Habitat management

[bowhuntertx]

What tools/implements are y'all using to cut the cedar? I've got a bunch of cedar in Schleicher still dead from 2011.

Are they smaller cedars? If they have been dead for that long, you could probably pull them out with a truck/UTV and a chain


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[HTOWN]

What tools/implements are y'all using to cut the cedar? I've got a bunch of cedar in Schleicher still dead from 2011.

I cleared alot with a skid steer/grapple. They pop out of the ground easy. Made piles to burn. Also used a dozer, but the skid made quick work

[lovemylegacy]

Managing on Timber company land has its challenges. On this lease we plant plots of various sizes, use feeders, some guys introduce minerals, we are selective on what we shoot. A couple of years ago, the lease was spot cut, its like doing TSI to your own property. Planting a Spring plot is really a futile effort, so I put all my effort to Fall Winter plots.
A few pics from over the years on this lease.

[El Paisano]

Just worked about 5 acres of pine plantation/ yaupon thicket. Before, during, and after pics. Hopefully the area will be sprouting native grasses soon. Snuck a quick burn in between floods last week. Ground was wet, but it allowed me to burn off the pine thatch without burning the duff layer.

[Etxnoodler]

Just worked about 5 acres of pine plantation/ yaupon thicket. Before, during, and after pics. Hopefully the area will be sprouting native grasses soon. Snuck a quick burn in between floods last week. Ground was wet, but it allowed me to burn off the pine thatch without burning the duff layer.[ATTACH]1050854[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]1050855[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]1050856[/ATTACH]

Nice! I have written off all but one of the burns I had planned this year due to the rain.

[Etxnoodler]

[ATTACH][/ATTACH]
40 acre burn from this weekend.

[Etxnoodler]

[ATTACH]1085084[/ATTACH]

[eliteweldingco]

Mostly cleaning underbrush out from under the red oaks, thinning the massive amount of cedars we have taking over the native grass patches. Next working on more water sources.

[BarBBar]

How many do habitat management on their place or where they hunt? If so what do you do? I’m not talking about feeders or food plots. But stuff like disking, burning,Tsi, tree planting grubbing. in general not just stuff that benefits deer, but many animals. Obviously different areas of the state benefit different practices. Reading on here and other places it just seems like most hunters think that filling feeders is management and that’s as far as they go. So I’m just curious how many others do habitat management.

I’ll start.
I’m in northeast Texas. Native grass planting, burning, brush piles, timber thinning and tsi. Planting and promoting native tree/ vegetation.

You might like the Deer University podcasts that discuss habitat management.

They mostly discuss southern pine forest type management, so you won't find a podcast on cactus control which would be more helpful for land west of the piney woods.

https://extension.msstate.edu/shows/deer-university/audio#:~:text=April%209%2C%202021,with%20John%20Gruchy

[Etxnoodler]

[ATTACH]1123277[/ATTACH][ATTACH]1123277[ATTACH]1123278[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]
94 acre burn going to be a silvopasture

[txhunt7]

Killing all non-native species I can which is primarily chinese tallow and the trifoliate oranges. I have a few clear cuts I am eradicating the yaupon which is allowing the forbs to dominate. For me its work intensive with battery chainsaw, stump cut and spraying the yaupon.
When the small clearings are complete, I plan to start the same with trails through the oaks to increase forbs.

[Darton]

I have made an order every year for 50, out of OKC, and turned them loose on my place for the last three years. Currently I am confident that I have 4 coveys maybe 5 that seem to be doing very well. My predator control, trapping, efforts were initially put into practice to bring up my fawn recruitment numbers, but I think is also aids the quail in establishing themselves. This will be my first year in not stocking to see if my numbers remain stable! The first quarter of the year usually yields 20-40 bobcats and coyotes through trapping so only time will tell if this venture will prove to be successful, but so far it appears to be working.

My place is broken up into four management areas that have been put on annual rotations for various habitat improvement practices. Currently the state forestry service is about to burn management area 2. Other TSI techniques I employ are timber crushing with my dozer, hack/squirt, and hinge cutting. Here in Oklahoma fellow TBHer Booner Sooner, turned me onto using a hatchet to pierce the cambium on the 12/3/6/9 o'clock positions instead of doing a full 360 cut with a saw when employing the girdling technique. Keep in mind this is effective because of the size of most of our trees, so it may be different in your area! It also allows you to move quicker as a one man crew. My go-to mixture for my squirt applications are as follows:

50% Garlon 3A
40% Water
10% Arsenal AC

My go-to place for herbicides is a company called Keystone Pest Solutions and they will ship it straight to your door!

https://www.keystonepestsolutions.com/

I employ these techniques to maintain a basal area of 40-50 leaving plenty of open canopy to foster new growth. Tree planting is not something I do to a great extent because of the time it takes to produce a product.

For my old field management I practice fire and use of a heavy disc to invigorate the natural seed bed to maintain the early succession needed for browse and fawning cover. Proper old field management will yield 3000-3500lbs of forage per acre while the bare under story of closed canopy woodlands will only produce 500lbs. When you take into account that a 150lb deer will eat 8k lbs of food a year it is easy to see how employing habitat management techniques to your place will increase your carrying capacity

Great thread! Nothing like working your own place

Typo Correction! A 150 lb deer will eat 2K lbs of food per year! A mature buck will be at 2.5k lbs per year.

[El Paisano]

Last year I cut all of the plantation pine off my place, leaving most of the good hardwoods. I then had a lake built and the big slash from the timber cut piled up and burned. Will be seeding native grasses and forbs on the areas disturbed for the lake soon. The rest of the area will be left to come up in natives. Will be rooting up yaupon and sweetgum in selected areas. Like said before, this is labor intensive work for the next year or so, until I get enough grass to burn.

[dbaio1]

Roughly 600 hunting acres of family land managed for timber. We are 90% wooded pine hills and hardwood bottoms. We have a main large creek that runs thru the middle of the farm with 4 smaller that feed in to the large creek. We have around 20 acres of food plots across the hunting areas.

Our timber mgmt program has a provision for wildlife.

We fertilize natural forage areas throughout the farm. Forage brush, vines and wild plum and crab apple trees. We also repair and replant natural forage that is disturbed by timber activities.

Maintain small levees and drainage to manage storm flow.

We have an additional 200 acres that is a sanctuary and it includes food plots (annual and perennial) bedding areas and wild plum and apple trees. No stands in this area. The only activity in the area is a couple times a year to maintain with equipment and implements. There are no travel road thru this section.

[cehorn]

We got our 1100 acres 18 months ago. So far we have had a dozer out to clear a ton of roads which created brush piles and places for forbs and grasses to grow. We also expanded 2 tanks to almost double what they were so if/when we get rain they will be a lot bigger. In the process of clearing the roads we found a couple of springs/seeps so we had the dozer create a water hole there. Our best one has about 3' of water in it without any rain. In the next month we will plant deer plots, dove plots and about 5 acres of native seeds focused on deer. My goal is to plant 5 acres of native seeds every year and after a few years have the existing plantings start expanding naturally.

The first 18 months have been primarily focused on set up for us including stands & feeders, clearing roads and cabin build. Now that most of that is complete our focus will hopefully shift to habitat management.

Is there a way to get rid of cedar with out equipment? Chain saw I'm assuming but will they come back? Or is there a spray like remedy that can be used as well to help combat cedars?