is a favorite of these mule deer here at my house. But at the farm ( about 70 miles away) I’ve not seen sign of them nibbling on stems leaves much in the summer. They do go nuts over the plums later. And as the weather cools and the plants change chemically? they will start browsing heavily. In a few short years your farm is going to be a huge deer magnet. 👍👍👀
Good information Tim. I appreciate it. Yes, that is why I am trying to do all the habitat and browse work now before the deer density is too high. People make the mistake of putting in tons of food first and then doing the habitat work. That just brings too many hungry deer to the property. The goal is to start the habitat work right away and try to keep the deer numbers in check by shooting does as you increase the overall food supply on the property. Also, doing an aggressive TSI plan during the time you are planting browse/cover species will improve success of the stuff you plant. I have seen that work too.
Bill, in one of your latest videos, Jordan said she has to shoot a few inches lower out of the tree. Have her sight in a pin about 15 yards from the target and use that pin in the tree. For target shooting use the other pin.
Good input. Thanks for the comment and the support. Have a great day.
Done this in the late nineties with good success. It’s nice to see them come to fruition later on. Overall great for all wildlife.
Thanks. I am hoping this works out on this farm without having to protect everything I plant. Once I know that, I can possibly be more aggressive in what I plant and where I plant it. Lots to learn on this place. Have a great day and thanks for the input.
I've done exactly what you're doing the last 3 years. I plant around 1200 total each year (including some conifers). I would highly recommend doing some tubes with wood stakes. Not that expensive and you will see the difference. Maybe do 10% of each type of tree and shrub in tubes and watch the difference. The deer will eat everything you planted. Dogwood can do very well on the edges of woods and high ground but you would need to water to get established. We have a lot of native Red Osier Dogwood on old mining tailings.
Thanks Freedom Acres. I am sure you are right. It will be interesting what we learn this year. I will keep adding more red osier dogwood to the farm each year. I think as long as I can keep deer numbers low, I can keep improving habitat at a fast rate. Once the deer good numerous (if they do) that will all slow way down as they will eat most of it when it is establishing. Have a great day.
Dang it that looks like a lot of work !! Good thing you have some young energetic helpers lol
It is tons of work. You need young people for this kind of work. If I ever get where I plan to plant more than 1,000 trees per year on those steep open slopes, I am going to have to hire the local football team or something similar!
Planted a lot of Xmas trees in my days Transplant bed and fields 🥵. Just no way around the labor and time that it takes. Nice work guys.
Shane, it is a ton of work. I didn't expect it to take that long. I will come up with a better system on the next round. The machine planter is awesome if you can get a tractor to the site, but that is the point of this farm - there are tons of spots too steep to plant with a tractor and hand planting is the only option. Have a great day.
Just discovered this page! Looks like you have a great whitetail habitat concept.
Thanks Ross. It is the evolution of this pasture farm. Lots of work left to do - lots of timber improvement with some cutting of junk trees and few years of prescribed fire and this place will really change and produce a lot more browse. Have a great day.
Have you noticed the deer interact with plantings differently when planted in rows with a planter vs. sporadically hand planting to make it more random?
Jake, the simple answer is yes. I felt that the deer just went right down the rows and ate them when I used the row planter. I did several plantings this way and the only two that did well were cedar (back in the mid-90s on a farm that I needed road frontage screening) and (believe it or not) Swamp White Oak. I had surprisingly good success row planting swamp white oak. I wonder if there is something about that tree that the deer don't browse as aggressively. Everything else I row planted (wild plum, white oak, red oak, chokecherry, silver maple, hybrid willow, probably others) all got eaten within the first year. Direct seeding was a better solution on that farm as I could swamp the deer with too many sprouts to eat them all. Planting from seed was a much better option in that setting.
Hey Bill, I hope those choke 🍒 trees don't fork & grow a dominant & co-dominant side. Good thing they don't have a fence near them. I had a 60' come down on a fence last year & it was a clean-up nightmare. For a few years I had a heavy ratchet style truck pulling strap. It was between 2 huge ones leaning in opposite directions. However even the help of fortifying it with a large arborist rigging rope didn't work since I had it 2 feet below where the trunk of the tree twisted & snapped. They get scars in them from injuries but they don't act like there's a problem. The year b4 that I climbed up one & cut a notch in it. I had a strap well above that notch to pull it down with an rope puller tool. The notch never snapped but the whole tree 8 feet from the ground twisted @ a 90* angle & came down almost hitting a fence. They do however put out quite a crop of small food in August & September if u have large ones & I have too many of them...ha haha 😂.
Thanks for the habitat renewal project. It would be nice if more folks put more effort into it.
Thanks Joseph. I think these are dwarf trees and will only reach about 20 feet tall. About the same size as the wild plum trees. I just hope they grow. We need some rain now or they will be in trouble. Too many of them spread over too wide an area to water by hand. Nature will have to provide. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke Yeah Bill, we have native dwarf crab apple & pin-cherry trees. Only get to 20 feet max & then grow outward & need pruning. But they leave quite a bit of mast.
God bless you, that's a lot of work. I don't know if you realize this wild/native plum ROOT SUCKER hard!! and every where their many yards of roots travel. I found out the very hard way. They also produce a thorn type structure that will destroy tires. That said deer love the leaf browse and the fruit. You do need lots of bees because they are the first to bloom and need bugs to pollinate. I get clouds of flowers, very few fruit due to cold springs.
I will be happy with the plum forming thickets. In fact, I hope it does. And you are definitely right about the bees. I have thought about that and may look into adding a few hives on the farm. I think that would be really good for the apple trees on the ridge top and the clover plots too. Thanks for the input and have a great day.
Thanks for the video Bill. My ears really perked up when you said swampy lowland, that fits my land perfectly. I have a lot of the Red Osier Dogwood around my 40 acres and the deer hammer it all winter. I want to try and get more of it around my land and have heard about cutting pieces of of the existing plant and then pushing them into the ground. I am not sure when to actually do the cutting because they say to let them sit through the winter and plant them in the spring. Have you heard anything about being able to do this with the Red Osier Dogwood?
Yes you can. Its very easy. Take cuttings on the new growth when your ground starts to thaw and stick them in the ground. You need at least 2 buds but the longer the cutting and deeper into the ground you can push, the better. No need in anything longer than 2 foot for a Red Osier.
George has it right. Good luck Art. Have a great day.
Hope you do a progress report of these trees this year.
I will Nicholas. Not to give it away, but all are looking surprisingly good despite last year's dry conditions. The deer did finally find the Redosier dogwood in the winter and hammered it. I was hoping they would let it go for a year or two. It will be interesting to see if those browsed bushes can make a come back. If not, then there is no way to get redosier past the deer without some kind of protection (exclusion cage).
Nice content. Been planting apples, pears and peaches. As have lot of native browse and lot of oaks. Been looking into hazelnuts and chestnuts next once make room for them
Thanks Kokadjo. I am going to plant a bunch of chestnuts in the coming year. I have a good source that was selling them commercially that wants to get rid of his entire stock so I am getting a good deal. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke sounds like an excellent plan!
When tree tubing trees use 1/2 in steel Conduit for stakes. T-post is overkill. A 10ft piece is roughly $5. Cut in half you got 2 stakes. 2.50 each. But yeah adds up quick when tubing.
That's good advice. Thanks. I plan to plant a few hundred Chestnut trees next spring and for sure I will tube those. This gives me a better cost base on that planting.
I brought a hat & tee (no egg stain’s please 😅).
Good luck
Robert, we really appreciate. We made sure those didn't have any egg stains on them! Have a great day.
Bill, I have gone back to watching your videos over again, and I was wondering as to where you bought your cuttings from?
I just purchased another 100 Red Osier cuttings and 50 Black Willow cuttings for a March planting, and I am always looking for options.
I buy from the State of Iowa nursery. That is part of the DNR but the trees are only available for Iowa residents. Might be something like that in your state (unless you live in Iowa then have at it). Good luck.
Bill try a tree auger saves a ton of work ! goes on your battery drill
That is a great idea. Thanks Donald. I will do that.
As much as I love trees and cuttings, getting that kind of delivery would be so devastating mentally for me LOL
Im good to get 100 in the ground each year at any given time. I put in 100+ this year on the property and in the yard. I dont have anywhere near the land you have though. I am currently working more on screening plantings and adding nut trees here and there. I have several chestnut to get in the ground this fall and will do a continued cycle each year to keep something new going and replenish anything that may die.
I am going to try to plant a couple hundred chestnuts this year too. I will definitely tube those. Good input. Thanks.
i figured about three days to plant all them. it is such a wise investment of time and money.
It ended up being about three days, a long three days! So far so good, they are all still alive, but we do need another good shot of rain soon or they will start to struggle.
If it was me putting time into planting I would put half as many trees in the sack and let the other half stay in the water bucket. Less chance of the roots getting dried out and easier to manage. By the time you are done you'll have it down pat!
We have planted 5,500 by hand now and several hundred thousand acorns. I kind of hope I am starting to get it down pat now though I am far from done. I wonder how many trees and shrubs we will end up planting this farm! I don't even want to know or I will give up!
Ever planted ROD in an upland setting? I have very little wet areas and am considering trying it in some lower areas that don’t have standing water but will collect a lot of rain when it does come down. It’s a great browse for deer
I have never hunted around redosier dogwood in the past and have never planted it. I did try one small area with 50 bush seedlings on this round so we will see how they do. I will keep everyone posted.
Good information on a lot of shrubs Bill! Any thoughts on warm season grasses for bank stabilization and cover or no? This farm seems to be starting out like the previous which leaves me wondering if the direct seeding and shrubs has so much more pull than grasses do for screening and cover.
Alex, it is a bit of a personal thing, but I like permanent habitat (trees, shrubs) over grasses for long-term. I have planted a lot of switchgrass over the years and it is a bit fickle. Can be tough to establish and requires regular maintenance. Even then, I didn't see the deer using it much other than to pass through. I will stick with trees and shrubs for Plan A when getting this farm into shape. I am sure I will have to look at other options too, for the steep areas, but I have a few ideas there too - direct seeding stuff like chokecherry, plum, crabapple, etc. I need to figure out to prep the soil for that, but that will be another project to add to the list.
@@bill-winke I appreciate the feedback Bill. I always appreciated how you want to make every acre usable for deer which would definitely lead you down that direction. Good stuff, always taking notes and learning from you!
Bill, can you use a sub-soiler, place the tree, and then tamp?
I planted some Red Osiers last week and the deer are already nipping the branches!
In spots you can get to with a tractor you can use tree planter (maybe your local NRCS office knows where to find one/rent one). I did a ton of that in southern Iowa. The subsoiler would be OK, maybe, but there would be a lot of risk that the trench is too wide at the bottom to seal up and then you will have an air pocket which is bad. Will cause the roots to dry out and the tree to die. Getting a very clean slit and then getting it to seal is critical. Have a great day.
I have determined that this method of planting really depends on whether you get enough rain the year you do it and your deer density. We have planted thousands of bare root trees here in Northern Indiana and the deer continuously eat the tops off them. We have to shoot more does.
I have had to cage or tube EVERYTHING!!! its frustrating.
@@georgehelzer7569same!
Same. I planted over 100 RO dogwood and not a single one survived. Deer were pulling them out before they even could take root…
something I heard Jeff Sturgis talk about that may help you is to fence off a smallish area and create the browse area with cuttings and then remove the fence in a couple years and start another.
If I can allocate the appropriate space, I am highly considering it. It would only take 1 roll of fence and some posts to create a 30' circle
That would be a good approach as long as you don't have too big of an area to cover. My farm has about 55 acres of old marginal pasture in total. I can address about 40 of it with direct planting using seed because I can get a tractor to it, but that leaves about 15 steep or wet acres that I need to plant by hand (Ugh). Trying to do that in a quick manner is my challenge. If I can keep the deer numbers down in the meantime, maybe I can slip in the habitat work before they realize it. That is my goal/dream.
Bill do you have concerns with the dogwood kinda taking over and becoming to thick? I'm thinking about planting some but fear it may turn into a problem like honeysuckle.
I haven't seen that yet. It is not invasive so it won't be anything like honeysuckle that way. I wouldn't be afraid to plant it. Good luck.
How worried are you about deer browse ? Or rabbits and voles ?
I’m told shrubs need to be protected.
That is what we are going to find out Nic. If I can get away with planting this stuff without protecting it, I can do a lot more a lot faster. If I have to protect everything I plant in that area, it will definitely change my approach to adding cover to those old pastured slopes.
@@bill-winke I also have cattle pasture trying to do the same. Fencing the bottom two feet to keep rabbits and mice away.
Do you think spraying gly on the fescue would be needed to get the natural regen ?
@@nicschaalma3508 I think that would help. Many private lands biologists will recommend burning in the spring before the green grass gets too tall. That is a common way to renovate pasture areas with the hopes of establishing native prairie. I think all I would get on my farm is thistles year one, but I am willing to try it in areas that are too steep for any kind of machine planting.
Big blue stem, Indian grass, or switchgrass may help with erosion
Another one I have used in the past is yellow sweet clover. It grows big and fast just about anywhere.
Have any of your acorns sprouted yet? If not, when would you expect them to sprout?
As of Thursday, they had not sprouted. I think with the soil temperature now rising fast, they should be out of the ground this coming week. I will be there all week so I will get some video and talk about that entire process.
Are you concerned that the deer will over browse these plantings and they will not grow. Would it be better to plant when there's more food..? Just curious I am interested in doing this
I am concerned but this farm doesn't have a ton of deer on it right now. Also this time of the spring is rich in natural browse, so the deer are spread our. The only other option is fall. I like that too because the trees are dormant for a long time and when they break dormancy in the spring they shouldn't shock as badly as having them trying to get their start in a fresh hole if the spring turns dry.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Greatly appreciate it..!
I’ve hunted red osier thickets that were natural and ones I’ve made with cuttings. You will love them! Deer love them no doubt for browse and cover. Mine don’t get browsed heavy until late winter and early spring when food is scarce. One thing I’ve noticed over the last 15 years with red osier, they don’t like them in tight groups. I’m interested to see how this turns out for you.
JAB - I may have to thin them. I will keep an eye on them. I kind of figured that the deer would wipe out a percentage so overplanting was OK. Time will tell. This whole planting project is little more than an experiment. I need to know what I can and can't get away with on this farm so I can scale up the effort. This farm has enough steep ground that I will need 10s of thousands of trees to do it justice. Have a great day.
Did you use root gel or planting hormone? Mine show much better success using it
Steve, I have never even heard of it. I will have to look into that for the next round of planting. Thanks.
@@bill-winke it helps draw moisture to the roots, even in drought conditions which often happens to spring plantings. In Michigan seems like every year we have 2 month dry spell. Nobody wants to plant in the fall which is actually the best time to plant trees. But interferes with hunting. yeah check it out - it does help.
I see you were dipping into 5 gal buckets, this is the same way you apply root gel, takes about 1ounce mixed with a couple gallons of water.
@@stevedenoyer5956 I will take a look. Thanks Steve.
I may have missed it, but where did you purchase the red osier dogwood?
From the state of Iowa DNR nursery. Not sure if they sell outside of the state.
Hey Bill, on those red osier dogwoods, do I need to cage those when planting? Hopefully not cause that's a lot of cages also do you know where I can get those cheap at cause I don't have any in my area
Craig, I have not been caging them but that is part of my overall strategy here for keeping the deer numbers low for a few more years. I checked them just this morning and they are all doing well. I think I planted 200 and probably the deer have eaten four or five so far. But, if the population there is moderate to high, you will have to cage them, unfortunately.
@bill-winke ok thanks
I find that rabbits love to eat the newly planted trees quickly.
I have seen that too, but I did have good success getting some trees through to full maturity. I think you have to have enough that it overwhelms the "predators" and allows a percentage to make it through. Or you have to tube them all and that is another option though I would have to cut way back on numbers to afford that. This experiment will tell the story on how to move forward on this farm.
the website for your merchandise isnt working at the moment?
Thanks Keith. I just gave it a try and it seems to be working right now. shopbowhuntingwhitetails.com/
What does the choke cherry and the wild plum do for you?
Mostly just creates cover/habitat on those steep open slopes. Also, I like the way those trees look in the spring when they are all flowered out. Finally, I am sure the birds and smaller animals will appreciate the fruit from these trees if they do get established. Deer may eat some of that fruit, but really that is not the number one reason. There are better soft mast trees for deer (apples, for example) than plum and chokecherry.
Do deer eat the woody parts of the plant like apple trees and pears???
They do, but they normal focus on just the new growth out on the tips of branches. That's why you need to keep the trees caged in most settings so the deer don't keep them from growing. Have a great day.
Where did you purchase your red osier dogwood ?
State of Iowa nursery. Division of the DNR. Very inexpensive but I believe you have to be a resident to but from them.
No persimmon trees deer and the raccoons will eat them, a couple pear trees always is good but takes along time to produce but they last a long time . Jordan will there be more color options on the shirts 👍✌🏻🇺🇸
David, I planted a lot of apple trees on the last farm we owned and expect to do some of that here. This farm, for whatever reason, has tons of wild/native apple trees in some spots. But there are also areas with none, so I will supplement. I also plan to plant chestnuts either this fall or next spring. I am sure that Jordan is thinking about other colors for shirts and hats. Thanks for the comment.
Where do you get your trees?
State of Iowa DNR Nursery. I believe it is only for Iowa residents. Good prices.
Update on these??
Coming soon. Almost all still alive, but the redosier is getting hammered by the deer. It will be interesting to see if it bounces back this spring.
Jordan are paid on commission sales? 😊
She needs to be - we would see a lot more cool designs if she was! She is a very good designer so this is only the starting point for this merchandise venture. Will be fun to see where it leads.